Three players have said they plan to sue England Hockey for a policy that bans transgender competitors, in a case that could set a legal precedent in the UK.

Rachel Saunders, along with two other claimants, told PinkNews they plan to jointly file a legal bid against the governing body after it effectively banned trans women from playing in female teams.

England Hockey announced in January that it would ban trans women and non-binary people from female games from next season, which begins on 1 September, placing them instead in an “open” category, which would replace the men’s competition. A spokesperson said the decision was based on “evidence” from a review commissioned in 2023 into its trans inclusion policy.

“We are committed to supporting all affected players, to ensure they find the right path to continue to participate in hockey,” they continued.

Speaking exclusively to PinkNews, Saunders branded the policy “arbitrary” and claimed it would have a significant impact on her mental, physical and emotional wellbeing.

“If I can’t play hockey, that’s it. I can’t play sport,” she said. “I lose the social side, I lose my fitness and being able to partake in a team.”

Saunders began playing hockey 25 years ago, shortly after she started transitioning at the age of 17, and became the first trans woman to play at university level. She has played for more than 11 years, taking a break between 2003 and 2016, and spent thousands of pounds on equipment.

A goalkeeper for her local team, Saunders, a self-professed “sports nut,” said she fell in love with hockey almost immediately.

“It’s a very communal activity. Say in football, where the top six tiers get paid, in hockey, even at the top level, only 10 to 20 per cent of people actually get paid to take part. Very few get paid, everyone pays to get involved. They pay for equipment, they pay to put money in the clubs, so it’s more egalitarian and more communal.”

England Hockey’s policy creates a ‘world of problems’ for trans people, claimants argue

On their GoFundMe page, the three claimants alleged that England Hockey’s decision relied on evidence that they believe painted transgender women and non-binary people as “a threat to women’s sports,” despite, they claimed, significant evidence “that points to the contrary“.

Saunders also took issue with the organisation’s open category strategy, which she said not only “erases the men’s category” but also opened up a “world of problems for trans women”.

Open categories have been criticised by various groups and activists who argued that the pool of athletes was too small and that it failed to address underlying issues with trans-exclusive policies. In 2023, a World Aquatics “open” category failed to attract even a single participant for the Swimming World Cup.

“You end up with trans women having to share changing facilities with men, so from a safeguarding perspective, you’re essentially saying to trans women, tough luck, you need to share changing rooms with men,” Saunders continued.

“And you’ve got this issue with England Hockey not creating a distinct open category, they are getting rid of the men’s category, so they are assuming that anyone who has been impacted by testosterone at any point in their lives has got to play in that category.”

The precedent it sets for restricting who can be called a woman was, Saunders said, equally concerning and went against the “pluralistic” nature of women’s sports.

“There’s this picture of a group of female Olympians from eight, maybe nine, years ago, where you had women of all different shapes and sizes competing across different categories. That, for me, typifies why women’s sports are so pluralistic.

“You could look at any of those women and declare: ‘Well, that’s a man, why are you allowing them to compete?’ But we don’t do that because we accept that women’s body shapes and sizes can be within that range. Yet, when you include trans women in whatever sport that may be, they are marked as something else because they fall outside this arbitrary boundary.”

Legal complaint against England Hockey could become ‘landmark case’

Saunders believes the legal complaint could become a “landmark case” for the future of sporting governing bodies’ trans-inclusive policies.

Matt Champ, a senior associate at law firm Colman Coyle, from whom the trio have taken legal advice, told PinkNews that he was convinced the justification for the ban was “lacking, to say the least”.

He went on to say: “England Hockey have seemingly got caught up on whether or not there is a physical advantage enjoyed by trans women, and, because in their view there is, the proposed ban would be permissible.

“Even if there was an advantage that made hockey ‘gender-affected’, an organisation has to then show that whatever they proposed to do in relation to a transgender person’s participation in the sporting event would be ‘necessary to secure fair competition’.

“If they cannot show that, their actions will be unlawful discrimination.”

Champ had seen “no evidence” of hockey being “dominated by the extremely small fraction of transgender women” competing, and claimed the evidence “points demonstrably the other way”.

Saunders said: “I don’t believe you can just put somebody into a box because you believe that person doesn’t conform to what you think they should be. In terms of womanhood, particularly, if you define womanhood in terms of a narrow set of values like chromosomes or natality, all you are doing is saying any woman who falls out of that arbitrary criteria is not a woman.

A spokesperson told PinkNews: “England Hockey has responded to correspondences and provided support for the hockey community since the announcement of the transgender and non-binary participation policy in January.

“England Hockey remains committed to ensuring all policies are fair, lawful and in line with governing body guidance.”

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