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23 May 2025 / Fiona McAnena , Anya Palmer
Issue: 8117 / Categories: Opinion , Sports law , Equality , Diversity , Human rights
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Changing rooms?

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Fiona McAnena & Anya Palmer on why the inclusion policies of some sports bodies & their member clubs are not based on good law

Sports governing bodies across the UK are waking up to the fact that letting biological men into the women’s category and into their changing rooms is not the ‘inclusive’ measure they thought it was. There is growing evidence that it is the very opposite, a policy that drives women and girls away from sport.

On 1 May, the governing bodies for Scottish and English football dropped their policies allowing trans-identifying male players into women’s teams if they demonstrated lowered testosterone levels. The England and Wales Cricket Board, which governs cricket in England and Wales, abandoned its two-tier policy of female-only in the top two tiers of women’s cricket and self-identification for all the rest. England Netball finally followed its world governing body in recognising that women’s games must not include male players.

Other national governing bodies are defending flawed policies. This is illustrated by the

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MOVERS & SHAKERS

Arc Pensions Law—Matthew Swynnerton

Arc Pensions Law—Matthew Swynnerton

Chair of the Association of Pension Lawyers joins as partner

Ampa Group—Kamal Chauhan

Ampa Group—Kamal Chauhan

Group names Shakespeare Martineau partner head of Sheffield office

Blake Morgan—four promotions

Blake Morgan—four promotions

Four legal directors promoted to partner across UK offices

NEWS

The abolition of assured shorthold tenancies and section 21 evictions marks the beginning of a ‘brave new world’ for England’s rental sector, writes Daniel Bacon of Seddons GSC

Stephen Gold’s latest Civil Way column rounds up a flurry of procedural and regulatory changes reshaping housing, alternative dispute resolution (ADR) and personal injury litigation
Patients are being systematically failed by an NHS complaints regime that is opaque, poorly enforced and often stacked against them, argues Charles Davey of The Barrister Group
A wealthy Russian divorce battle has produced a sharp warning about trying to challenge foreign nuptial agreements in the wrong English court. Writing in NLJ this week, Vanessa Friend and Robert Jackson of Hodge Jones & Allen examine Timokhin v Timokhina, where the High Court enforced Russian judgments arising from a prenuptial agreement despite arguments based on the landmark Radmacher decision
An obscure Victorian tort may be heading for an unexpected revival after a significant Privy Council ruling that could reshape liability for dangerous escapes, according to Richard Buckley, barrister and emeritus professor of law at the University of Reading
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