UK Athletics has performed a U-turn by announcing an immediate ban on transgender women from competing in the female category across all its events. The decision comes two months after UKA claimed that it wanted to implement a ban, in order to protect the female category, but feared it would be too “risky” to do so unless the government changed the law. That led to criticism from the Equality and Human Rights Commission for its “inaccurate” interpretation of the Equality Act. However in a statement on Friday afternoon, UKA said it would be implementing a new policy after “receiving the required assurances from relevant bodies that the sporting exemption in the Equality Act 2010 applies to the Gender Recognition Act 2004”.