After a lengthy period of consultation, the Angling Trust has laid out its position on transgender participation.
It follows a thorny scenario in which the ladies’ shore angling team refused to compete in the 2023 world championships, due to the selection of a teammate who had transitioned from male to female.
“This is a very emotive issue, and we’ve never seen it as ‘woke vs anti-woke,’“ Trust CEO Jamie Cook told Angling Times.
“We don’t want barriers, but in some cases the need for fairness trumps inclusion. This applies in all disciplines where strength and other physical attributes could compromise fair competition.”
He added that the Trust had run extensive consultations on the topic, including with Sport England and other groups in order to be rigorous and “put personal feelings aside.”
However, Cook was also keen to reassert a commitment to keeping angling as widely accessible as possible.
“We don’t want barriers,” he told us.
“Angling already has a rich heritage of open, non-gender specific competition, which includes the ‘National’ and World Championships. Our focus is that everyone is included - but also to keep the integrity of our female angling teams.”
It was added that, much like other sports, angling was working “to support anglers impacted by changes and to ensure that the international universal category is welcoming and accessible to all.”
It remains unclear whether other countries will ultimately follow suit at international women’s events.
Currently, for most angling teams FIPS and CIPS apply the rule that whatever gender is shown on a participant’s passport and documentation applies, meaning that trans competitors could still potentially feature.
Compared to other sports, little research has been carried out so far in angling, with distance casting contests the one area showing “empirical evidence” on gender attributes and physical advantages.
Shore fishing is a particularly obvious case, with the discipline naturally favouring those with the physical strength to make longer casts.
The new ruling brings to an end a difficult episode for the Angling Trust and its international teams. The ladies’ shore team had described feeling “humiliated” at winning bronze in the 2018 world championships after other nations refused to talk to them or applaud at the podium because of their perceived unfair advantage.
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