Two opposing views on football’s transgender ban

Washington played men’s Sunday League football before joining a women’s team in 2017, external. She was one of 28 trans women registered to play amateur football in England.

She told BBC Sport: “It is a shock.

“This means for me personally, and for many people playing football, that we are no longer able to do this stuff that we were able to do last week and that we’ve been able to do for decades.

“I stopped playing in the men’s game 10-12 years ago, I didn’t feel it was a safe place to transition and I feel like i’m not really able to compete in that anymore.

“The effect that hormones have had means when I do play an occasional five-a-side kickabout with men, I don’t feel like I can compete with men my sort of age and with similar physical characteristics.

“The reality is there are not enough transgender people in society for us to run our own sports, run our own spaces – there just aren’t the numbers to make that viable.

“This is a lot of attention on a very small number of people who aren’t causing a problem, and are just going about their lives.

“It is a de facto ban for transgender women from football more generally, realistically, particularly people who have been playing in women’s football for decades.

“It’s going to be very mentally challenging and actually potentially physically dangerous for those people to go back and play in the men’s game – if they ever even did play in the men’s game.

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