The trans row engulfing grassroots cricket

Like the Australian Cricket Board, the English Cricket board has no regard for women. 

Instead of protecting and promoting women in sport they are more interested in allowing males to participate in the women’s competition at grass roots level, displaying utter contempt toward anyone who objects.

It has now been revealed that the ECB have engaged trans activist group, Gendered Intelligence to train staff. 

"Meet the team"

The group opposed last year’s ban by the Government of the sale and supply of puberty blockers to under-18s and has caused controversy by giving seminars in schools to children as young as four on changing gender.

An online seminar, Trans & Non-Binary Inclusion in Recreational Cricket, was held by the ECB on Dec 4. The advice given to coaches and other figures involved in grassroots cricket included avoiding the use of “collective terms” such as “boys” and “ladies” and considering “alternatives e.g. ‘players’, ‘team’, ‘everyone’, ‘folks’.” The presentation also stated: “Assume people choose the facilities that are the best fit for them.”

Further guidance, by Gendered Intelligence, which was distributed by the ECB following the seminar, included a document entitled Including Trans People and Non-Binary People in Grassroots Sport, which claimed it is a “myth” trans women are “disproportionately tall, heavy and strong, and dangerous to play with or against”.

“Neither safety nor fairness are absolute, and both are contextual,” the report added.

“We need to examine our understandings of what constitutes fairness and what creates safety and apply those understandings to everyone.”

It further advised that trans women should be allowed to access female facilities such as changing rooms and toilets, while reiterating the point that clubs should be encouraged to practice “sharing pronouns” and avoid terms such as “ladies” and “lads”.

Female players as young as 12 years old are being pitted against 6”+ males aged 30 years old.

It can hardly be described as fair or safe for the girls.

The female players are forbidden to object to the policy.

They are faced with self-excluding or risking their safety if they continue to face such players.

The disappointed and frustration is palpable as female players choose to speak out, often anonymously for fear of falling foul of anti-discrimination laws. 

These girls play and train hard to reach higher levels of the game and hope to be selected for representative competitions. 

“This was a competitive performance game. You’ve spent years aiming to play games like this - then the first time you turn up there is essentially a man playing.

“It’s very demoralising to see girls who want to end up in the England women’s squad losing opportunities because they’re having to play against players that they weren’t expecting to play against.”

A mother of a 13-year-old girl says her daughter is likely to give up cricket if the ECB does not make changes to its trans policy.

“My concern is that it’s always the boys who are identifying into the girls game and women have fought very hard over the years for single-sex sport, because of course girls and women are physically different to men in sport.

“So it seems to me to be unfair and unsafe to have boys/men being part of the women’s games.”

The ECB and Australian Cricket, along with many other sporting codes display complete disregard for women and why there are separate divisions in the first place. 

No male should ever be entitled to play in female sport.

He can always play in male, open or mixed competitions, but he will never be a female. 

It staggers me how much @CricketAus hate women.
Come on fellas, time to mock them & take it to the nth degree. No need to even look or act like a woman, just insist you feel like a woman & you're in. Anyone who believes science over ideology is just "transphobic". pic.twitter.com/qDd4LMDnSP

— Kirralie Smith (@KirralieS) August 9, 2019