Women’s Rugby – Photo: Chris Frankland-Wright via Unsplash
USA Rugby recently announced that it will ban transgender women from female-designated teams while creating a third competitive “open” category intended to accommodate transgender athletes.
In a statement, the organization said the decision was driven by President Donald Trump’s executive order opposing the inclusion of transgender women on female-designated sports teams.
USA Rugby said the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee determined the order applies to all National Governing Bodies (NBG) of sport. The committee warned that failure to comply could jeopardize the organization’s NGB status.
Other sports have adopted similar policies. Last November, USA Hockey quietly adopted a rule barring transgender athletes from participating in single-sex programs that do not align with their assigned sex at birth. The policy also bars transgender males undergoing hormone therapy from competing in sex-specific programs, though it does not apply to programs that are not exclusively designated for one sex.
Similarly, in October, the United States Tennis Association adopted an eligibility policy barring transgender women from female-designated events.
Under USA Rugby’s new policy, competitions will be divided into three categories: men’s, women’s, and open.
The Open Division will allow any athlete — regardless of gender identity or sex assigned at birth — to compete in USA Rugby-sanctioned events, both full-contact and non-contact. Eligibility for the women’s division will be limited to athletes assigned female at birth.
“We take great care in serving and supporting our members. To those athletes impacted by the policy change, we understand the physical and mental stress this may cause,” USA Rugby said in a statement. “Going forward, we hope to continue strengthening the values of an inclusive USA Rugby community.”
The creation of an open division mirrors a similar attempt by World Aquatics, the governing body for water sports, which proposed an “open” category ahead of the 2023 Swimming World Cup. The effort ultimately failed when no athletes signed up, prompting organizers to abandon the planned events.
The ban also marks a shift for USA Rugby, which previously opposed a similar move by World Rugby when the international governing body barred transgender women from competing in women’s competitions in 2020.
Some rugby clubs and organizations in the United States condemned the announcement.
“Let us be clear: trans women are women. They belong in our sport, in our league, and on our teams,” representatives of the Columbus Coyotes, an LGBTQ-inclusive rugby club in Ohio, said in an Instagram post. “This decision is unacceptable and does not reflect the core values of rugby — respect, integrity, and solidarity. Exclusion is not who we are.”
The rugby news site Your Scrumhalf Connection called the move “abhorrent” and “a dark milestone for American rugby.”
“Forcing trans women out of the Women’s Division does not make the game safer. Instead, it targets a vulnerable population of athletes and tells them they are ‘other,'” Wendy Young wrote on the website.
Rugby journalist Samantha Lovett also criticized the policy, arguing that it will not make women’s sports safer.
“This is gonna be open season for bigots questioning people’s gender,” Lovett said in an Instagram video. She argued that cisgender women who do not conform to stereotypical notions of femininity — particularly masculine-presenting women and women of color — will increasingly be targeted with accusations of being transgender.
“Rugby is a game built on the identity of anyone can play no matter your shape, your size,” Lovett continued. “This is erasing the history of rugby itself.”
A coalition of at least 47 right-wing groups, operating under the name "Greater Than," has launched a coordinated campaign to reverse the U.S. Supreme Court's 2015 marriage equality ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, part of a renewed push by social conservatives to reshape national marriage policy.
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