That was before the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) extended the ban on transgender women and girls from the top two tiers of women’s domestic cricket to the third tier and recreational level last Friday.
‘I don’t want to see any rainbow laces campaigns’, adds another (Photo: Getty)
Open and mixed cricket remains available, but that provides little comfort.
This season, one year into hormone replacement therapy (HRT), she joined Lindow Cricket Club and has relished training and matches with the women’s first XI.
“Cricket was escapism. It allowed me to relax and not worry about the real world and have fun, enjoy myself, and socialise with others. That has been taken away,” she tells The i Paper.
“Most sports are not an environment trans people want to be in. Open cricket is predominantly men and is not the nicest place for women to play cricket. It involves prejudice.
“[The ECB] need to have a real hard look at themselves because if they keep the ban in place, inclusivity will keep rapidly deteriorating.”
After coming out as non-binary trans feminine she no longer felt safe and cut herself off from the team, expecting to never play again – until discovering LGBTQ+ inclusive club Birmingham Unicorns in late 2024.
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“It’s devastating. I’ve lost the opportunity to play with the other women as my true, authentic self. It’s very, very upsetting.”
“If you want cricket to be an inclusive sport for everybody, you need to overturn the ban as soon as possible. I don’t want to see any rainbow laces campaigns. I don’t want to go to the Edgbaston Test match this summer and see any messaging about cricket being for everybody and hate having no place in the ground, if you’re not willing to do that.”
“Having been through a winter of getting to know the girls, getting over the weirdness of feeling like a trans woman in a space where some people say I shouldn’t be, and knowing that the girls all wanted me to play, it’s really disappointing that won’t happen now,” she said.
While Alice has alternative means of accessing cricket, such as through her LGBTQ+ inclusive cricket team, she has serious concerns for young trans women and girls at the beginning of their recreational cricket life.
For Bangar, a previous professional Indian cricketer and daughter of former Indian cricketer Sanjay Bangar, it was the trans-inclusive nature of English cricket that gave her the confidence to pick cricket up again in 2023 after socially transitioning.
*Name changed to protect identity
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