Sussex Dragons RFC

You have got to be fu***ng kidding me 🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬

“We must ensure that there are no barriers to people being welcomed into our sport, that those who play the game today are having a positive and inclusive experience, and that their voices are being heard.”

RFU

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Introducing the first ever trans-women’s rugby team, the Sussex Dragons. This team will be convened under the RFU’s Gender Participation Policy section 4.e. This category applies to “players whose gender assigned at birth is male”.

This is not however a men’s team. It is open to all trans-women and trans-girls and, importantly under this regulation, “players whose gender is assigned female at birth but who identify as non binary, gender fluid or transgender“. The team currently has a few players players but no opposition but I am a firm believer that “if you build it they will come”.

I want to be clear that this is not a capitulation to, nor acceptance of, the RFU’s ban on trans-women from the women’s category.

What it is about is the realisation that the RFU, and all sports governing bodies, have abrogated their primary goals of growing their sport and embracing diversity. Instead, they have treated trans-women as a “problem to solved” rather than an opportunity for growth.

I will continue to fight for the rights of trans-women to participate in women’s sports but this will take time, money and patience, and in the meantime trans-youth are being poorly served by both Sports Governing Bodies and the Political establishment, both Tory and Labour.

To be clear, I have worked over the summer to try to do this under the RFU and IGR UK structures but the lack of courage and vision has left me, and my community presumed guilty until found innocent. Trans-women are being left figuratively homeless, literally helpless and without critical allies. Alone. “Allein Allein”, an expression I learned recently in Berlin.

If you, or anyone you know, would be interested in participating please encourage them to get in touch.