It turns out trans student athletes aren’t the only ones who are having to contend with politicians keeping them from playing sports, now adult trans hockey players are facing challenges too.
Harrison Browne, who starred in Heated Rivalry and was the first openly transgender pro hockey player, is speaking out against USA Hockey’s new eligibility policy, which doesn’t outright ban trans athletes, but makes it almost impossible for them to compete even in recreational leagues.
Back in November, USA Hockey, the national governing body for hockey, which oversees the U.S. participation in the Olympics, quietly released a new Participant Eligibility Policy, but when Browne found out about it yesterday, he immediately took to Instagram to alert his followers to the updated anti-trans rules.
“USA Hockey is basically telling me I can’t play in a recreational league with friends that I played my entire career with,” Browne told PRIDE. “I just think that’s crazy."
The new policy, which updates what previously was a much more inclusive version from 2019, will put strict rules on who can play in youth, junior, disabled, and adult hockey leagues when it goes into effect on April 1, 2026. According to the updated policy, trans athletes can still play in co-ed leagues, but they are restricted to their sex assigned at birth when it comes to sex-exclusive leagues.
“In all programs where participation is restricted by sex, athletes are only permitted to participate in such programs based on their sex assigned at birth, except that a female (as assigned at birth) may not play in programs restricted to females if they have undergone any male hormone therapy,” the policy reads.
This means that trans women would be forced to play in men’s leagues, and trans men would have to play in women’s leagues unless they take testosterone, in which case they wouldn’t be allowed in either space.
“The safest spaces I’ve found are queer spaces, are women’s spaces,” Browne said, explaining that forcing trans women to play in men’s leagues wouldn’t be safe because they are still plagued by “homophobia and transphobic language, whether that’s on the ice or behind closed doors in the locker room.”
While not an outright ban, this new policy will make it nearly impossible for trans hockey players to play in any league overseen by USA Hockey, which includes less competitive recreational leagues, often called “beer leagues” by players.
Women’s hockey leagues across the country are having to deal with the new policy, with some taking to social media to assure players that they are looking into what it will mean for them. The Seattle Women’s Hockey Club wrote on Instagram, “To our trans members: it is the board's firm belief that our community is better for having you in it. Hockey belongs to anyone who has ever picked up a stick or cheered on their team, and that includes you, regardless of what USA Hockey says.”
Browne places the blame for this shift from a fairly inclusive trans participation policy to one that, in practice, will likely keep many trans athletes from playing hockey squarely on President Donald Trump’s shoulders. “We can’t overlook the fact that the [Trump] Administration is putting a lot of pressure on sports organizations to make a stance against trans participation in sports,” he said.
Republicans frequently claim that their focus on trans women in sports is because they care about fairness, but the argument is specious and ignores the larger issues in the sport, Browne said.
“Transgender women, transgender people are not the issue here,” he said. “It is socioeconomic status, it’s access. If you have access to better coaching, if you have access to better facilities, better equipment, better nutrition, you are automatically going to be a better athlete. What hormones people have in their bodies play a very small part in what they are able to do athletically.”
