Transgender women will be barred from playing for women’s soccer teams in England from June 1, the Football Association, the sport’s governing body in the country, said on Thursday.
In a statement, the Football Association, known as the F.A., said that it had changed its policy as a result of a Supreme Court ruling last month, which said that Britain’s equality laws were based on “biological sex” and that trans women did not fall within the legal definition of women.
The F.A. is the latest body to update its policies as a result of the judgment, which all public and private bodies in Britain must now incorporate into internal practice on single-sex services and spaces.
The association said that the Supreme Court’s ruling required it to change, meaning that “transgender women will no longer be able to play in women’s football in England.” The ban covers amateur soccer and regional leagues that are governed by the F.A., as well as the professional game.
“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 association added.
Other sporting bodies are in the process of developing policies resulting from the Supreme Court’s ruling. The Scottish Football Association has also announced that from the start of the 2025-26 season, “only biological females will be permitted to play in competitive girls’ and women’s football.”
Pride Sports, a British L.G.B.T.Q. group that runs a campaign to combat transphobia in soccer, said it was “deeply saddened” by the announcements in England and Scotland.
The group said that it knew of fewer than 30 trans women active in women’s soccer across both countries and that most had been “playing for a number of years without incident.”
“Within weeks, they will lose not just their familiar place in football but the many physical and mental health benefits that come from being part of a welcoming team environment,” the statement added. “One consequence of these bans will, inevitably, be a rise in incidents of transphobia in football.”
Announcing the Supreme Court’s ruling last month, the deputy president of the court, Patrick Hodge, said its unanimous decision was that “the terms ‘woman’ and ‘sex’ in the Equality Act 2010 refer to biological women and biological sex.”
But he added that the judgment was not a “triumph of one or more groups in our society at the expense of another” and that trans people would continue to have protections against discrimination under a different part of the law.
While the ruling was celebrated by supporters of the campaigners that brought the case, including the author J.K. Rowling, human rights groups and trans rights campaigners raised alarm over its consequences.
Although the case was focused on the definition of women, it also applies to trans men and means they will be classed as women under the law.
When contacted by The New York Times, a spokesman for the Football Association said he could not comment on what the Supreme Court ruling meant for trans men playing in men’s soccer teams and that it would publicly announce any further policy changes.
