England's Football Association has been blasted for their "absurd" and "ridiculous" transgender policy after blocking an outright ban on transgender women in women's football.Following an update to their policy, the governing body has established a system that allows transgender women to continue playing whilst introducing a formal process for "case-by-case" evaluation.FULL STORY HERE.
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00:00The Football Association, the FA, they've quietly updated their transgender rules, Andy, to stop preventing, they say, athletes born male playing in women's matches, not quite going that far.
00:12Yeah, so the devil's in the detail here because the Telegraph, as they would, are positioning this as if the FA have sort of relaxed the rules, but they've actually made them more stringent.
00:22So what they've done is they're responding to the debate around trans people, you know, trans women playing in men's sports, vice versa, by laying out a formal process by which trans women can be excluded on a case-by-case basis from playing men's sports.
00:38So what they've done is they've actually tightened up the rules.
00:41It's ridiculous. A case-by-case. Are you a man or are you a woman? That's the case. That's the only case.
00:46What possible variant on that could be available to make it possible for a man to play football against a woman?
00:55There isn't, Nana. And, you know, I think you're saying that they've made things more stringent.
01:00Well, what remains is that they haven't banned transgender players from playing against females.
01:06It gives them an unfair advantage. In football, I mean, it's just the straightforward advantage issue.
01:11But in other sports, it's a case of actually putting women in harm's way, like with boxing, for example.
01:16But in rugby, they have brought in a ban because rugby is a dangerous sport.
01:20Well, quite. But the point is that women work exceptionally hard, young athletes work exceptionally hard to be at the top of their game.
01:28And then you end up with biological males coming in and destroying their chances of ever being able to be ranked at the top of their game.
01:37That is completely unacceptable. And what it does is it destroys women's sports.
01:41So it's extremely ironic, I think, that so many people on the left who love to make a big fuss about the lionesses, the lioness line now that we have on the trains in London.
01:52But at the same time, just completely supporting the erosion of women's sports.
01:57And it's not just the sport itself.
02:00There's also the politics around it, because the Telegraph, the paper running this story, they also recently revealed that a girl with autism had been banned by her county's football association after asking a transgender opponent,
02:12are you a man?
02:13They're not just, as Emma says, demolishing the sport through the biological differences, but they're using political differences for punishing people who speak up.
02:20Well, I think that's silly. I think that's silly.
02:22What about the changing room issue as well? Because if you're going to say that person, that's fine, then with all the tackle, you can still come in and change in the women's.
02:30It's absurd. It's ridiculous.
02:31Well, I think that's a problem.
02:32Well, it is a problem, isn't it?
02:33I think those women's only spaces, I think that there is a serious debate to be had about that.
02:38On the sports question, I think there is a slight nuance here, which is that if you're looking at one-on-one competitive sports, like swimming, for example,
02:45you know, I think there does need to be a very, an outright ban there, but in team sports, I think it's just a bit more nice.
02:50No, it's ridiculous. Men shouldn't be playing up against women.
02:53There was a, there was a, I can't remember how long ago this was now, but they actually, there were some young, young lads,
02:59I think they were school kids who played against a national football team, and I think they actually beat the women's team.
03:05The disparity there is completely.
03:0715, 14-year-old lads played against the women's team.
03:09Yeah, and you say it's a team sport, but if one team has a transgender player and the other doesn't.
03:13Yeah, and you say it's a team sport, but if one team has a transgender player, you can't be a transgender player.