By Richard Pagliaro | @Tennis_Now | Thursday, December 12, 2024
Photo credit: Corleve/Mark Peterson
The LTA aims to encourage inclusivity—and eliminate inequity—in tournament tennis.
To that end, the LTA announced it is banning transgender women tennis and padel players from playing in national and inter-venue tournaments.
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The governing body of British tennis said the new rule goes into effect on January 25, 2025 and is designed to create fair competition.
“It is clear that tennis and padel are gender-affected sports – the average man has an advantage when playing against the average woman,” the LTA said in a statement. “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 current broad consensus, including the conclusion of the review carried out by the Sports Councils Equality Group, is that this advantage is likely to be retained to a significant degree in trans women, making competition potentially unfair. Therefore, we have decided to draw a line in the competition structure to create two different designations of competition for the purposes of the Policy: Specified and Non-Specified.”
The ban on transgender women only applies to domestic British tennis tournaments governed by the LTA.
This rule change does not apply to international tennis and padel tournaments staged in the UK, including Wimbledon, Queen’s Club, Eastbourne, Nottingham, Billie Jean King Cup and Challengers. The LTA has authority to set domestic rule changes, but it does not govern international competitions.
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“As the national governing body (NGB) for tennis and padel the LTA has had to balance two potentially conflicting responsibilities,” the LTA said in a statement. “There is responsibility to ensure competition in our sport is fair and a responsibility to make sure tennis is welcoming and inclusive for everyone.
“In order to do this we have considered the evidence available, in particular taking into account work carried out by the Sports Councils Equality Group, as well as listening to those who are directly affected.
“The Policy attempts to balance these two responsibilities appropriately but in the knowledge that different people will reasonably have different views as to where that balance should lie.”
