May 1 – After years of legal wrangling, shifting policies and uneasy compromise, the Football Association has determined that, from 1 June, only those born biologically female will be eligible to play women’s football in England.
The decision comes in the wake of a landmark UK Supreme Court ruling earlier this month that determined the legal definition of a woman as based on biological sex – a judgment that effectively rewrote the context in which sporting bodies like the FA can now operate.
Until this point, the FA had proposed a revised eligibility process, allowing transgender women to compete in women’s leagues if they could demonstrate hormone suppression and meet other criteria.
That approach, an attempt at inclusivity, had drawn criticism for being muddled and ultimately unworkable in a competitive environment. While well-intentioned, it placed governing bodies in the awkward position of deciding case-by-case who qualified for women’s competition, creating more subjectivity than clarity.
Now, the FA has binned that plan and moved to what it calls a “biological female only” participation policy, an approach already used by governing bodies in other sports, including swimming and cycling, and one the Scottish FA is set to copy.
“This is a complex subject, and our position has always been that if there was a material change in law, science, or the operation of the policy in grassroots football then we would review it and change it if necessary,” the FA said.

“We understand that this will be difficult for people who simply want to play the game they love in the gender by which they identify, and we are contacting the registered transgender women currently playing to explain the changes and how they can continue to stay involved in the game.”
Critics of the move, including campaigners from Football vs Transphobia, have warned it could deter transgender people from engaging in sport altogether. Others, like Sex Matters, welcomed the FA’s stance as “overdue,” labelling the previous policy “nonsensical.”