UK Women's Pool Championship Match Features Two Biological Males
When Ultimate Pool crowns a women's champion for the Pro Series event on Sunday, the winner will be a biological male. That's because both the finalists, Harriet Haynes and Lucy Smith, are males who "identify" as women.
Haynes finished the 2024 season as the top-ranked women's player in the Ultimate Pool Pro Series and appears on the way to defending that title in 2025. Haynes also finished as the top-ranked player in 2022 and finished second in 2023. Lucy Smith finished sixth in 2024 and fifth in 2023.
The winner of the event receives 1,800 pounds (about $2,320) and second place gets 900 pounds (about $1,160), according to the Ultimate Pool website. The rest of the top finishers (they pay a total of 16 places) receive 2,700 pounds COMBINED. That means that Haynes and Smith will receive as much money as the 14 women they defeated.
Haynes did an interview in December with the left-leaning British outlet, The Independent.
In the interview, Haynes bemoaned that the English Blackball Pool Federation banned males from competing in women's events. Haynes was so taken aback that an organization wouldn't allow males to compete in women's events that Haynes sued the EBPF.
"I’ve never really considered myself a trailblazer. I’m just a woman who is trying to live my life, and all I want to do is just be treated the same as any other woman," Haynes told The Independent.
Harriet Haynes and Lucy Smith, males who "identify" as women, both reached the championship match of an Ultimate Pool Women's Pro Series event.
(Stock Photo - Getty Images)
"I work in an office environment and I’m treated like a woman every single day in the rest of my life. This is the only aspect of my life where I’m not."
The aspect where Haynes is taking prize money away from women? Yeah, it seems pretty fair that an organization would treat Haynes like the male that the pool player is and not the woman that the pool player claims to be.
Apparently, Ultimate Pool has no such restrictions. Because of that, two males are competing to be crowned the "women's" champion at a professional pool event.
Haynes claims that there is no advantage to being a male playing women's pool.
"The evidence that we’ve received from our expert witnesses shows that I have no advantage. They’ve shown that pool isn’t a gender affected sport… We’re not talking about boxing or golf - we’re talking about pool," Haynes said.
Surely, the fact that two males reached the championship match of a professional women's tournament is just a coincidence.