Mick Hartley

From Sanchez Manning at the Telegraph:

There has been growing criticism across the country from female players, parents and cricketing officials of the transgender policy introduced by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) – the sport’s governing body. In a long-awaited update published last October, the ECB banned transgender women from its new professional and semi-professional competitions. But the rules continued to allow trans women to play in women’s teams at grassroots level.

Now it transpires that, weeks after the row first surfaced last autumn, the ECB organised training for staff involved in grassroots cricket across the country, by a trans activist group, Gendered Intelligence.

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.”

Indeed we do. Which means understanding that men should not be allowed in women's sport. That's fairness.

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”.

And the ECB goes along with this. If they see the problem at professional and semi-professional level, why don't they see it at the recreational level? – where, as the article notes, girls are being put off cricket by having to face men who bowl a lot faster and hit the ball a lot harder. They seem to be seduced by the siren calls of inclusivity – which of course is inclusivity for a few man, but exclusivity for the girls.