An Open Letter to the ICC from a Trans Cricketer
Creating a Corridor of Impossibility
I originally intended to publish this in Wisden at the time of the decision, but I didn’t think I could handle the blowback — so here it is!
Hi! My name is Billie, and I am a transgender cricketer living in Boston, Massachusetts. Make no mistake, I am a remarkably average player, but I was still hurt by the ICC’s decision to ban transgender women from playing international cricket in women’s teams. I want you to understand why it is effectively a blanket ban on all transgender women from international cricket.
The ICC decision states that transwomen that have gone through ‘any version of male puberty’ are banned from playing in those teams, irrespective of surgeries, hormones, or other gender-affirming care. The extent to which this is based on science, or how ‘we’ will be measured scientifically seems unclear. Yet it needs to be clear, for there are trans people that will fall outside of the categories suggested. No matter what the scientific rationale of the ICC ends up being, it should be closely scrutinized and fiercely debated because it is unlikely to be born of (or intersect with) modern trans science, thought, or medicine.
Irrespective of this, the ICC’s ‘any form of male puberty’ justification sets an impossible, unreasonable standard even in the UK, because it means that for any transwoman to play in those teams, she must receive substantial treatment before puberty — puberty blockers at the very least. Yet in the UK, even getting an initial NHS appointment can take upwards of 4 years, and accessing gender-affirming treatment usually takes even longer. The likelihood of a trans child receiving gender-affirming healthcare before puberty is therefore unfathomably slim. Even worse, there is great momentum behind the anti-trans/TERF movement in the UK that aims to challenge and eliminate such gender-affirming care for children period, thus condemning them to the wrong puberty, (likely) gender dysphoria, and destroying their chance of ever playing women’s international cricket.
To be compatible with the ICC and the ECB’s stance, one should be able to assume that both bodies will be at the forefront of bettering gender-affirming care, transgender rights, and transgender acceptance in sports in the UK and elsewhere — but of course, they will not, creating and reinforcing a deadly double standard and inequity that is hard to bear.
In having it both ways, the ICC does the trans community harm by viewing trans people only as a threat, and it does not seriously consider the rights or needs of trans cricketers. We are not a threat, and we are not trying to cheat the system. Believe me, we want nothing more than to have been born in the right bodies, but we were not — and many of us pay a cruel price for our ghastly reality. For many of us, puberty is a dark source of immense grief and trauma — it nearly killed me at 16 and it very, very nearly killed me at 28. As a suicidal teenager, cricket was one of the few escapes I had. But the ICC does not want us, the ECB does not want us— it feels like cricket does not want us. In short, the ICC and ECB’s unconscionable standard is ultimately predicated on healthcare inequity and anti-transgender politics in the UK, engraining them deeply in the sport. It is devoid of the humanity that trans people — and all people — deserve in sports.
This all effectively amounts to a total ban on transwomen playing international cricket because whilst on the one hand, it bans transwomen from playing cricket by arbitrary ‘science’, on the other transwomen and many other queer people have no chance of playing international cricket due to the deep-rooted structural and cultural biases and inequalities that exist in cricket. This isn’t about talent, for I do not doubt that there are and that there will be supremely talented trans cricketers — Danielle McGahey of Canada and Maxine Blythin of England as cases in point. The average cricketer has seen discrimination in cricket in various forms, whether they would like to admit it or not. As a kid, I witnessed plenty of racism, both overt and covert, at matches. Whether in the village pavilion or out on the district middle, in the county dressing room or the international nets, cricket is rarely a safe, supportive environment for queer people of any orientation or identity. In English cricket at least, discrimination is more a feature than a bug, weeding out those who were not from the right postcodes, did not attend the right schools, and did not ‘fit’ the picture. Queer people — including trans people — rarely, if ever fit the picture. Queer people (including trans people) face a different level of discrimination. Every cricketer knows how the system works, and if they are honest with themselves they will recognize that being queer or trans in the UK’s cricket clubs and leagues must be deeply uncomfortable (at least). Cricket thus self-selects, weeding trans people out. Finally, I want to note that the sledging in the middle can be brutal, but few ever intervene or do anything about it.
In what world could a trans cricketer — transwoman, transman, nonbinary be expected to make it through that — much less when you consider playing in a male environment as a transgender woman? No amount of ECB self-congratulatory diversity work is going to change any of that. I argue too that the presence of two queer cricket clubs is a damning indictment of English cricket’s acceptance of LGBTQ+ cricketers — if we were truly accepted, those clubs would not need to exist. They should not exist.
I understand anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination in cricket because I was once an openly gay/trans cricketer in England. I was 18 when I was selected for a Cornwall Premier League cricket game for the first time, which was a huge deal for me. The captain took an extra interest in me, and I would stay behind to train with him — I thought he had a real interest in my development as a player, and I thought he was becoming a mentor. The night before the first game of the season, the captain informed me that if I wanted to play for the 1st XI again, I would have to perform sexual favors for him. In one text, he destroyed cricket for me. Whilst I still occasionally pick up my (pink) cricket bat, it has never, ever been the same again. That is my lived experience of being a transgender cricketer in England. Today, I struggle to find a club in Boston that will even respond to my messages, let alone accept me for who I am.
So when I read about this ban on transwomen in international cricket, I knew exactly what it meant — it was the codification of age-old discrimination against trans people in cricket. As transwomen, we are viewed only as threats by the ICC and ECB — we are mere blots on the great canvas of cricket, dangerous, existential threats to the sport’s integrity. The vast majority of us — including me — are not good enough cricketers to make it near any national side regardless of gender. It is wrong, however, to create a system in which transgender people literally cannot succeed in either the men’s or women’s game. Like every cricketer, though, I still like to dream. Don’t we all secretly harbor ambitions that maybe we will get magically selected for India, Pakistan, South Africa, Australia, or England? To progress to the next level? Isn’t that the unspoken dream of cricket? For transwomen everywhere, that dream is now extinguished.
I do not hold the answer for this entire debate, but I do believe that the ICC can do far better than this for everyone. I would like to know how many transgender people, if any, they spoke to during their ‘extensive’ consultation process, and I want to understand why transgender men and people of other identities do not seem to have been considered. Are they not cricketers too?
If the ICC and ECB will not permit us to play international cricket, they at least owe us a domestic cricket in which we are safe, respected, and supported, and in which our development as players shall not be hindered. Our place in cricket must not be fringed.
My pink cricket bat is returning to the back of the closet for what is likely to be the final time. After all, I cannot find anyone who will even just play with me! Transgender people like me are never going to find the community, support, and acceptance we need in a sport that openly fears and despises us. I have learned — painfully — to stop seeking love and support in such places. It is time for me to stop trying to find that in cricket too.
In a sea of support for the ICC’s decision, I am proud to provide a dissenting voice against the prevailing wind. I wonder too if there is something in this decision — and in cricket- for trans people.
Performance, Protest, Power?
