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NWSL’s lack of gender eligibility policy leaves players vulnerable – just not in the way you think
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- NWSL’s lack of gender eligibility policy leaves players vulnerable – just not in the way you think
The National Women's Soccer League has been quietly without a policy concerning the gender eligibility of its players for over three years. The league may have hoped its silence over this lack of policy would be taken as an openness to revisiting or reworking its approach, or at least neutrality when it comes to the inclusion of trans and intersex players.
But the league and commissioner Jessica Berman's silence have instead repeatedly invited harassment of current players — to whom such a policy would not apply in any case — especially Black and queer players.
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And on Monday, that lack of policy also invited current NWSL defender Elizabeth Eddy to call for the adoption of "a clear standard" for gender eligibility, proposing that NWSL players must be born with ovaries, or potentially submit to gene testing or other similar verification in an op-ed published by the New York Post
In response, a spokesperson for the league said the NWSL is "committed to working directly with the NWSL Players Association on any changes to our league policies" to ensure players' voices are "central to our processes and (this) reinforces our commitment to inclusion, trust and transparency."
"The NWSLPA serves as the collective voice of all NWSL Players. Any matter of policy must be collectively bargained," a spokesperson for the NWSLPA said in a statement to The Athletic . "Any position the NWSLPA takes on behalf of the collective in collective bargaining is and will be the product of a thoughtful, deliberate process that engages all our members and the issues that are important to them.
A spokesperson for Angel City declined to comment when reached by The Athletic .
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The 34-year-old free agent signed with Angel City as a national team replacement player in 2023, before extending her contract through the 2025 season. The Los Angeles team plays its final game of the year on Sunday, after failing to qualify for the NWSL playoffs.
Eddy first posted her thoughts on a potential NWSL policy on Sunday night to her X account. By Monday morning, the New York Post published a nearly identical op-ed in her name. In it, she cites "recent controversies across women's sports" involving the participation of transgender and intersex athletes, naming swimming and track and field. She pointed to recent policy changes from corresponding governing bodies, World Athletics and England's Football Association.
"I'm proud to have played a small role in our league's transformation from struggling startup to supercharged celebrity-maker," Eddy wrote in her column. "I've been a part of winning seven titles: three NWSL Championships, three regular-season titles and one International Champions Cup. But I'm concerned that without clarity about who the league is for, it will lose its identity and its momentum."
Eddy and I agree on one thing here. The league has not provided clarity on who it is "for" because it has not drawn a line in the sand when it comes to inclusiveness.
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"We're going to continually live by our values and support everyone in our ecosystem, inclusive of our fans, our players, our employees, in every community where we operate," Berman said in 2024 . What has not been made clear how the league defines those values.
The NWSL has been without a policy governing the inclusion or exclusion of trans players since 2022. Per reporting from The Guardian, the league abandoned a 2021 policy at an unknown date without any public acknowledgement in early 2022, prior to Berman's installation as NWSL commissioner.
Until Monday, the NWSL league office had not made any public statements about the lack of a policy or what protections they may or may not put into place. Currently, there are no players who identify as trans playing in the NWSL.
As the Guardian wrote in July, the lack of a policy has invited the interest of outside forces and organizations that say they believe the best way to "protect" women's sports is to restrict them. Eddy's column reflects and reinforces this ideology.
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"Scrapping that policy without a plan in place and relying on the refrain of 'we'll live by our values,' you need to articulate what those values are in a transparent way," said Julie Kliegman, who has written extensively on gender and sports, after Eddy's column spread on social media. "Ultimately, you're just feeding the 'debate' in an unproductive way.
"Eddy's language is dehumanizing. It's restricting, it's not inclusive," Kliegman said. "This is coming for all of sports right now. It's obviously not specific for the NWSL"
Figures from across the league reacted to Eddy's column on Monday. Orlando Pride sporting director Haley Carter wrote on Bluesky, "Our game doesn't need gatekeepers. It needs champions and advocates and that means standing for every player who makes it what it is."
The Spirit Squadron , the supporter's group for the Washington Spirit, the Rose City Riveters , supporters group for Portland Thorns, and the Blue Crew, the supporter's group for the KC Current, also pushed back on Eddy's column.
"You're either protecting your players or you're not," Kliegman said. "Not only your players, your potential future players too."
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The league has made some steps in the right direction on this front, implementing two social media and online abuse moderation tools this year as promised, a NWSL spokesperson confirmed on Monday.
"You have to take a stance," said Kliegman. "It has to be clear, it has to be transparent and it has to be inclusive. Otherwise, this neutral ground isn't really so neutral, because it's leaving room for players like Eddy to steer the conversation."
The league was put into a difficult spot on Monday with Eddy's column. Their statement does not fully and publicly back their players, instead opting to defer to player input on league policy — but the league did what it could in limiting the spread of Eddy's column in only responding to individual media requests. It is unclear whether the league or Players Association was aware of Eddy's concerns before her post. But because the league failed to step in on Barbra Banda 's behalf last year following online bad-faith attacks from J.K. Rowling and more, they must continue to speak up to stave off even more harassment.
Despite the lack of policy now, what we can take from NWSL and the NWSLPA's statements is that they will likely approach and make changes collectively in a way with a focus on putting the players first.
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Eddy notes in her opinion piece that fans have used the "uncertainty" around policies to harass players — notably, Banda at a Gotham FC game earlier this year — yet does not make the leap in logic that a column such as this will be weaponized in the exact same way.
The NY Post has played right into this strategy, choosing a photo of Banda as its featured image for Eddy's column. In the story, it's captioned stating that Banda has "faced harassment from spectators over past gender eligibility issues." Zero such eligibility issues have ever occurred in the NWSL, nor with any other governing body . Banda has never broken any policy, nor been subject to any gender verification tests. Yet here we are, talking about Banda once again.
So how are we to take this argument in good faith when Eddy has chosen a public forum, and one likely to put her fellow players in harm's way, as Eddy argues she is trying to "protect" women's sports?
"Unfortunately, when money, power and fame are at stake, which inevitably happens in professional sports, competitors may try to push on what is right or fair," Eddy concludes. "Especially when the goal of winning requires using every available advantage."
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The problem here for Eddy is that there has not been an indication that this has ever happened in the NWSL, or would ever happen in the NWSL. There are currently no trans players in the league. The owners and technical staff around the league are not currently plotting in training facilities across the country about how to sign a player who may push the boundaries of a policy that does not even exist.
Eddy uses her NWSL resume as a perennial winner to help justify her stance, so it's worth examining her legacy within the NWSL and those title-winning teams. While Eddy was a regular starter on the 2016 Western New York Flash that won the 2016 NWSL Championship, her playing time for the rest of those titles was minimal. According to her minutes logged on FBRef , across the three years of dominance from the North Carolina Courage in 2017 to 2019, Eddy played a total of 222 minutes. Since moving to Angel City in 2023, she has only appeared for 87 minutes total across three seasons.
Compare Eddy's op-ed to a 2023 offering from former Portland Thorns defender and USWNT captain Becky Sauerbrunn . She also won three NWSL championships, an NWSL shield, two Women's World Cups and an Olympic gold medal, among plenty of other trophies.
"Since I started playing soccer, I've faced countless challenges to gender equity in sport, from pay disparity to unsafe working conditions," Sauerbrunn wrote. "I can assure you that playing with or against transgender women and girls is not a threat to women's sports."
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If we have to pick between listening to what is an existential threat to women's sports — or the NWSL — between these two title winners, who would you rather hear?
Melanie Anzidei contributed to this reporting.
This article originally appeared in The Athletic .
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