The International Cricket Council (ICC) has decided to ban men who transitioned to become women from playing women’s cricket.
This was contained in a statement released on Tuesday, where the governing body concluded that it had made the decision following a nine-month consultation process to protect the safety of female players.
According to the statement, those who are assigned male at birth will not be able to perform in the sport at the highest level.
The ICC also confirmed they would be suspending Sri Lanka from their events for “breaching its obligations as a member,” Daily Mail reports.
The statement reads in part: “The new policy is based on the following principles (in order of priority), protection of the integrity of the women’s game, safety, fairness and inclusion, and this means any Male to Female participants who have been through any form of male puberty will not be eligible to participate in the international women’s game regardless of any surgery or gender reassignment treatment they may have undertaken.
“The review, which was led by the ICC Medical Advisory Committee chaired by Dr Peter Harcourt, relates solely to gender eligibility for international women’s cricket, whilst gender eligibility at domestic level is a matter for each individual Member Board, which may be impacted by local legislation.
“The regulations will be reviewed within two years.
“The changes to the gender eligibility regulations resulted from an extensive consultation process and is founded in science and aligned with the core principles developed during the review.
“Inclusivity is incredibly important to us as a sport, but our priority was to protect the integrity of the international women’s game and the safety of players.
“The International Cricket Council (ICC) Board met today and confirmed the terms of the suspension of Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC),” they said.
“After hearing representation from SLC, the ICC Board decided that Sri Lanka can continue to compete internationally both in bilateral cricket and ICC events after being suspended recently for breaching its obligations as a Member in particular the requirement to manage its affairs autonomously and without government interference.
“However, funding to SLC will be controlled by the ICC and the ICC Board confirmed Sri Lanka will no longer host the ICC U19 Men’s Cricket World Cup 2024, which will now be held in South Africa.”