LONDON (AP) — Transgender women non binary individuals assigned as male at birth will be barred from competing in the female category of many domestic tennis tournaments in Britain from next month, the Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) announced Wednesday.
The governing body of British tennis issued a new transgender and non binary policy and said it had to find a balance between competitive fairness and inclusion.
The rules do not apply to tournaments such as Wimbledon or ATP and WTA events held in Britain because the LTA is not in charge of those competitions. Domestic padel is included, but not international events staged in Britain.
“It is clear that tennis and padel are gender-affected sports — the average man has an advantage when playing against the average woman. This includes longer levers with which to reach and hit the ball and increased cardio-vascular capacity means being able to get around the court more easily,” the LTA said in a statement.
It said there was a broad consensus that the advantage was “likely to be retained to a significant degree in trans women, making competition potentially unfair.”
