FINA votes to restrict transgender participation in elite swimming competition

Budapest: World swimming’s governing body has effectively banned transgender women from competing in women’s events, starting from Monday.

FINA members widely adopted a new “gender inclusion policy” on Sunday that only permits swimmers who transitioned before age 12 to compete in women’s events. The organisation also proposed an “open competition category”.

The debate intensified after swimmer Lia Thomas became the first transgender NCAA champion in Division I history.Credit: AP

“This is not saying that people are encouraged to transition by the age of 12. It’s what the scientists are saying, that if you transition after the start of puberty, you have an advantage, which is unfair,” James Pearce, who is the spokesperson for FINA president Husain Al-Musallam, said.

“They’re not saying everyone should transition by age 11, that’s ridiculous. You can’t transition by that age in most countries and hopefully you wouldn’t be encouraged to. Basically, what they’re saying is that it is not feasible for people who have transitioned to compete without having an advantage.”

Pearce confirmed there are currently no transgender women competing in elite levels of swimming.

The World Professional Association for Transgender Health just lowered its recommended minimum age for starting gender transition hormone treatment to 14 and some surgeries to 15 or 17.

FINA’s new 24-page policy also proposed a new “open competition” category. The organisation said it was setting up “a new working group that will spend the next six months looking at the most effective ways to set up this new category”.

Pearce told the AP that the open competition would most likely mean more events, but those details still need to be worked out.

“No one quite knows how this is going to work. And we need to include a lot of different people, including transgender athletes, to work out how it would work,” he said. “So there are no details of how that would work. The open category is something that will start being discussed tomorrow.”

The members voted 71.5 per cent in favour at the organisation’s extraordinary general congress after hearing presentations from three specialist groups – an athlete group, a science and medicine group and a legal and human rights group. The groups had been working together to form the policy following recommendations given by the International Olympic Committee last November.

The IOC urged shifting the focus from individual testosterone levels and calling for evidence to prove when a performance advantage existed.

FINA’s “deeply discriminatory, harmful, unscientific” new policy is “not in line with (the IOC’s) framework on fairness, inclusion and non-discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sex variations,” Anne Lieberman of Athlete Ally, a non-profit that advocates for LGBTQ athletes, said in a statement.

“The eligibility criteria for the women’s category as it is laid out in the policy (will) police the bodies of all women, and will not be enforceable without seriously violating the privacy and human rights of any athlete looking to compete in the women’s category,” Lieberman said.

Transgender athlete Lia Thomas last month said she was aiming to become an Olympic swimmer.Credit: Getty

FINA said it recognises “that some individuals and groups may be uncomfortable with the use of medical and scientific terminology related to sex and sex-linked traits (but) some use of sensitive terminology is needed to be precise about the sex characteristics that justify separate competition categories.”

In March, Lia Thomas made history in the US as the first transgender woman to win an NCAA swimming championship, the 500-yard freestyle.

Thomas said last month on ABC’s Good Morning America that she was aiming to become an Olympic swimmer. She also disputed those who say she has an unfair biological edge that ruins the integrity of women’s athletics, saying “trans women are not a threat to women’s sports”.

McKeown claims silver

Meantime, Kaylee McKeown has annexed Australia’s second individual medal of the world swimming championships – a 200m medley silver – but only after a shock decision not to compete in her best event.

The triple Olympic champion caused surprise in Budapest by ruling herself out of Sunday morning’s preliminaries of the 100m backstroke, the event she dominated in Tokyo and at which she holds the world record.

As the semi-finals were taking place less than 20 minutes before the medley final later in the afternoon, McKeown decided to throw all her efforts into proving herself a global champion all-rounder.

Kaylee McKeown congratulates medley winner Alex Walsh.Credit: AP

But even though the 20-year-old had to give best to American star Alex Walsh, a dominant winner in 2 minutes 07.13 seconds, McKeown was adamant the decision to go for the pressure-free, medley option had paid off.

“I wasn’t really expecting to come up and podium tonight, it was more just getting the international experience,” said the Queenslander, who was 1.44sec adrift of Walsh, clocking 2:08.571.

“Sadly, I pulled out of this event at the Olympics to focus on the backstroke and this is the perfect refresher for the next three years – just taking the pressure off – and it was really good mentally for me.

“At the start of this year, I wasn’t even sure if I’d be doing Worlds or Commonwealth Games because of my shoulder injury, so I’m really proud of myself that I’ve managed to get here and gather the momentum to get on the podium in my first event.”

McKeown had hoped to add to Australia’s golden start on Saturday when both Elijah Winnington in the 400m freestyle and the women’s 4x100m freestyle team both triumphed.

AP, AAP

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