FIFA has drawn up new regulations with a view to abolishing all restrictions for trans athletes and making it easier for trans women – i.e. biological men – to compete in female football.

While the International Swimming Federation forbids male-born athletes from competing against women, football appears to be ready to surrender and bow its head before the gender lobby. FIFA, the governing body of international football, is planning to abolish the current rules on transgender players, so that male-born players could also play on women’s teams in the future. The proposal is still in its early stage and will have to undergo a process of external consultation.

FIFA’s current rules prescribe that female transgender athletes must maintain a predetermined testosterone level, and undergo testosterone suppression for 12 months before joining a league of female teams. The new regulation, however, would drop all such restrictions, writes the Daily Mail. The paper adds that sports scientists, many of whom have criticised the IOC framework, have also expressed their concern over the potential impact of FIFA’s proposals. Professor Jurgen Steinacker, the chair of World Rowing’s Sports Medicine Commission, warned that

they could effectively ‘dissolve’ the female category by allowing players to self-identify into it.

A group of medical experts agreed with Steinacker, and published a position paper in which they argued that the new guidelines were not „scientific or medically based” and were unfair on female athletes.

„The starting point that trans women are eligible to play in the female category, in a sport like football, contradicts the logical conclusion – based on a mountain of evidence – showing that those who are born men, and thus undergo normal male puberty, have many physical advantages over biological women, likely increasing the risk of injury for females during direct physical contact,”

medical expert Dr Alun Williams said.

There’s serious struggle over the issue in the sports world, with the gender lobby becoming all the more prevalent in professional sports, as V4NA has recently reported. The American football team Carolina Panthers has recently announced that they will be the first to employ an openly trans cheerleader in the history of the National Football League (NFL). Earlier this year, the case of a swimmer – a biological male currently undergoing gender transition – who was allowed to compete with women has caused quite an uproar. The result, of course, was the same in every race: Lia Thomas beat all female swimmers with ease and smashed all women’s records.

However, his female teammates and „rivals” weren’t simply just troubled by the unfairness of it all. Requesting anonymity, many from the Pennsylvania University swimming team have shared their other concerns, saying they felt very uncomfortable in the same locker room with Lia Thomas.

„It’s definitely awkward because Lia still has male body parts and is still attracted to women. The swimmer doesn’t always cover up her male genitals when changing and tells her teammates that she dates women. It’s unclear to us whether she actually identifies as a lesbian trans woman or a heterosexual man,”

one swimmer said, while another complained that real female swimmers are being treated as third-rate citizens in the team.