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The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) on Thursday, October 17, issued a ban on transgender women from competing in professional cricket. The crucial decision from the ECB follows with the ICC’s policy which was implemented last year to ban trans women, who have gone through a male puberty from playing in professional cricket.
The transgender women will be excluded from Tiers 1 and 2 of the ECB’s new women’s county competition, as well as The Hundred. The International Cricket Council (ICC) also gave a green signal to ECB’s ruling, asserting that the instances will be assessed properly.
ECB bans transgender women from competing in professional cricket
In its statement, ECB stated that the transgender issue was a “complex area” and it has been “impossible to balance all considerations.” "Having considered wide-ranging views gathered during the consultation, as well as in consultations conducted during 2023, and the relevant science and medical evidence, the ECB has decided that from 2025 it will adopt the same approach as the ICC for women’s professional domestic cricket. This provides consistency, given that a primary purpose of the top end of the domestic structure is to produce international players," ECB in its statement said.
"The detailed policy will now be developed over the coming months, in consultation with stakeholders, and is due to be formally in place in time for the 2025 domestic season. It will apply to Tiers 1 and 2 of the new women’s domestic structure from 2025, as well as The Hundred Women’s competition," the statement further read.
However, with this massive decision, the ECB aims to be in line with player safety at the sport’s elite level. In November 2023, the ICC tightened its eligibility policy at the culmination of a nine-month consultation with stakeholders and stated that it had based its findings on “protection of the integrity of the women’s game, safety, fairness and inclusion.”
