Tess Howard has been awarded an MBE for services to inclusive sportswear for women and girls, having founded the non-profit Inclusive Sportswear CIC and now being recognised in the New Year Honours list.
Howard, 26 next week, competed at her first Olympics in the summer and has now become a pioneer for clothing choice.
She has led calls for female athletes to have a choice to wear skorts or shorts after research she conducted found 70 percent reported incidents of girls dropping sport at school due to clothing and related body image concerns.
It led to new inclusive playing kit regulations being launched at the start of England Hockey’s domestic league 2022/23.
The International Hockey Federation (FIH) followed suit last June before an England team became the first to run out in combination of hockey skorts and shorts during the 2023 EuroHockey Championships.
After launching Inclusive Sportswear CIC, a community-interest company specialising in the development of rigorously inclusive sportswear policies and guidance for schools, clubs, sport organisations and brands, she said in 2023: “I continually ask myself: If not now, when? If not us, who? That is what drives me.
“The momentum has been building, now we must connect sports clothing to inclusion and participation in sport.
“But it’s so much more than that: this connects to a greater global movement for individual choice over how we clothe and treat our bodies.”
- READ MORE: Does the skort still have a place in hockey?
- Anna Toman: We must have a voice when it comes to sports kit, feel and sizes
Howard was one of 18 Olympians who received honours for services to their sports.
Meanwhile, former hockey player Anita White, who captained England during their successful 1975 campaign at the first Women’s World Hockey Championship, has been awarded a CBE for services to women and to sport.
White is the founder of International Working Group on Women and Sport, Women in Sport, as well as the Anita White Foundation.
