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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

Keystone Law—Milena Szuniewicz-Wenzel & Ian Hopkinson

Keystone Law—Milena Szuniewicz-Wenzel & Ian Hopkinson

International arbitration team strengthened by double partner hire

Coodes Solicitors—Pam Johns, Rachel Pearce & Bradley Kaine

Coodes Solicitors—Pam Johns, Rachel Pearce & Bradley Kaine

Firm celebrates trio holding senior regional law society and junior lawyers division roles

Michelman Robinson—Sukhi Kaler

Michelman Robinson—Sukhi Kaler

Partner joins commercial and business litigation team in London

NEWS
The Legal Action Group (LAG)—the UK charity dedicated to advancing access to justice—has unveiled its calendar of training courses, seminars and conferences designed to support lawyers, advisers and other legal professionals in tackling key areas of public interest law
The Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 transformed criminal justice. Writing in NLJ this week, Ed Cape of UWE and Matthew Hardcastle and Sandra Paul of Kingsley Napley trace its ‘seismic impact’
Operational resilience is no longer optional. Writing in NLJ this week, Emma Radmore and Michael Lewis of Womble Bond Dickinson explain how UK regulators expect firms to identify ‘important business services’ that could cause ‘intolerable levels of harm’ if disrupted
As the drip-feed of Epstein disclosures fuels ‘collateral damage’, the rush to cry misconduct in public office may be premature. Writing in NLJ this week, David Locke of Hill Dickinson warns that the offence is no catch-all for political embarrassment. It demands a ‘grave departure’ from proper standards, an ‘abuse of the public’s trust’ and conduct ‘sufficiently serious to warrant criminal punishment’
Employment law is shifting at the margins. In his latest Employment Law Brief for NLJ this week, Ian Smith of Norwich Law School examines a Court of Appeal ruling confirming that volunteers are not a special legal species and may qualify as ‘workers’
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