At Tackle King we believe in fair play and competition for female anglers. As such we fully support the 3 team members of the England women’s fishing team who resigned over the inclusion of a trans-woman – someone born male and wants to live as a female.
Fishing is an excellent sport for both sexes as many of its competitions are open for anyone to take part in. There are plenty of opportunities for trans-women and trans-men to undertake competitive sports fishing. But anyone who has fished on the shore, casting put against the wind to drop a bait behind the breaking waves, knows that men have an inherent advantage over women. Where competitions are set aside for women then it’s only fair that these are restricted to women and not open to people born as men.
There is ample room in the Sports England 2021 tans-gender guidelines for keeping women’s angling competitions and teams restricted purely to women born female. Sport’s England recognises that there are inherent benefits to being born a man in relation to strength, stamina and other physical attributes which remain in place even after male hormone reduction therapies and other medical interventions.
As a result of what the review found, the Guidance concludes that the inclusion of transgender people into
female sport cannot be balanced regarding transgender inclusion, fairness and safety in gender-affected sport
where there is meaningful competition. This is due to retained differences in strength, stamina and physique
between the average woman compared with the average transgender woman or non-binary person assigned
male at birth, with or without testosterone suppression. – Sport England Guidelines 2021
As most competitions in fishing are ‘open’ and not sex-specific there are more than ample opportunities for trans-anglers to take part in competitive angling. While there may not be a safety issue, such as collisions or contact, the Sport England guidance is clear that where physical attributes give benefit to men then women’s angling is gender-affected. As such, restricting women’s angling to women is not prohibited by law or regulation. Keeping fair play in angling should be the main consideration.
Sports which rely significantly on physical capacity – physique (including height), strength, stamina – despite not
being contact or collision sports, will be considered ‘gender-affected’ – Sports England Guidelines 2021
Sport England also makes reference to keeping sex categorization for ethnic, cultural and religious reasons. If the sport of angling wants to reach out to other communities and involve them in competitive sports then keeping women angling purely female would be the preferred option. For instance, it would be difficult for a Muslim woman to join a team that has someone born as a male. Sports England recognises this –
If your sport is not gender affected, or some forms of your sport are not gender affected, what are the reasons to retain sex categories for that competition in the future? This might include considerations of socio-cultural factors, or aspects such as faith or ethnic groups. – Sports England Guideline 2021
As a company, Tackle King supports the Fair Play For Women campaign.
