Future of Football: What will football look like for trans & non-binary players?

A lot of history has been made at the 2023 Women's World Cup.

Nouhaila Benzina became the first player to wear a hijab while competing at a senior-level global tournament as Morocco beat South Korea 1-0 in Adelaide.

Three African teams - Morocco, Nigeria and South Africa, have qualified for the round of 16, while women's football giants like Germany, Brazil and Canada have all been knocked out.

And Canadian footballer Quinn became the first and only known transgender athlete to compete at a FIFA World Cup.

The Olympic champion played the full 90 minutes in Canada's first match against Nigeria.

In 2020, they took to social media to publicly announce they were trans and non-binary and removed their first name to become known as Quinn, using they/them pronouns.

As part of our Sky Sports' Future of Football series, we explore what the game will look like for trans and non-binary players in 20 years?

What are the current rules for trans footballers?

In English football, gender eligibility for players over the age of 18 is decided on a case-by-case basis.

Transgender women who want to play in women's football are required to show that their blood testosterone levels are "within the natal female range" for an "appropriate length of time so as to minimise any potential advantage". There is a requirement that this is checked annually.

An FA spokesperson told Sky Sports News: "We are passionate about celebrating and supporting the diversity of our national game. Our transgender policy has enabled many positive outcomes for people who wish to enjoy and play football either in their affirmed gender or in a safe and inclusive environment. This important subject is complex and is constantly evolving, and as a result, like many other national governing bodies in sport, we are currently reviewing our transgender policy for English football.

"We are consulting with and listening to all of our stakeholders in the game, including engaging with FIFA and UEFA, who are in the early stages of their own consultation process, as well as other international football and sporting governing bodies, including the other home nations."

FIFA is also reviewing its gender eligibility regulations while taking guidance from legal, scientific and human rights experts.

In 2021, a review of non-elite sport in the UK found that "for many sports, the inclusion of transgender people, fairness and safety cannot co-exist in a single competitive model."

It said "testosterone suppression is unlikely to guarantee fairness between transgender women and natal females in gender-affected sports" and there are "retained differences in strength, stamina and physique between the average woman compared with the average transgender woman or non-binary person registered male at birth."

What are the rules for trans athletes in other sports?

In May, British Cycling announced that it will prevent riders who were born male from racing in elite female events. The policy, due to be implemented later this year, will see racing split into "open" and "female" categories, with transgender women, transgender men, non-binary individuals and those whose sex was assigned male at birth eligible to compete in the open category.

The female category will remain for those whose sex was assigned female at birth, and transgender men who are yet to begin hormone therapy.

The current men's category will be consolidated into the open category, in which those whose sex was assigned as female at birth can also compete if they so wish.

British Cycling suspended its previous policy last April amid controversy after transgender woman Emily Bridges sought to race at the national omnium championships as a female rider. The new policy change ends Bridges' hopes of competing in women's competitions.

Meanwhile, British Athletics is calling for a change in the law to preserve women's events for those who were female at birth.

The governing body announced that it supported allowing transgender women to compete in an 'open' category that would replace the current male category.

UK Athletics chair Ian Beattie said sport has a "duty to ensure fairness in competition in the women's category".

He added: "Therefore we are calling for a change in legislation that will provide clarity for all and ensure the women's category can be lawfully reserved for female at birth competitors."

World Athletics announced earlier in the year that it is consulting with member federations on a proposal that would impose more stringent testosterone limits on transgender women athletes competing in women's events.

British Triathlon also announced last year that it planned to introduce two categories for competition - one for athletes who were female at birth and one 'open' category for men, transgender women and non-binary athletes.

In 2022, the RFU and Rugby Football League announced that transgender women would be banned from competing in female competitions. The policy change only permits players to participate in the female category of the sport "if the sex originally recorded at birth is female."

Meet TRUK United - the UK trailblazers

TRUK United are the UK's first transgender football team. Currently, they have a trans-masculine, trans-feminine and a fully inclusive team.

Founded by Lucy Clark, a football referee who first came out as transgender in 2018, the squad now consists of over 200 players from all around the UK.

