'The average man has an advantage': British tennis bans men from women's competitive tournaments

The Lawn Tennis Association, Britain's governing body for tennis, has barred "transgender women" from playing in the top women's tournaments.

The new policy still allows for men who identify as women to play against females at the local level, in tournaments that are for "fun" or "social."

The LTA's new policy described tennis as a "gender-affected" sport and admitted that the "average man" has an advantage when playing against the "average woman."

This includes "longer levers" (a term referring to the shoulder and arm) and "increased cardio-vascular capacity."

The association wrote, "The current broad consensus, including the conclusion of the review carried out by the Sports Councils Equality Group, is that this advantage is likely to be retained to a significant degree in trans women, making competition potentially unfair."

The tennis association also decided it would allow men to compete against women in some competitions, essentially at the recreational level. As such, it created the categories "Specified and Non-Specified."

Specified refers to competitions between different clubs or counties and includes the National Championship right down through county and district leagues.

Non-Specified includes competitions within one venue, with the primary purpose to "provide fun, social competition to enable people to feel part of their local tennis community."

"These will range from weekend social tournaments through to Club Championships, these will be able to be fully inclusive, and the choice will be for local venues to make," the LTA added.

This effective ban restricts "transgender women and nonbinary individuals assigned male at birth" from playing in top-tier and competitive women's tournaments.

The same day as its policy announcement, the LTA posted photos of one of Britain's top-ranked women's tennis players, Emma Raducanu.

Raducanu is ranked 57th in the world, ahead of No. 85 British player, Sonay Kartal, and behind Katie Boulter, Britain's top-ranked female tennis player and world-ranked No. 24.

Britain's top-ranked women's tennis player Katie BoulterPhoto by Angel Martinez/Getty Images for ITF

'This is a good start and I am hoping the USTA and others will follow suit.'

The British tennis body ended its press release by encouraging local venues to be "as inclusive as possible for trans and nonbinary" people and to make sure they provide opportunities for them to compete; presumably against women.

Tennis legend and noted liberal Martina Navratilova congratulated the organization, saying she hoped the U.S. Tennis Association would soon adopt the same rules.

"Congrats to [LTA], this is a good start and I am hoping the USTA and others will follow suit."

The LTA is the second major women's sports organization to implement the new rules in recent days; the Ladies Professional Golf Association changed their gender eligibility rules in a similar fashion last week.

The LPGA also used careful language, saying only athletes who are "assigned female at birth" are eligible for women's competitions, including the LPGA Tour, Epson Tour, Ladies European Tour, and all other "elite LPGA competitions."

More specifically, the LPGA said players who were "assigned male at birth and who have gone through male puberty" are not eligible to compete in the women's events.

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