International Gay Rugby (IGR) has directly addressed the transgender and non-binary rugby-playing community with the message ‘You will always be welcome to play rugby’, following reports that ongoing work to update World Rugby guidelines would exclude transgender women from the game.Following a meeting of stakeholders from across the sporting world in February 2020, attended by IGR, a first draft of revised guidelines for transgender athletes in rugby has been circulated to National Unions for feedback.
This draft was supposed to remain confidential, however it was leaked to a news outlet by an unknown source.IGR has stated proposed guidelines, if implemented, would introduce significant barriers to entry for transgender athletes when.