"Whatever your sexual orientation or your gender, TRUK United is open to everyone. We've got a real mix of players - probably 70 per cent that fall under the trans spectrum. And then we've got a couple of allies," she told Sky Sports News.

Clark co-founded Trans Radio with her wife Avril. After receiving calls for support on the radio station, the pair then set up TRUK Listens, a trans helpline that offers free advice to callers.

"I had loads of people contacting me saying, 'I wish there was a team for me, I wish I could play football.' So I just thought, you know what, I'll just set one up."

"Football is for everyone. And I'm not having anyone say to me that they can't play and that there isn't a team for them, because there is now - TRUK United," Clark said.

"If I didn't have football, I probably wouldn't be here today. Football is the world's game and everyone should be able to play.

TRUK United FC made history in 2022 when their trans-women team played Dulwich Hamlet Women FC. In 2023, they made European history when their first team of trans men played their first-ever match on Trans Day of Visibility against supporters of Dulwich Hamlet FC.

Ceylon Andi Hickman, Head of Brand at Football Beyond Borders, is a centre-back for Dulwich Hamlet FC and has played in two games against TRUK United.

"Environments like that match are incredibly rare in football. It was very special. I was very aware of the fact that, when I was playing that game, I was taking part in something that was deliberately manufactured because the system has made it so difficult to exist," she said.

"It relies on extraordinary people who go out of their way to create spaces like that because the system hasn't been designed to allow those spaces to exist. Which is a really sad fact."

"So when I was playing, I felt an immense sense of gratitude for TRUK United for existing, and Dulwich Hamlet FC for providing the resources to make it happen at that level, and the fans who came to support it.

"Without those moments you don't make progress."

When possible, TRUK United live stream their games, with supporters watching from around the world.

"It's crazy - we've sold shirts around the world! People are seeing what we're doing and they're inspired by it. I know there's going to be offshoots of trans teams being formed in other countries because of what we're doing," Clark said.

"That gives me the motivation to just keep doing it.".

What does the future hold?

This year, Census data revealed that 262,000 people (0.5 per cent of the population in England and Wales) said their gender identity was different from their sex registered at birth.

With transgender teams now being set up all over the world - from Germany, to India, this is something football needs clear guidelines on.

The German football association (DFB) introduced a policy in the 2023 season across the amateur and youth games whereby transgender and non-binary people could choose whether to play in men's or women's teams.

DFB diversity ambassador Thomas Hitzlsperger said footballing nations, including England, Scotland and Wales, have been in contact to find out more.

Clark says she believes that in the future, more and more trans people will have the confidence to play football, with increasing numbers of LGBT+ teams, and is a massive advocate for trans people being able to play all sport, and that people don't realise the effect that hormone replacement therapy has on people's bodies.

She said: "You lose pretty much all of your muscle, you lose that bone density. It affects your respiratory, your lung intakes and to put it bluntly, you are a lot weaker. You do lose your strength.

"I agree that if you're going to play [sport] competitively there should be certain guidelines. I want fairness in sport. But don't stop us playing sport. That's what some people are trying to do.

"Just let us play. We've been allowed to compete in the Olympics for years and nobody's gone and won loads of gold medals. Why should we be denied playing sports just because they're transgender?"

New Zealand weightlifter Laurel Hubbard is the first openly transgender athlete to compete at the Olympics in a different gender category to which they were born; she was eliminated from the women's +87 kg competition after registering three no lifts in the snatch.

Clark says because people are transitioning at a younger age, they're not going through puberty and that should be taken into account in future conversations about allowing trans footballers to play at the elite level.

She added: "If somebody is good enough to play on that level, then why shouldn't they be able to? My hope is that we can get that one star who can be a role model that trans people can aspire to be like.

"If people are transitioning, they can still go and play football. We've had players as old as 60 say they never thought they'd play football again because they didn't think they'd be accepted and now they're playing for TRUK," she said.

Natalie Washington, a player for TRUK United, says the club is a great escape for trans people when the world "feels like a hostile place."

"I think it's really important that we have that. It really is like a release from the pressures of the day to day world."

"Trans people really want to be involved in football and we're not going to go away. There's enough of us playing and involved in the game that it's gonna be hard to ignore us, and football is going to have to change to accommodate us."