Top transgender blog Erin in the Morning has some good news from the US women's rugby movement.

A women's rugby team in the United States is refusing to comply with a federal directive that would exclude transgender athletes from competing, instead vowing to keep playing until they are physically removed from the pitch. The Baltimore Ferals, a Division 3 side in Maryland, have attracted nationwide attention for their stance against what they describe as transphobic interference from the Trump administration.

Christa Robinson, a forward for the Ferals, made her position clear in an interview with local news outlet The Banner. "I'm ready to keep playing rugby until they drag me off the field," she said. "You can pry this ball out of my cold, dead hands."

USA Rugby Bows to Federal Pressure

The team's defiance comes after USA Rugby, the sport's national governing body, adopted a policy in February that restricts participation in women's competitions to those "assigned female at birth." The move followed mounting pressure from the Trump administration, which issued an executive order targeting transgender participation in women's sports earlier this year. USA Rugby faced the threat of decertification if it did not comply, which would have allowed the government to replace the organisation with one of its own design.

Despite this, the Ferals—who play under the Baltimore Flamingos Club, a group that explicitly welcomes LGBTQ rugby players—have refused to sideline their trans teammates. And they are far from alone. According to The Banner, the Ferals recently faced another side that also includes transgender players, and both teams agreed not to report one another, rendering the ban effectively meaningless in regional fixtures.

Open Defiance, Not Quiet Compliance

The Ferals, however, have gone a step further. Instead of quietly hoping nobody notices, they are openly challenging the discriminatory policies. Shortly after Trump's executive order, the Flamingos posted a statement: "Trans women are women and belong in women's sports." It added, "We are proud that so many of our opponents have shown us that they share these values and we hope that clubs around the nation continue to recruit and uplift trans players, especially in the face of transphobic policies."

Val Pizzo, a trans man and former president of the Flamingos, told The Banner: "We're not asking for permission to be here. We're playing." Pizzo helped organise the first all-trans competition within the Bingham Cup and Amanda Mark Cup, the world's premier LGBTQ rugby tournament, scheduled for August in Australia. "We're not going to forfeit matches," Pizzo said. "We're gonna show up as we are. We're gonna shoulder that burden for our players."

Rugby Community Rallies Behind Trans Inclusion

There were initial fears of backlash from opposing teams, but the response has been overwhelmingly supportive. Players across the women's rugby scene have worn trans pride flags during matches in protest. According to The Guardian, no other sport in the United States has seen such an immediate and collective cry of resistance following a trans-exclusionary policy. Even when World Rugby became the first international federation to adopt anti-trans measures in 2020, USA Rugby resisted—until now.

Since the ban was implemented in March, a campaign called Rugby for All, spearheaded by the blog Your Scrumhalf Connection, has urged women's teams nationwide to rebrand as "open" or mixed-gender sides, effectively rendering a restricted women's category useless because no teams would compete in it. The Guardian reports that the group is "building a collective bargaining movement across the sport."

Countless other clubs have also spoken out, including the Golden Badgers of Colorado, a Division 1 side. In May, they posted that trans players "will always be welcome and protected on our team." The message from rugby players across the country is clear, as the Ferals put it: "They Can't Stop Us."