For Amelia Short, Jamie Hughes, Alice*, and Anaya Bangar, women’s cricket promised to be a place where they could thrive as their true selves.

That was before the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) extended the ban on transgender women and girls from the top two tiers of women’s domestic cricket to the third tier and recreational level last Friday.

Though the ECB acknowledged the “significant impact” of the decision and said it would work with recreational cricket boards to support those affected, it has contacted none of these players.

‘I don’t want to see any rainbow laces campaigns’, adds another (Photo: Getty)

Open and mixed cricket remains available, but that provides little comfort.

Short is a 20-year-old trans woman who has loved cricket since she was nine, as well as scoring and coaching more recently.

This season, one year into hormone replacement therapy (HRT), she joined Lindow Cricket Club and has relished training and matches with the women’s first XI.

Now she is considering giving it all up.

“Cricket was escapism. It allowed me to relax and not worry about the real world and have fun, enjoy myself, and socialise with others. That has been taken away,” she tells The i Paper.

“It has affected me quite heavily mentally to the point that I don’t want to be involved with cricket at all. I’m very close to turning my back. I contemplated selling my equipment, ­moving on, and not picking up any other sport.

“Most sports are not an environment trans people want to be in. Open cricket is predominantly men and is not the nicest place for women to play cricket. It involves prejudice.

“And this ban means there’s going to be accusations ­towards women in men’s and women’s cricket of being trans. It puts everyone under the microscope.

“[The ECB] need to have a real hard look at themselves because if they keep the ban in place, inclusivity will keep rapidly deteriorating.”

Hughes, 35, began playing low-level Leicestershire league cricket in her late 20s.

After coming out as non-binary trans feminine she no longer felt safe and cut herself off from the team, expecting to never play again – until discovering LGBTQ+ inclusive club Birmingham Unicorns in late 2024.

She couldn’t wait to make her debut in the women’s softball team this season yet is now grieving what could have been.

“It’s devastating. I’ve lost the ­opportunity to play with the other women as my true, authentic self. It’s very, very upsetting.”

Hughes would have struggled without the “fabulous” support of the Unicorns this past week and plans to play in arranged inclusive women’s friendlies and mixed teams, but with a “heavy heart” that won’t be in the women’s league.

“If you want cricket to be an inclusive sport for everybody, you need to overturn the ban as soon as possible. I don’t want to see any rainbow laces campaigns. I don’t want to go to the Edgbaston Test match this summer and see any messaging about cricket being for everybody and hate having no place in the ground, if you’re not willing to do that.”

Alice is a trans woman who has played 250 games over 10 years for amateur clubs in the South East of England. After being on HRT for nearly two years she was set to make her debut for a women’s side, just two days following the ban announcement.

“Having been through a winter of getting to know the girls, getting over the weirdness of feeling like a trans woman in a space where some people say I shouldn’t be, and knowing that the girls all wanted me to play, it’s really disappointing that won’t happen now,” she said.

“Half our first team were messaging me saying we’re on your side, we support you and think this is not the right decision. It touched me that they felt that strongly.”

While Alice has alternative means of accessing cricket, such as through her LGBTQ+ inclusive cricket team, she has serious concerns for young trans women and girls at the beginning of their recreational cricket life.

“It would not be a hardship for a sporting body to go back to a case-by-case basis trans policy. But it would take a brave sporting body to do that.”

For Bangar, a previous professional Indian cricketer and daughter of former Indian cricketer Sanjay Bangar, it was the trans-inclusive nature of English cricket that gave her the confidence to pick cricket up again in 2023 after socially transitioning.

The 24-year-old said: “I’m glad I’ve come back to India because we aren’t banned like we are in the UK.”

*Name changed to protect identity