The England and Wales Cricket Board has been warned a new policy on transgender cricketers in recreational play is “unsafe, unfair and discriminatory.”

Last month The ECB has unveiled a long-awaited policy update on transgender participation in cricket. While it banned transgender women from its new national professional Tier 1 and semi-professional Tier 2 women’s competitions, it allowed them to play in women’s teams at the grassroots level.

This sparked a backlash, with a survey of grassroots volunteers revealing that “79% of respondents expressed their opinion against men competing in the women’s category in both amateur and professional events”.

This week, volunteers who belong to the SEENinSport network (a group that says it is “for all players, coaches, officials and parents who believe that sports for women and girls should only be for biological women”) conducted an eligibility survey for women cricketers and wrote to the ECB about its results. They reached out to a number of high-ranking figures in the organization, including CEO Richard Gould, chairman Richard Thompson and Leshia Hawkins, general manager of recreational gaming.

“Unsafe, unfair and discriminatory”

The poll showed that 79% of volunteers surveyed opposed the new rules. The survey was overseen by John Armstrong, a mathematician at King’s College London, and Alice Sullivan, professor of sociology at University College London.

The attached letter to the ECB says: “We believe the views of cricket volunteers are particularly important as they will have to implement the rules. It is not reasonable to ask volunteers to implement rules that they feel are unsafe, unfair and discriminatory.

“According to the ECB’s statement when the new rules on trans participation were announced, they ‘consulted widely’ on the new policy. However, we are not aware of any request for evidence. Given the results of our survey, we think it is inconceivable that any properly conducted consultation would have failed to identify that the overwhelming majority of volunteers do not support your position.

“Our survey shows that the grassroots volunteers who run your cricket clubs do not share your view that fair and safe competition is less important at amateur level than at professional level. This suggests that your process of consultation does not accurately reflect the views of its own member.

“Please revise your policy on trans participation in women’s cricket to reflect the views of your quality. of member. We also ask you to reflect on your process. consultation and consider how it may have failed to identify the views of your volunteers. We would be very happy to meet with you to discuss this further.”