I am a sportsperson. I have spent years on the field, followed sports closely, and I understand the importance of fairness in competition. That’s why, when Anaya Bangar, daughter of former India men’s cricket team batting coach Sanjay Bangar, was cleared to compete in Australian women’s domestic cricket, a familiar but uncomfortable question ran through my mind — won’t this be unfair to the women on the field?
Trans women participating in women’s sports is a long-running debate. Cricket Australia’s decision on Anaya has once again sparked debates, bringing the difficult balance between inclusion and competitive fairness under the spotlight.
Seeing the participation of transgender athletes in sport solely through the lens of inclusion is unfair.
Several sports have two distinct categories — men and women — for a reason. Sports can be brutal when it comes to physical advantage. A fraction of a second can decide a race. A few centimetres can decide a medal. A few kilograms of force can decide what happens inside a boxing ring.
We create separate categories precisely because biological differences matter. And cricket cannot pretend that they don’t.
The highest recorded delivery speed in women’s international cricket is 132.1 km/h, bowled by South African fast bowler Shabnim Ismail. In comparison, the highest recorded delivery speed in men’s international cricket is 161.3 km/h, bowled by Pakistan’s Shoaib Akhtar. That is a difference of nearly 30 km/h.
The difference is not only visible in bowling, but in batting too. The longest recorded six in women’s cricket is a 94-meter shot hit by New Zealand cricketer Sophie Devine during the 2023 Women’s Premier League. In men’s cricket, the record is credited to Pakistan’s Shahid Afridi, who hit an estimated 153-meter six against South Africa in 2013. That’s a difference of almost 60 metres!
These numbers don’t suggest that men are better cricketers than women. They aren’t. Instead, the numbers show that biological differences can translate into measurable differences in sporting performance. That is why men’s and women’s sports have separate categories in the first place.
The scale of these differences might feel less obvious if you haven’t been to a stadium, let alone stepped onto a cricket field. When sports are only consumed inside AC rooms, through Instagram reels and television screens, it can be difficult to assess the small differences in speed or strength.
The debate goes beyond cricket
We have seen similar debates in other sports too. Take Lia Thomas, for example. She was the first openly trans woman athlete to win an NCAA Division I title in the women’s 500-yard freestyle in swimming in 2022. Her victory sparked a controversy over whether undergoing hormone therapy was enough to remove the physical advantages linked with male puberty.
In cycling, trans woman athlete Rachel McKinnon won a women’s masters world championship in 2018. Her victory too triggered a row, with critics pointing out that male puberty provides permanent biological advantages like larger bone structure, greater lung capacity, and higher muscle mass.
Meanwhile, boxing separates athletes into weight categories for both men and women because physical differences can affect match outcomes and safety. So, when weight can be a safety issue, why is a trans woman participating in women’s sports treated as irrelevant?
Somewhere in the discussion of including trans women in women’s sports, the women athletes have been sidelined. Remember, they had to fight for their own sporting spaces. They fought to be allowed onto fields, into stadiums and into professional competitions. They fought for equal pay, sponsorships and recognition. The women’s category was not created to include people arbitrarily.
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Sports is a human right
That said, I am not against transgender persons participating in sports. They should. Sport is meant for all. It’s a fundamental human right and it should not become a space where a person’s identity is used to deny them dignity or the opportunity to compete or win medals.
But inclusion cannot come at the cost of pretending that biology has no role in sport. And this is the exact space where the sporting bodies need to rethink their approach — create a separate category for transgender athletes that recognises their participation without compromising the competitive space created solely for women.
If inclusion is the aim, create more avenues for participation. But do it fairly — protect the categories where biological differences matter.
People have been labelled “transphobic” when they have raised concerns about trans women’s participation in women’s sports. But when it comes to fairness in sports, ‘common sense’ must prevail.
(Edited by Janaki Pande)