Transgender ice hockey players in women’s league pose ‘dangerous’ risk to girls, parents fear

Female ice hockey players as young as 14 are being forced to play against adult competitors who are biologically male but identify as female and are being allowed to play in women’s leagues.

One angry father has revealed that his 15-year-old daughter was in an amateur league game when a trans player who was born male was penalised for hitting a female opponent around the head.

Under the current rules in ice hockey leagues, female players can play with adult teams from the age of 14. But the whistleblower father, who asked to remain anonymous to protect his daughter’s identity, said such teenage players were now being put in danger by the admission of male-born trans competitors to their games.

“I’m watching my 15-year-old daughter taking on fully grown men and thinking this isn’t right,” he said. “It’s dangerous, it’s unfair and there’s no good reason for it. Any of these men could play in mixed teams that exist, but they insist on playing in the ladies’ team.

“Ice hockey is a physical game and if you’re going head to head with a man as a 15-year-old girl there is obviously a strength difference. There’s also much higher levels of aggression in male ice hockey and then these players go to play in women’s teams. I was seething when I saw the female player being hit.”

Another adult female player who competes in an amateur women’s ice hockey league raised further concerns about the issue of trans competitors sharing their changing rooms. 

The woman, who again asked not to be named for fear of losing her place in her team, said: “I’ve heard from a woman who plays on a different team to me that the parents of a younger player will not bring that player to a game where they know a biological male is playing on the opposite team. So that girl is being excluded from her sport because of the presence of a biological male in the women’s league.”

Trans policy under review

It is currently unclear what the official policy is for allowing trans players to compete in the women’s leagues as both England Ice Hockey and Ice Hockey UK say they are currently reviewing their transgender policies.

However, chairman of Ice Hockey UK, Lord Clifton Wrottesley, condemned the admission of trans players who were born male in female sports categories as being “tantamount to doping” when speaking in the House of Lords last December. He added that even at amateur level it was “unfair” and “unsafe” to…