Trans people in Suffolk could banned from competitive sports
The Culture Secretary, called senior executives from major national sports governing bodies for a meeting to discuss Transgender athletes
Trans people in Suffolk could banned from competitive sports.
This comes as Michelle Donelan, the Culture Secretary, called senior executives from major national sports governing bodies for a meeting to discuss Transgender athletes
At the summit, due to take place later this month, she will warn that elite and competitive women’s sports “must be reserved for people born of the female sex”.
We spoke to Transgender Athlete Verity Smith he told us this is a major disappointment.
"This is really disheartening. We've been working and pushing towards inclusive sports going forward.
"We've seen a major dip in mental health for people who are not able to get involved in sports, especially for trans women and trans girls, and it's quite hostile out there at the moment as well."
"Trans people are not being involved in the conversation"
Verity told us the conversations about trans people are increasing but they are not being included.
"We see more and more around trans people being discussed.
"Whether that's Parliament, whether that's in sport, whether that's in the news.
"But the one thing that you're not gonna see is, they're not actually speaking to the trans people themselves.
"We wouldn't do this around race or religion. But unfortunately, trans people are not having a say over what they're what's happening in their own lives, or how sports affect them."
Banning Trans people from Sport is incredibly damaging
Verity explained to us how sports plays a vital role in peoples mental health and wellbeing.
"These are young people. So between like 9 to 14. So imagine being told at that age that you can't go out there and play sports with your friends just because you're trans.
"You can't go and spend time. or learn and have new experiences.
"One thing that I always say is we don't just learn to throw a ball or kick a ball. We go out there, we learn how about time management we learn problem-solving.
"We learn so much from sport that we're taking to adult life. If we take trans off this, they're just children.
"Trans women may have not played sport before. They may have had issues, they may have lost their family.
"And the one thing that we see is the say that sport gives them a family, gives them a community and what we're not seeing is a lot of the conversations are around.
"Well, it's research and science, but nobody stating what research and science they're looking at because we know overarchingly that there isn't anything to state that testosterone is the overarching fact in here."
"Come meet us"
Verity wants to see people like Michelle Donelan to come out and meet them in person and gain a better understanding of who they are.
"Come and meet us. Come and talk to those children that want to get involved to see who the gender diverse community is.
"Come and actually meet us. None of us are the same, the same as all humans. We come in all different shapes and sizes. We've got all different backgrounds. We've all got different disabilities.
"I'm a gay transman who uses a wheelchair and I now play wheelchair rugby league.
"We need to go out there. It needs to be with us. Not without us.
"We need these conversations with lived experience without people making assumptions.
"What we're seeing a lot of these are assumptions within research because nobody is actually looked at people in an athletic environment."