German soccer says transgender players can decide their team

BERLIN (AP) — German soccer is bucking the recent trend of banning transgender women from women’s competition by allowing all transgender, intersex and non-binary players to decide for themselves whether to play in men’s or women’s teams. The German soccer federation has passed a new regulation for gender-nonconforming players with “diverse” or “unspecified” as their civil status. The DFB says “it also applies to transgender players who can now switch at a self-determined time or remain initially in the team in which they’d been playing previously. As long as the sporting activity does not affect the health of the person while they are taking medication, the person can take part in the game.”