The Football Association (FA), the governing body for soccer in England, says transgender players will no longer be allowed to play on women’s teams beginning next month.

In a Thursday, May 1, announcement, the FA said that following the U.K. Supreme Court’s recent unanimous ruling that trans women are not women under the law, it is changing its official policy which previously allowed trans women to compete on women’s teams. As CNN notes, the change comes just weeks after the FA updated its policy to allow trans women who met certain requirements to play.

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“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 statement read. “The Supreme Court’s ruling on the 16 April means that we will be changing our policy. Transgender women will no longer be able to play in women’s football in England, and this policy will be implemented from 1 June 2025.”

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According to CNN, the ban applies to all levels of women’s soccer in England and will impact around 20 transgender players competing at the amateur level.

“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,” the FA said in its Thursday statement.

The i Paper reports that the FA sent an email to all 20 registered transgender players offering them six sessions of “free, fully confidential, online talking therapy” through Sporting Chance to “support” them through the change. The FA reportedly suggested that players may participate in a “mixed football format currently being developed,” but according to The i Paper, those programs are only in the pilot phase and are location-dependent.

The FA’s email also suggested that trans players “consider moving your enjoyment of affiliated football into coaching or being a match official.”

The i Paper notes that the U.K. Supreme Court’s decision included no recommendations for transgender women’s participation in sports. However, the FA is following the lead of the Scottish Football Association and other English sports bodies in banning trans women.

U.K. LGBTQ+ advocacy organization Stonewall told CNN that these decisions were “made too soon, before the implications of the Supreme Court’s ruling has been worked through by lawyers and politicians or become law.”

While the U.K. Supreme Court ruled that the legal definition of a woman under the country’s 2010 Equality Act is based on “biological sex,” Judge Patrick Hodge warned that the law still “gives transgender people protection, not only against discrimination through the protected characteristic of gender reassignment, but also against direct discrimination, indirect discrimination, and harassment in substance in their acquired gender.”

“Trans people remain protected under the law and need to be treated with dignity and respect – and this announcement lacks any detail on how those obligations will be honoured,” a spokesperson for Stonewall told CNN.

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