Transgender pool player Harriet Haynes has been granted the right to appeal the decision to ban her from women’s events.
Last April, the English Blackball Pool Federation (EBPF) banned male-born competitors from female competitions, leading to Haynes launching a lawsuit claiming the exclusion was ‘direct discrimination’ against her on the grounds of her gender reassignment.
In August, she lost the discrimination case against one of the sport’s main organisers in a landmark ruling in the UK.
The judgment was the first to apply the newly established legal definition of a woman as someone who is biologically female, introduced after a Supreme Court decision.
But Haynes applied to the High Court for permission to appeal, which has now been granted by the judge, Mr Justice Ritchie.
The EBPF used crowdfunding to pay for their defence against Haynes’ claim against them so the permission being granted for an appeal is a blow to them.
Transgender pool player Harriet Haynes lost a discrimination case last year but has now been granted the right to appeal
Last year, the EBPF said it was delighted with the ruling against Haynes and that it welcomes transgender players in its ‘open’ category.
It also argued that players who were born male and went through male puberty hold specific physical advantages in cue sports.
According to the body, these include an ability to generate higher break speed, greater hand span to bridge over balls and a longer reach.
A spokesperson said: ‘The court found that pool is a game in which men have an advantage over women and that allowing only those born as women to compete in our women’s competitions is necessary to secure fair competition.’
Haynes was surprised by the EBPF’s crackdown and did not believe she held an unfair advantage because she went through male puberty. She later told The Independent: ‘All I’ve ever wanted is to be able to play like any other woman.’
Handing down his judgment, His Honour Judge Parker concluded that pool is a ‘gender-affected activity’ and that excluding those born as male from the female category was necessary to ‘secure fair competition’.
There were protests last year when Haynes and Lucy Smith, another transgender player, played each other in the Ultimate Pool Women’s Pro Series Event 2 at a leisure centre in Wigan.
A player had previously forfeited a 2023 final she was due to play in 2023 against Haynes in protest at her participation.
Haynes’s appeal case is now one of two active legal challenges against ruling bodies in sport, the other being an anonymous transgender cricketer who made a claim against the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) at Cardiff County Court.
