Cricket is still a sport that allows transgender women to compete in elite female competitions. However, Cricket Australia recently lowered its threshold required to permit transgender women to compete, lowering the maximum permitted 10 nanomoles per litre to 2.5 nanomoles per litre- given that they have sustained that level for 12 months before they apply.
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The 18-time singles Grand Slam champion, and a big advocate against transgender athletes playing in women’s sport, Martina Navratilova responded to the news with criticism of sports bodies repeatedly adjusting eligibility rules rather than imposing an outright ban.
“One day no males will be allowed in women’s sports and sex based spaces, but we are definitely not there yet,” she wrote with a touch of sarcasm.
Navratilova’s response comes on the heels of a significantly different stance from her sport earlier this year. In July, the WTA changed its policy, which had previously permitted transgender women to enter if they kept their testosterone below a certain level for two years, to require a one-time genetic test for the presence of the SRY gene, found on the Y chromosome.
While the policy is designed to maintain fairness in the game of women’s tennis and does not necessitate transgender/non-binary self-identification or genital surgery to escape further assessment. However, critics have commented that it would also affect intersex cisgender women who are not aware of their own chromosomal structure.
The change comes at a time when the sports world has undergone similar transformations in the last two years. World Athletics and World Boxing implemented SRY testing for competitions in 2025, and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) reversed its stance on the issue in February, only to restrict categories for women to those that are confirmed to be female due to an SRY test at the 2028 Los Angeles Games.
By contrast, cricket has not changed its method – it still has a testosterone threshold, which means that there’s a smaller but still available avenue for trans women to become a part of the top-level competition.
The cricketer whose case has kept this debate in the headlines
The player whose situation has kept this issue in the news is Anaya Bangar, the 25-year-old daughter of former India all-rounder and national batting coach Sanjay Bangar. Born a son named Aryan, she played competitive cricket in India before her transition and trained alongside some of the country’s biggest names, including Virat Kohli.
In March she underwent gender-affirming surgery in Thailand, which her father supported and helped pay for. Since then, Bangar has been a strong proponent of evidence-based policies for inclusion in the sport and has publicly shared her own hormone test results, while seeking to persuade the BCCI and ICC to reconsider their rules for transgender women who have experienced any phase of male puberty from playing elite women’s cricket in India. That appeal to Indian cricket’s governing bodies has not succeeded so far.
However, last month Cricket Australia confirmed Bangar had met the criteria to pursue elite domestic cricket in the country from March 2027, with a possible pathway to the Women’s Big Bash League. Her testosterone level was found to be 0.6 nanomoles per litre in a blood test, which is well within the range set by the sport’s original policy from 2019 and even in its new stricter policy.
Her case has currently taken center stage in the debate: whether transgender athletes should be excluded outright or should be allowed with a certain threshold?