A former transgender Australian rugby player has criticized efforts to ban international competition, saying a new generation of players is “punished” for them.
As Caroline Light conducts research to finalize the new policy in 2023, she spoke with rugby league’s world governing body after it announced Tuesday that transgender players are banned from international matches.
When making the decision, the organizers talked about the “prosperity, legal and reputational risk” to the game and the players.
They moved, according to Breitbart News, a day after an international swimming effectively banned transgender athletes from women’s competitions, placing them in a new “open category.”
On Sunday, the international swimming governing body formally passed rules that exclude trans swimmers like Leah Thomas. https://t.co/d1CvF81Xdk
– Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) 20 June 2022
Light told AFP that she played rugby before and after her move in 1998, a three-year process that included hormones and finally surgery, and now it’s “really frustrating” for rugby league’s decision to exclude trans women.
“We’re human, we feel things, and it’s like we’re chosen,” said Light.
“I’ve been moving for a long time,” he added. “They don’t seem to listen to the fact that it’s natural, and it’s also natural for us to be women from an early age.”
Light said she felt like a girl when she was four, and if society had been different back then, she might not have had to hit puberty.
Former transgender rugby player Caroline Light has criticized the world rugby league governing body after it announced that transgender players were banned from international matches. (via Getty SAID KHAN/AFP)
“We were punished for acting, we were also punished for entering puberty,” Light told AFP.
“Many say, ‘We don’t need you.
World Athletics also stated a stricter policy regarding transgender athletes participating in women’s competition, which President Sebastian Coe said is more important than participation, with fairness.
The sport is developing new rules for participation after the International Olympic Committee announced the rules last year, asking federations to develop their own “sport” rules.
Source: Breitbart
