Swimming Governing Body Bans Competitors from Women's Elite Events if They Went Through Male Puberty

FINA, swimming's world governing body, has voted to stop transgender athletes from competing in women's elite races if they have gone through any part of the process of male puberty.  The new policy requires transgender competitors to have completed their transition by the age of 12 in order to be able to compete in women's competitions.  Fina will also aim to establish an 'open' category at competitions for swimmers whose gender identity is different than their birth sex.

FINA's decision follows a move by the UCI cycling's govering body to double the period of time before a rider transitioning from male to female can compete in women's races.  Swimming's new policy, which was passed with 71% of the vote from 152 Fina members, was described as "only a first step towards full inclusion" for transgender athletes.  The decision was made during an extraordinary general congress at the ongoing World Championships in Budapest.

The conversation around the inclusion of transgender women in women's sport has divided opinion both inside and outside the sporting sphere.  Many argue transgender women should not compete in women's sport because of any advantages they may retain - but others argue sport should be more inclusive.  The heart of the debate on whether transgender women athletes should compete in women's sport involves the complex balance of inclusion, sporting fairness and safety - essentially, whether trans women can compete in female categories without giving them an unfair advantage or presenting a threat of injury to competitors.  Trans women have to adhere to a number of rules to compete in specific sports, including in many cases lowering their testosterone levels to a certain amount, for a set period of time, before competing.  There are concerns, however, as highlighted in Fina's decision, that athletes retain an advantage from going through male puberty that is not addressed by lowering testosterone.

"Fina's approach in drafting [the new] policy was comprehensive, science-based and inclusive, and, importantly, Fina's approach emphasized competitive fairness," said Brent Nowicki, the governing body's executive director.  Fina president Husain Al-Musallam said the organization was trying to "protect the rights of our athletes to compete" but also "protect competitive fairness".  He added, "Fina will always welcome every athlete. The creation of an open category will mean that everybody has the opportunity to compete at an elite level. This has not been done before, so Fina will need to lead the way. I want all athletes to feel included in being able to develop ideas during this process."

Former Great Britain swimmer Sharron Davies said, "Sport by definition is exclusionary - we don't have 15-year-old boys racing in the under-12s, we don't have heavyweight boxers in with the bantamweights, the whole reason we have lots of different classes in the Paralympics is so that we can create fair opportunities for everybody.  So that is the whole point of having classifications in sports and the only people who were going to be losing out were females - they were losing their right to fair sport."

However, 'Athlete Ally' - an LGBT advocacy group which organized a letter of support for transgender American swimmer Lia Thomas in February, called the new policy "discriminatory, harmful, unscientific" and not in line with the 2021 IOC principles.  "If we truly want to protect women's sports, we must include all women," it said in a tweet.

The issue in swimming has been catapulted into the spotlight by the experiences of Lia Thomas.  In March, Thomas became the first known transgender swimmer to win the highest U.S. national college title with victory in the women's 500-yard freestyle.  Thomas swam for the Pennsylvanian men's team for three seasons before starting hormone replacement therapy in spring 2019.  She has since broken records for her university swimming team.  Some of Thomas' team-mates and their parents wrote anonymous letters supporting her right to transition, but added it was unfair for her to compete as a woman.