Former transgender rugby player Caroline Layt said she was attacked by her teammates almost two decades ago and now she fears a new generation of players will be punished for being themselves.
Australians have criticized rugby league’s world governing body after they announced a ban on transgender players in international matches on Tuesday while they investigate to set a new policy in 2023.
Layt played rugby before and after her move, a three-year process of hormones and eventually surgery in 1998.
She continued to play successfully in top women’s teams, including representing New South Wales in rugby league, but her time in the sport was often tough.
In 2005, people found out she was transgender and perceptions of her changed.
“I went from the penthouse to the annexe,” Layt said in an interview with AFP.
The 56-year-old former player-turned-journalist and activist for transgender athletes said she was “physically assaulted” by some fellow players during club training in 2005.
The following year, while playing for another team, Layt said she was attacked by opponents on the field for injuries.
“Some of those players have since apologized to me,” she said.
“There’s one couple who haven’t and wouldn’t have changed in their attitude or attitude, but those who have: I really appreciate that and consider them friends.”
Rugby League’s decision to now ban transgender women is “really disappointing,” she said.
Layt said the league decided to “hop on the bandwagon” a day after international swimming effectively banned transgender athletes from women’s races, instead placing them in a new “open category.”
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Swimming federation FINA said male-to-female transgender athletes could only compete in women’s races if they had not experienced part of male puberty, and decided it conferred a physical advantage even after undergoing hormone suppression.
“We’re human, we have feelings, and we feel like we’re being singled out,” Layt said.
“I switched a long, long time ago,” she added.
“They don’t seem to listen to the fact that it’s inherent, and it’s also intrinsic to us that we’ve been female from a young age.”
Layt said she felt like a girl when she was four, and if society had been different then, she might not have had to go through male puberty.
“We’re being punished for the transition, we’re also being punished for having to go through puberty,” Layt said.
“Basically they’re saying, ‘We don’t want you.'”
She dismissed the argument that transgender women necessarily had a physiological advantage over cisgender athletes.
“We’re not all the same size, the same weight, the same height,” Layt said.
She called on sports regulators to set scientific standards on a case-by-case basis, for example by setting a number of post-transition years before transgender athletes can compete at elite level.
For now, she would not encourage transgender girls and young women to play rugby.
“I would tell them to hide,” she said. “Or go do an inclusive sport.”
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