Trans identifying male Harriet Haynes loses court case to play in women's pool

[ArabellaScott]

A great win for Lynn Pinches!

Congratulations to her, and the EBPF.

'CASE DISMISSED! The case against EBPF by Harriet Haynes. '

Haynes to pay costs.

Earlier articles:

Males banned from women's pool:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/articles/c1k4gd2vge9o

Haynes sues:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/2025/04/08/transgender-pool-player-harriet-hayes-suing-governing-body/

Pool Federation:

https://ebpf.uk/

Judgement:

https://jrlevins.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/K01CT207-judgment-1-8-25-handed-down.pdf

'CONCLUSION
267 Having come to the end of what is essentially a long footnote to this judgment, I reiterate that in my view the effect of the decision in FWS is that the claim fails at the first hurdle because there has been no gender reassignment discrimination. The claim must therefore be dismissed. '

The dream team.

for us!

The judgement is interesting. I’m pleased the judge went into detail as to why Harriet as a man would have a physical advantage in the game.

That's good. So he was far from banned. He could've been in two of the three categories.

Oh dear…
The claim added that her “identity of playing pool in the female category” had been “taken from her”.

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/transgender-pool-player-loses-discrimination-145519141.html

Other physical advantages men have over women in pool include:
height
hip to table ratio (also height but specific to pool/snooker etc)
reach over table
longer fingers/bigger hands
hip angle
flat chests can mean different angles over the table too.

all in addition to power & strength that gives a massive break advantage.

just off top of my head.

Awe bless.

if he just tries a wee bit harder he might be able to succeed against other men.

A very specific identity. As based on as little reality as any male person who has claimed they are female.

He'll just have 'reframe his trauma' won't he.

Odd how he and the other bloke never for a moment considered that they might be robbing some women of an identity as pool champions.

Oh no. How sad. Never mind.

The chemist was closed for lunch earlier, thus robbing me of my identity of nipping down to the chemist to get my prescription.
I'm raging.

My identity of being able to access my Amazon Prime abroad without fiddling with the VPN settings has been cruelly taken from me 😞

He also shouldn’t have even been trying to get in the tournament in the first place - he’s a professional and his professional contract doesn’t allow this. The place he sued is a non profit. It reeks of entitlement

RMW and JR. Just...thank you.

From the bottom of my heart. Thank you for showing in court that men who claim they are women do not belong in women's sport (Haynes), and that women can have independent thoughts (Forstater, not Forshatter), and should not be shut down in the workplace (Bailey), or in women's changing rooms (Sandie Peggie, not Miss Piggie). You have worked so hard and your struggles have been entirely fruitless but have shone a bright bright light. Again, thank you so much and keep it up.
.

Looks like FWS is going to intervene in the Peggie tribunal after all the nonsense propositions from Respondents' counsel about the Supreme Court judgement being contentious and/or irrelevant.
forwomen.scot/31/07/2025/employment-tribunal-intervention-peggie/?s=09

This is fantastic news. I really liked the part where the defendants weren't responsible for the TW's hurty feels caused by randoms on social media. Sanity has prevailed here.

I’ve just read this. The article said:

‘Following the verdict, Ms Haynes's legal team expressed their disappointment. Matt Champ, a senior associate at Colman Coyle who represented Haynes, said: “We and our client are naturally disappointed with the court’s decision that it was bound to follow the much-criticised Supreme Court case of For Women Scotland and dismiss our client’s case for gender reassignment discrimination.
“However, whilst the judge dismissed the case based upon For Women Scotland, we take some solace in the fact that he found that, if he was not bound by that decision, he would have agreed with our client and found that the need to show that exclusion was ‘necessary’ so as to comply with the Equality Act 2010 would have been on the defendants, that was a hotly contested issue at trial."
“More importantly, the judge also found that if he were required to decide it, he would have found that the EBPF’s actions were not capable of being a ‘proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim’ and so the defendants’ secondary case would have failed.’

Is this accurate? Did the judge say this? If so why??

Considering the judge found that there was male advantage that was never going to be mitigated through suppressed testosterone, I would think there is some optimistic twisting happening here.

@BellissimoGecko this is the part Champ (an ironic name perhaps, like when you have a brick shithouse type bloke nicknamed Tiny) is referring to. You can see that it was a bit concerning but Mr Champ is reaching somewhat here because fairness is always going to be an issue in these sports and the judge was at least persuaded by the physical performance between sexes issue. Champ seems to have missed or forgotten that part.

You are in good company

Thanks for clarifying, @Ereshkigalangclegand @Helleofabore

Too many judges are old white men who are misogynistic or biased against women. Infuriating.

For some reason I find that shocking!

This is a peculiar part of his ruling. Elsewhere he accepts the following argument made by the defense:

That, she argued, is discrimination on grounds of sex, not gender reassignment: the Defendants’ rules do not involve any discrimination on grounds of gender reassignment, as they do not prevent a trans man from taking part in a women’s competition.

If you were to apply the same reasoning you would say that:

Encouraging greater female participation is a clearly legitimate aim. I do not accept, however, that (were it not for the need to achieve fairness) excluding trans women men from female competitions would be a proportionate means of achieving it.

But it's hard to understand why it would not be proportional to exclude a certain type of men, transwomen, simply on the grounds that they are men. Perhaps he's splitting hairs and that's really what he meant, i.e. it's not the trans-ness but the maleness. But obviously if a Pete the Plumber argument were put to him it couldn't be denied that any participatory argument that applies to men would also apply to transwomen.

Adding, he also strongly discounted the possibility that any interpretation of the SC judgement can be found in 'incompatible' to the ECtHR. It very welcome to get such a strong statement in a judgement so soon:

120 The question of incompatibility was not directly addressed in FWS. It seems to me that this was because none of the participants thought it arguable, and not because it was overlooked.

...

122 Given that view, which was supported by the detailed reasons given at paragraphs [249] to [263], I think it is inconceivable that the Supreme Court would have accepted that the EA 2010 as interpreted by it was incompatible with the ECHR.

123 For those reasons I consider it extremely unlikely that any higher court would grant the declaration of incompatibility which the Claimant now wishes to seek. The position is different from that in Kay, where a binding domestic authority conflicted with a subsequent ECtHR decision, creating an obvious need for reconsideration. Here, the Supreme Court has only just considered the
matter, and there is no subsequent ECtHR decision.

as they do not prevent a trans man from taking part in a women’s competition.

What about a transman who's dosing herself with T? Should be in line with normal doping regs, presumably?

Yes, exactly.