Trans women could face challenges in men s game says British trans woman player

Natalie Washington, a British transgender woman who plays womens football, said the Football Association’s move to ban trans women from the sport could force many transgender women out of football completely.

Washington, who is also the campaign lead for the group Football v Transphobia, said returning to mens football would be potentially unsafe and mentally challenging.

Transgender women will be banned from playing in womens soccer in England from June 1 after the FA changed its policy following a UK Supreme Court ruling that only biological women met the legal definition of a woman under equality laws.

The governing body said they were in the process of contacting registered transgender women currently playing in England to explain the changes and how they can continue to stay involved in the game. The Scottish FA has also banned transgender women from womens football.

Washington, one of around 28 trans women registered to play amateur football in England, told the BBC the policy change was shocking.

It is a de facto ban for transgender women from football more generally, realistically, particularly people who have been playing in womens football for decades, the 41-year-old said in an interview on Thursday.

Its going to be very mentally challenging and actually potentially physically dangerous for those people to go back and play in the mens game - if they ever even did play in the mens game.

So really this is pushing those people out of football altogether.

Washington, who has undergone genital reconstruction surgery, previously played in a mens league but joined a womens team in 2017, the BBC said. I didnt feel it was a safe place to transition, she said of mens football.

The effect that hormones have had means when I do play an occasional five-a-side kickabout with men, I dont feel