The following is an open letter from USA Rugby to World Rugby regarding the proposed ban on transgender athletes. Nichole Reiske, Senior Club Rugby’s chair of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee, published the response online but USA Rugby has not circulated the letter yet.
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Based on most of the feedback submitted by our union leaders, individual teams, and personal statements, Senior Club Rugby is against the proposed World Rugby Transgender Policy. Senior Club Rugby will continue to support the current policy supported by International Gay Rugby until a new, evidence-based, scientifically sound, inclusive policy is proposed.
Senior Club Rugby strongly stands by a few principles:
● Rugby is for everyone
● Trans women are women
As a community, we strive to find a Rugby Family for anyone who wants to be part of our community. We accept every player where they are at, no matter their gender identity. To ask teams to begin to exclude members of their Rugby Family is unacceptable and will not be tolerated.
World Rugby has stated that the policy change is needed to ensure player safety and performance equality. The Senior Club Community does not agree that trans women present a safety risk to other players or have an advantage in competition. There is no scientific evidence that shows trans women present a safety risk to other players or have an advantage in competition.
Senior Club Rugby is primarily grass roots rugby. Every player plays for a love of the sport and the community rugby inherently creates, a community built on diversity and inclusion. On Saturdays, we walk onto the pitch to play the sport we love, knowing the potential danger that comes from playing a full contact sport. Excluding trans women from the pitch does not decrease the potential danger of rugby.
Safety is the utmost concern for every coach and referee, no matter the gender identity of the player. Every Senior Club registered coach has been trained, using USA Rugby’s training modules and in-person courses, to ensure they understand how to coach safe play. Every good coach spends countless hours ensuring all members of their team can safely tackle, scrum, lift, and go to the ground. Every Senior Club registered referee has been trained, using USA Rugby’s training modules and in-person courses, to ensure they can officiate a safe game, compliant with World Rugby’s Laws of Play. Adequately trained coaches and referees can and should regulate play to ensure that all players, including trans women, can safely play rugby.
By adopting the proposed policy, World Rugby would be asking coaches and referees to invade every player’s personal privacy to ensure that their anatomy and hormones matched an unrealistic standard to play on a women’s rugby team. There are many different stages of transition and not every trans individual chooses to or is able to complete all stages. This is an incredibly personal situation to most trans individuals. In many cases, details are not shared with coaches, referees, and teammates out of fear or for personal reasons. It is unacceptable of World Rugby to ask coaches and referees to ask every player, whether they are cisgender, transgender, or nonbinary, who doesn’t match the societal standards of what a woman should look like to prove their gender to play rugby.
Senior Club Rugby is played nationwide. To make competitive regions, Unions frequently include teams from multiple states. Though there are overarching laws in the United States, such as Title IX and HIPAA, that make the proposed policy illegal, each state has their own policies regarding transgender individuals. There are states that have very inclusive transgender policies and there are states with anti-trans policies. Any policy that is adopted will have to align with those in the states with the most inclusive policies for that policy to be enforced in that state. The proposed World Rugby policy would not be legal in many of the states in which Senior Club Rugby is played.
Senior Club Rugby asks World Rugby to not approve the proposed policy. Instead, we ask that you continue to support the current policy or create a policy with evidence-based research, that is developed by parties, including USA Rugby and International Gay Rugby, interested in growing the sport and including all players.
Senior Club Rugby will continue to support diversity, equity, and inclusion wherever there is rugby to be played. We stand behind our trans women.
Nichole Reiske
Senior Club Rugby
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee Chair