Football Australia is not alone in betraying women’s football by allowing males to participate in female competitions.

In the UK a furore has erupted over Sutton United including a male as their goalkeeper in a female league. 

The team is managed by a male who appropriates womanhood, who has gone on record to state, “At some point we will field a team solely of trans women for the first time in history. How good is that?”

Of course there are many parents and players who don’t think that is good at all. Some are starting to find their voice and object to the gaslighting and imposition of having a male body in a female division. Their objections may be the reason Sutton United could not get a team together last weekend.

Sutton United’s women’s team abruptly postponed their scheduled match at Ebbsfleet United on Sunday amid mounting anger over their signing of goalkeeper Blair Hamilton, a biological male.

Parents of several players in the London & South East Premier Division, in which Sutton compete, have privately expressed unease about a player who has the physiological advantages conveyed by male puberty competing in women’s football.

Sharron Davies, who has received significant correspondence from people concerned about a biologically male goalkeeper taking the place of a woman, argued that the furore was symptomatic of a wider problem. “I’ve received so many emails from distressed parents of young female footballers who feel their clubs and their association have abandoned them,” she said. “I’m heartbroken about the injustice being handed out to our young female athletes.”

Last November, four teams in a Sheffield women’s league boycotted matches against a side who fielded a transgender player accused of causing a season-ending injury to an opponent. That episode sparked a fierce backlash, with more than 70 MPs and members of the House of Lords demanding urgent action to protect female players from the injury risks of competing against those with retained male advantage.

Female sport must be for female bodies. Trans identified players can still compete in the category of their biology, in a mixed, open or trans division. They do not need to be given permission to dominate women on or off the field.