ICC bans participation of transgenders, those with sex-change surgery in women's cricket

Dubai, Nov 21: The International Cricket Council on Tuesday decided not to allow participation in international women's cricket by transgender players and those who have undergone gender reassignment treatment from male to female.

The decision to not allow anyone who has attained any form of male puberty came into effect after the ICC Board approved the new gender eligibility regulations for the international game.

Decided after a 9-month consultation process with the sport’s stakeholders,

the new policy is based on the following principles (in order of priority), protection of the integrity of the women’s game, safety, fairness and inclusion.

"This means any Male to Female participants who have been through any form of male puberty will not be eligible to participate in the international women’s game regardless of any surgery or gender reassignment treatment they may have undertaken," the ICC said in a release on Tuesday.

The review, which was led by the ICC Medical Advisory Committee chaired by Dr Peter Harcourt, relates solely to gender eligibility for international women’s cricket, whilst gender eligibility at the domestic level is a matter for each individual Member Board, which may be impacted by local legislation.

The regulations will be reviewed within two years, the ICC release said on Tuesday.

ICC Chief Executive Geoff Allardice said: “The changes to the gender eligibility regulations resulted from an extensive consultation process and are founded in science and aligned with the core principles developed during the review. Inclusivity is incredibly important to us as a sport, but our priority was to protect the integrity of the international women’s game and the safety of players.”

Pay-parity for match officials

The Chief Executives’ Committee (CEC) endorsed a plan to accelerate the development of female match officials which includes equalising match day pay for ICC umpires across men’s and women’s cricket and ensuring there is one neutral umpire in every ICC Women’s Championship series from January 2024.