By Gillian R. Brassil and Jeré Longman
Grace McKenzie started playing rugby in 2018. While at a technology conference in San Francisco, she was approached by a few ruggers who recommended that she try out for a recreational team. As a transgender athlete, McKenzie jumped at the chance to participate in a sport whose international governing body promoted the motto “Rugby for All.”
“Before rugby found me, I was at a low,” McKenzie, 26, said, explaining that she often encountered people who disrespected her gender identity. “In rugby, I found people who accepted me for who I am.”
“It’s about policing female bodies. These governing bodies automatically assume that all female-bodied athletes are not as strong as male-bodied ones, when that simply isn’t the case.”
In a sport that had embraced athletes of different sizes, shapes, abilities and gender identities, McKenzie and other transgender ruggers felt blindsided in recent months when word spread that World Rugby planned to exclude transgender women from women’s teams at top international events, even though none yet are known to have played at the sport's highest levels.
“It may have a minimal impact right now, but it certainly sets a cement ceiling,” said Joanna Harper, a researcher in England who is transgender and has long studied transgender athletes.
On Oct. 9, World Rugby became the first international sports governing body to institute a ban on transgender women competing in global competitions like the Olympics and the women’s Rugby World Cup. Each country can determine whether to continue to permit transgender women to participate in domestic rugby competitions.
After nine months of review and deliberation, World Rugby said that in a collision sport where at least one injury typically occurs per match, “safety and fairness cannot presently be assured for women competing against trans women in contact rugby.” Read more via New York Times