Canada’s international cricket team has named a transgender woman to play for the Twenty-20 Women’s World Cup next year, arguing that the man’s testosterone levels are sufficiently low enough not to have any advantage over the other women.
Australian-born Danielle McGahey, who was 26 when he began claiming to be a woman and 27 when he began medically transitioning, was permitted to play for Canada after his testosterone levels were consistently less than 5nmolL1 per liter for one year straight. He also provided a “written letter and signed declaration” to the International Cricket Council (ICC) that he thought himself a woman.
McGahey has already played a number of games for Canada as the fixtures did not hold official international cricket status. “Within five months of playing my first game with the women in Canada, I was in Brazil,” he explained in an interview.
“Obviously I felt a huge sense of pride. Not only for what I’m doing, but for my [trans] community. Being able to represent them,” McGahey added.
The selection of McGahey was protested by the Women’s Rights Network (WRN), with the group’s spokeswoman Jane Sullivan arguing, “There are currently 17 peer-reviewed studies that show we cannot mitigate against male puberty when it comes to sporting performance… Any cricket team that has an individual who has been through male puberty already has an unfair advantage over an all-female side.”
This follows British Cycling banning transgenders from competing against women in order to mitigate the men’s natural biologically advantages.
