Football is a “single-sex” sport, a leading figure within the women’s game in Scotland has told Sky News, following a recent decision by the Scottish FA to ban transgender women from playing in the women’s game.
Mary Galbraith, chair of the Scottish Women’s Premier League and a recent member of a Scottish FA advisory board, spoke to Sky News in a personal capacity after the country’s football association decided to introduce the ban.
From next season, only players who were female at birth will be allowed to play in women’s football over the age of 13 in Scotland.
The Scottish Football Association’s change follows the UK Supreme Court ruling that a female is defined by biological sex and goes beyond advice from the global governing body FIFA.
Ms Galbraith told Wilfred Frost and Rob Harris on Sky News Breakfast that there were no trans women currently registered to play.
She went on: “We have male football, we have female football. We have single-sex football for a reason.”
Sports regulators, Ms Galbraith said, “want to make the game as attractive, and supportive, and inclusive and fair for everyone. They regulate across a whole range of criteria and do it with a view to make, for example, more opportunities for women and girls to play”.
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She claimed the ruling did not mean there were fewer opportunities for transgender women to play and instead insisted they had their “place” within the game.
“There’s a place for them in the men’s game, and the male game needs to be inclusive of transgender women. It’s about everyone finding their correct home in football,” she said.
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The English FA still allows trans women to compete against and alongside biological women, provided they meet reduced testosterone levels.
Unlike the Scottish FA, it will only intervene on a case-by-case basis, hoping to resolve issues through dialogue.
Arguments over transgender people, and the spaces they can access, hit the headlines again recently after the Supreme Court’s decision.
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There are concerns, as pointed out by Sky News sports correspondent Rob Harris, that trans people are facing being marginalised and discriminated against in society – and being excluded within sports.
