Scottish football chiefs urged to stand up for women and girls amid trans players debate

Scottish football chiefs are being called upon to publish findings of a year-long review into their transgender policy allowing biological males to compete in women’s football.

The Scottish Football Association (SFA) launched a review of its policy which permits trans women to compete against female players in Scottish football leagues in June last year and campaign group For Women Scotland Sport (FWS Sport) is now urging them to reveal the findings.

The SFA’s rules on transgender participation allow trans footballers to play for women’s teams, with the proviso that hormone therapy has brought testosterone levels within the range of their affirmed gender.

Guidelines, however, issued by UK Sports Councils currently maintain that athletes who have transitioned from male to female after having gone through male puberty retain a physical advantage when it comes to competing against biological females in a sporting context.

READ MORE: Players in Scottish women’s football leagues ‘pressured’ into silence over safety concern with trans players

Cycling, swimming, rowing and athletics have all put rules in place to prevent trans athletes from participating in female-only competitions. Alison Weir, of FWS Sport, whose father Hastie was a goalkeeper for Queen’s Park, Motherwell and Partick Thistle, said it was time for the SFA to “stand up for women and girls”.

She said: “Sports such as athletics, swimming, rugby and UK cycling have changed policy to protect women’s sport but Scottish Football continues to allow males to compete in the women’s game.

“Women are not men with low testosterone and no amount of testosterone suppression mitigates the advantages of being born male and there is a real risk in safety to these players, particularly in sports such as football where you have hard tackles and collisions creating the risk of serious injury to female players.

“Women’s bone density is far less than a man’s so a hard tackle to their legs is more likely to break their legs than a man’s.”

She added: “We feel it’s time for Scottish Football to stand up for women and girls and if they are not going to do so then we are prepared to do so.”

‘For every male player, a female is excluded’

Ms Weir, who has been involved in sport all her life, competing at county and national level in hockey and athletics, said: “This is not about identities. Identities don’t play sport, bodies play sport and what we are looking at is whether your body fits that physical category and no male body fits a female category.

“We have sporting categories for a reason, such as age, weight, para categories and sex categories to ensure that everyone can compete fairly and safely.”

She added: “We don’t want anybody to be excluded from sport. What we want is for everyone to compete in the appropriate physical category and every time a male competitor competes in women’s sport a female player is excluded and people forget this.”

Ms Weir claimed allowing males to compete against women in sport gives them an unequivocal advantage that “cannot be mitigated”. She said: “I have given talks about how important evidence is in sport and about how we have huge controversies about the potential for a Nike shoe to deliver advantage, for the suits that cyclists and swimmers wear to also deliver micro advantages.

“Yet we have males competing in women’s sport with a demonstrably huge advantage. There have been more than 20 peer review studies which show there is a significant advantage to being born male that cannot be mitigated by any action taken to suppress testosterone.

“While we have limits to the materials you can use in swim suits and there is an actual length that a cyclists’ socks must be because different lengths will give you a micro advantage, it makes no sense to ignore the massive advantage men possess in sport when competing against women.”

SFA is linked to Stonewall and other lobby groups

The SFA’s current transgender policy is inclusive and says they are “committed to promoting equal opportunities”. Their website states: “The Scottish FA believes that everybody should have the opportunity to participate in football at all levels, and that no individual should be discriminated against for reason such as age, disability, gender reassignment, pregnancy or maternity, marriage or civil partnership, race, religion or belief, sex, or sexual orientation.”

The SFA is involved with a number of trans lobby groups including Transgender Alliance, LGBT Youth Scotland and Stonewall Scotland, amongst others, and was one of the first National Governing Bodies to sign the LGBT Sports Charter.

A spokesperson for Scottish Women’s Football, the governing body for women’s association football and an affiliated association of the SFA, said: “We are aware of the ongoing review of the Scottish FA’s Policy on Transgender People Participating in Domestic Competitions, and that a survey was issued to players across the game.”

The SFA were contacted for comment.

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