A 20-year-old woman said a male athlete playing against women in rugby pulled her leg out of its socket with strength a woman would never possess.
Elena King plays in the top women’s rugby league in the Netherlands, the Dutch premiership, and recently suffered a devastating injury involving two severed ligaments. King said the injury will likely cause lifelong knee pain, after a man with strength she had not seen from a woman in her sport caused the injury.
“I felt the strength being used against me: It’s nothing that I can explain because I don’t have that strength myself,” she said in an interview with the Times. “A cis woman could not have pulled my leg out of its socket … I heard a really loud pop. That’s when I started screaming. My leg was on fire.”
King spoke out, confused as to why a male is allowed in a women’s professional league, and said she did not want other women to face such painful injuries.
“I do not want it to ever happen to anyone again because I don’t want it to happen to me. It could have been prevented,” she claimed.
In 2020, World Rugby instituted a rule that banned men from playing women’s rugby unless they “transitioned pre-puberty and have not experienced the biological effects of testosterone during puberty and adolescence.”
The governing body has made several statements on the increased risk of injury with males playing in women’s rugby and concluded through their own analysis that there is a 20-30% increase in head and neck strength in male players and 50-100% more upper body strength in men than women.
‘We have women’s spaces for a reason.’
Following the injury, the unnamed male player was suspended indefinitely and forced to participate in a training program.
“A playing ban was imposed to allow the situation to be further investigated in consultation with the parties involved,” said Simone de Bruin, a board member for high performance at Rugby Nederland.
She continued, “Then a development plan focusing on game training was agreed for the player in question. After completing this mandatory training and lifting of the ban, the player will be monitored.”
The governing official then stated that “inclusion, fairness, and player safety are extremely important principles” in rugby due to the higher risk of injury in the sport. The official did not appear to make mention of the increased risk of male athletes injuring women but said the organization will issue advice on transgender policy sometime this year.
The injured King said she believes women are intimidated and are afraid to speak out because they will be labeled as bigoted toward men who believe they are women.
“I think it’s got to do with — a friend of mine calls it — transphobia phobia. Not wanting to be seen as a transphobe, so then not saying anything because, you know, inclusion is important. That’s also not what I’m on about. It’s to do with safety,” the athlete said.
She added, “Women want the best for everyone. We want everyone to feel included, so of course people are like, ‘Why not?’ But then you actually see the reasons why it’s not possible. We have women’s spaces for a reason.”
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Fearless, Women’s sports, Transgenderism, Rugby, Woke, Sports
