A transgender women's rugby player has spoken out about what it's really like competing as a trans woman in sport, saying she can't even 'come close to the level of athleticism' she used to achieve before she transitioned.

Emma Farnan, who plays for the Southern Headliners Rugby Club women's team in the Premier Rugby (PR) Sevens league, told Good Morning America 'being trans doesn't mean inherently that I'm going to be a good player.'

'I still work my a** off to be able to be where I am in sport and to continue performing,' the 27-year-old aerospace engineer, who is studying her PhD at Indiana's University of Notre Dame, said.

'So often discussion of trans women in sport comes down to assuming that we are able to play at the same level as men, and we just can’t. We are women, and we compete equally as a woman.

'I feel like a shell of the athlete that I used to be after taking hormones for a year or two years. Like I can’t even come close to the level of athleticism that I used to be able to compete with.

'There’s not been a single time with PR Sevens that I walked out, and I felt like I was the strongest or the fastest or the tallest girl on the team.'

Emma, who is originally from Bay Shore, New York, also expressed her frustration over not being able to play at a higher level than the PR Sevens after the world body for rugby banned transgender women from playing in international events, such as the Olympics, in 2020.

World Rugby said after months of research, it had 'concluded that safety and fairness cannot presently be assured for women competing against trans women in contact rugby,' however allowing national federations to implement grassroot policies.

'I just think it’s really dangerous because there’s so many people like me that have went through all of the precautions and went through all of the steps to meet to be able to compete fairly,' Emma told GMA.

'And I don't have any opportunity to play at any higher level, regardless of whether I trained my a** off or not. 

'And it's really tough to be in a position where my career isn't limited because I go and tryout and I'm told I'm not good enough, my career is limited because of my medical history.' 

In a recent PR Sevens video, Emma shared her struggles with coming out as a trans woman.

'When I was younger I pretty much always knew that I felt more like a girl, [but] I didn't have the language to describe that,' she said.

'Early on I recognized that my attempts to described that would often lead to bullying and stuff.

'And so I tried to keep it as hidden as possible between abilities in sports and school, I felt like this was just an issue that I had to overcome. 

'It was around my senior year of college that I sort of realized that I couldn't actually go on like this. I wasn't enjoying life as much as I felt like I could and I felt like I wasn't genuinely being myself. It was at that point that I decided to transition.'

Emma said she participated in soccer, wrestling, baseball and track when she was growing up, and the skills she learned from those sports were transferrable to playing rugby.

World Rugby is not the only governing body that has restrictions in place for transgender women athletes.

In June 2022, the world swimming's governing body FINA effectively banned trans athletes from competing in women's events.

Earlier that same year, swimmer Lia Thomas sparked a national debate after becoming the first trans athlete to win an NCAA Division I national championship.

She later dismissed the controversy surrounding her place in the women's category.

'There's a lot of factors that go into a race and how well you do. The biggest change for me is that I'm happy and sophomore year where I had my best times competing with men, I was miserable,' she told ABC News and ESPN in an exclusive interview in May last year.

'Having that be lifted is incredibly relieving and allows me to put my all into training and racing.'

Earlier this month, current and former college athletes, including swimmers Riley Gaines and Marshi Smith, attended a protest and demanded the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) 'take direct and immediate action to establish rules to keep women's collegiate sports female.' 

Footage of the protest shows the athletes and members of ICONS - Independent Council on Women's Sports - reading out their letter at the front of the convention with signs that read: 'Our Bodies, Our Sports.'

The letter handed to the NCAA said: 'In the world of college sports, it is impossible to provide equal opportunities for both sexes (as required by Title IX) without female-only teams.

'Yet the NCAA implements and perpetuates a policy of allowing male athletes on women's teams, even as sports governing bodies and federal courts increasingly reject these unjust and inequitable policies that exclude young women from their own teams.'

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