Germany’s governing soccer body on Thursday passed a new regulation allowing transgender, intersex and nonbinary players to decide for themselves whether to play on men’s or women’s teams. The new guideline, which will take effect from the junior level upward in the coming season, runs counter to recent bans of transgender or nonbinary athletes.
“Soccer stands for diversity, and the DFB is also committed to this,” Thomas Hitzlsperger, the Deutscher Fußball-Bund’s ambassador of diversity, said in a statement. “With the regulation of the right to play, we are creating further important conditions to enable players of different gender identities to play.