Rugby: the FFR authorizes the participation of trans-identity people in competitions

This Monday was chosen as the symbolic date for the international day against homophobia, transphobia and biphobia, celebrated in 70 countries.

It was also on this day that the French Rugby Federation, the first body to do so in France, chose to communicate its difference by including transgender people in amateur competitions.

Against the recommendations submitted by World Rugby, the international federation, in October 2020.

“Rugby is an inclusive sport, of sharing, without distinction of sex, gender, origin, religion, explains Serge Simon, the

vice-president of the federation

.

The FFR is intractable against all forms of discrimination and works on a daily basis so that everyone can exercise their free will in rugby without constraint.

Indeed, it is important to allow all our licensees to practice their passion while respecting everyone's rights.

"

In this # 17 May, the FFR is honored to validate the inclusion of gender trans-identities in its official competitions from next season.

It is important to allow all our licensees to practice their passion while respecting everyone's rights:

- France Rugby (@FranceRugby) May 17, 2021

In the fall of 2020, the World Rugby task force estimated in a scientific paper that transgender women retain “significant” physical advantages over other women, and that there is probably “20 to 30% risk. in addition to injury, when a player is tackled by a transgender woman who has gone through male puberty, despite taking treatment to reduce hormones.

He also estimated that male birth characteristics lead to a physical advantage, and men who have gone through puberty "are 25-50% stronger, 30% more powerful, 40% heavier and about 15% faster."

"A unique and major advance"

As a result, World Rugby had chosen “not to recommend that transgender women play female contact rugby for reasons of safety at the international level where size, strength, power and speed are all sensitive elements. both for risk and performance. "On the other hand, this provision should not" prevent the national federations from showing flexibility in their application of the directives in amateur rugby. What the FFR has therefore followed.

"This inclusion in the regulations of the FFR is a unique and major advance which, I hope, will be followed by other federations, specifies in the press release Jean-Bernard Moles, president of the Anti-discrimination and equal treatment Commission ( CADET). The fight to root the LGBT + community out of secrecy is essential, but now it must be won. This is what we have done with these regulations for trans-identity people, but we will continue, relentlessly with, from the start of the school year, a vast campaign to make everyone admit that a homosexual person should no longer have to hide their identity. sexual orientation. Integration as long as he or she plays is the objective, the revelation once the crampons are hung up is an admission of failure for our federations. "

To read also In Argentina, a transgender woman played for the first time in the elite of football

Alexia Cérénys, who joined the Béarn club of Lons in 2018, is the only transgender woman to evolve at the highest female level (Elite 1).

When a few months ago, Word Rugby gave its recommendations, the player inquired from the FFR: “I started to be afraid at the national level, and to worry about knowing if I was going to be able to continue to play rugby this year, told the young woman of 35 years to France 3. They have already reassured me and said that it only concerned the international level, that at the national level I could continue to play rugby, as I wanted and that they were against this decision, discriminatory and arbitrary.

"

In England, transgender women weighing over 90 kilograms or measuring over 1.70 m may soon be subject to a coach assessment to determine if they pose a risk to the safety of other players, the British daily revealed. The Guardian.

This weekend, the National Rugby League (NRL) showed a rainbow line on certain Top 14 and Pro D2 fields, in addition to the lines of play, in order to "move the lines", in a sport where the evolution of mentalities is progressing slowly.

Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 footballers played with jerseys flocked with rainbow-colored numbers, featuring the rainbow flag, a symbol of the LGBT movement.