Transgender women are no longer permitted to compete in women’s international competitions, according to the World Netball (WN)’s revised participation and inclusion policy, which was revealed on Monday (April 8).
The governing body of what is typically a women’s sport went through a lengthy consultation process before issuing the guidelines that ensure “fairness and safety.”
“Following a detailed review of the science and consultation with experts and members, it has been determined that international level women’s netball is a gender-affected activity and that a policy is required (to) ensure fairness and safety at this level of our sport,” the World Netball Federation said in a statement.
Women’s netball at the elite level will henceforth be confined to players who have been recorded as “female at birth”
Women’s netball at the elite level will henceforth be confined to players who have been recorded as “female at birth,” regardless of gender identity. Furthermore, only transgender athletes who can prove to World Netball’s satisfaction that “they have not experienced the biological effects of testosterone at any time,” would be eligible.
“World Netball believes that the research on which it has relied is robust, it comprises many research studies, all of which have been published in peer-reviewed journals and come from multiple distinct research groups around the world,” according to the statement.
Notably, World Netball is not the first body in recent years to tighten rules to ban transgender women from playing in women’s sports. In 2022, swimming’s world governing body, FINA, voted to exclude transgender athletes from competing in women’s elite competitions if they have undergone any part of the process of male puberty.
According to AFP, the judgment came after a scientific panel determined that, despite medicine to reduce testosterone levels, trans women still had a significant advantage over female competitors.
Similarly, the same year, World Athletics (WA), the world’s governing body of athletics, prohibited transgender athletes from competing in “elite female events.”
According to Sebastian Coe, president of World Athletics, the decision to ban transgender women who had undergone male puberty was made to address the “overarching need to protect the female category.”