Its sort of counterintuitive that a macho sport like rugby is leading the way where others fear to tread.

It's not counterintuitive when you realize they are looking at the issue primarily from the safety angle. Rugby is incredibly dangerous - lots of life-altering, paralyzing injuries, and a good number of deaths. This is something everyone who plays and follows the sport knows.

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/116610-rugby-one-of-the-most-dangerous-and-traumatic-sport

https://www.walesonline.co.uk/sport/rugby/rugby-news/stories-men-women-children-killed-15199636

To allow males to play against females vastly increases the likelihood of a female player being killed or ending up the rest of her life in a wheelchair. The huge provable physical risk to females of letting TIMs into women's elite rugby outweighs the alleged, unquantifiable psychological benefit that might accrue to these males.

Moreover, no insurance company is going to provide coverage for leagues, teams and individuals involved in rugby competition where males are allowed to tackle, block, head butt, scrum with and generally go up against females - or females are allowed to do the same to males. Coz women can get gravely injured tackling, blocking, head butting or scrumming with males who are simply standing still and put up no resistance.

https://youtu.be/vdoU4cpf-tg

The governing body knows this, so even if they wanted to let TIMs into elite female rugby, their insurers would force them to prohibit it.

That's one of the reasons the world governing body has banned TIMs from elite level women's rugby only. On the face of it, lower-level rugby such as school teams and community clubs can still allow TIMs on female teams. But that's only theoretical, coz the insurance companies will tell them that if they do, their policies are null and void. Insurance companies don't put up with this kind of recklessness when it comes to such huge, needless safety risks that are completely preventable.