World swimming’s governing body Fina voted on Sunday (June 19) to approve new rules barring transgender people after the age of 12 or transgender people who have gone through any stage of male puberty from participating in the top women’s events. competition.
The landmark decision means swimming is the first to have rules for transgender participation that differ from most other Olympic sports — most of which currently limit eligibility by setting a cap on testosterone.
FINA also intends to create a separate “open” category in the competition for players whose gender identity does not match the gender at birth.
Husain Al-Musallam, president of the sport’s governing body, said the decision was made to “protect the rights of our athletes to compete”, but also to “guarantee the fairness of competition”.
World Athletics president Lord Coe welcomed FINA’s decision and suggested the World Athletics could follow suit with similar rules.
Baron Coe told the BBC there was “no room for negotiation” on the fairness of sporting competitions.
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World Athletics President Baron Sebastian Coe backs FINA decision
Swimming is the second Olympic sport governing body to explicitly ban transgender people from competing – before only the World Rugby introduced a rule banning transgender athletes in 2020.
According to Reuters, the world football governing body Fifa (FIFA), like the World Athletics Federation, will begin reviewing policies related to the eligibility of transgender people in the project.
What are the new rules for FINA?
FINA chief’s new 34-page policy document states that transgender athletes who have been gender-reassigned from men to women can compete in women’s events – but only if they provide sufficient evidence that they “have not experienced Male puberty at any stage after Tanner Stage 2” and “under 12 years of age”.
The decision comes at an unusual time when the World Aquatics Championships are underway in Budapest.
That means transgender American college swimmer Lia Thomas, who has said she wants to qualify for an Olympics, will not be allowed to compete in women’s Olympic swimming.
However, the rules do not apply to national swimming associations or the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) events, where Thomas recently won gold in the 500-meter freestyle.
Swimming management bodies in various countries, including British Swimming, are required to decide for themselves whether to implement FINA policies within their associations.
British Swimming told the BBC Sport it would review the rules before commenting.
FINA executive director Brent Nowicki said the agency’s drafted policy was “comprehensive, science-based and inclusive, and importantly, FINA’s approach emphasizes the fairness of competition”.
Chairman Mushalam said that FINA welcomes every athlete and that the creation of an “open category” will mean that anyone can have the opportunity to compete in top-level events.
“I want all athletes to have a sense of belonging and be able to generate ideas along the way,” Mushalam said.
The new policy, supported by 71 per cent of the 152 FINA members, has been described as a “first step towards full integration” for transgender athletes.
Before making the rules, FINA heard reports from a task force on transgender issues made up of leading experts in medicine, law and sport.
Experts mainly expressed the following opinions in the group meeting:
- Physiologist and leading expert in human function, Dr. Michael Joiner (Dr Michael Joyner）：“Testosterone is a physiological determinant that regulates body function during male puberty and explains sex differences in body function and is thought to be clearly evident by age 12…Even if testosterone is suppressed, its performance-boosting effect persists .”
- Activist, research scholar and lawyer Dr. Adrian Zhuko (Dr Adrian Jjuuko）：“This policy underscores that no athlete will be excluded from FINA events…(The open category scheme) should not be a category that would increase the level of discrimination and marginalisation that these groups already have.”
- Dr. Sandra Hunt, an exercise physiologist who specializes in gender and age differences in athletic performance (Dr Sandra Hunter）：“By the age of 14 and beyond, there are already real differences between boys and girls. This is due to the physiological regulation of testosterone and the presence of the Y chromosome…even in cases where testosterone is suppressed or reduced after the transition from male to female, some such as Physical advantages such as height, limb length, cardiorespiratory volume are structural and will continue to exist.”
- Former Olympic and World Champion Summer Sanders (Summer Sanders）：“Fair play is a foundation and hallmark of our society – an approach that safeguards the established sporting processes that tens of millions of girls and women participate in every year.”
British retired swimmer Sharron Davies, who has opposed transgender players in women’s events in the past, told BBC Sport she was “proud of FINA” and said those discussions should have started earlier.
“Sports itself is defined by exclusivity — we don’t have 15-year-old boys run against under-12s, we don’t have heavyweights fighting bantamweights,” Davis said. She said having different categories and levels is a prerequisite for fair play, and if not, “the only losers are women – they lose their right to play fair.”
But Athlete Ally, an LGBT advocacy group that wrote a letter in support of Leah Thomas in February, said FINA’s new policy was “discriminatory, Harmful, unscientific and inconsistent with the principles of the 2021 International Olympic Committee (IOC).”
Anne Lieberman, the organization’s director of policy and programs, said the new eligibility rules would only “severely violate the privacy and human rights of any athlete who wants to compete in the women’s category.”
Others said the creation of additional open categories would further exclude an already marginalized group.
Australian swimmer Maddie Groves said on Twitter: “Everyone who supports this discriminatory and unscientific decision should feel shame.”
Joanna Harper, who is also a trans athlete at Loughborough University in the UK, is also concerned that open categories will actually increase discrimination and marginalisation, “unlikely “It worked.
“Will they have Olympic medals for this open category? Will there be professional swimmers in the open category? I’m not sure, it might work, but I suspect it won’t make sense.”
One of the biggest debates in sports
Whether or not to include trans women in women’s sports is a topic of polarized opinion inside and outside the sports world.
Many argue that trans women shouldn’t play in women’s sports because they may retain a physical advantage because they were once men — but others argue that competitive sports should be more inclusive.
World Athletics president Baron Sebastian Coe said the “integrity” and “future” of women’s sport would be “very fragile” if sports bodies failed to develop proper rules for transgender athletes.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said in April that he did not think trans women should compete in women’s events.
British Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries told the media on Sunday that she would “encourage” other sports to follow FINA’s rules, adding that “the principle of fairness should always trump inclusivity”.
At the heart of the debate on whether trans women athletes should compete in women’s sports involves a complex balance of factors such as inclusivity, sporting equity and safety—essentially, whether trans athletes participate in women’s sports, whether Guaranteed not to gain an unfair advantage or threaten the athlete with injury.
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Laurel Hubbard is the first openly transgender athlete to compete in the Olympics
There are a number of rules that trans women must follow when competing in certain events — in many cases, they need to lower their body’s testosterone levels below a certain level and wait for a period of time before they can compete.
However, as the FINA decision underlines, the physical advantages that athletes gain from experiencing male puberty may not be eliminated by lowering testosterone.
Last week, cycling’s governing body, the International Cycling Union (UCI), lowered the upper limit of testosterone concentrations for male-to-female transgender athletes competing in women’s competition from 5nmol/L to 2.5nmol/L, and doubled the waiting period before competing to 2.5nmol/L. two years.
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Leah Thomas competes as transgender athlete in U.S. college women’s program
Swimming-related issues are in the spotlight because of Leah Thomas.
Leah Thomas became the first known transgender swimmer to win an NCAA event when she won gold in the 500-meter freestyle in a college competition in March — Thomas had previously represented the U.S. The Pennsylvania men’s swim team competed for three seasons before starting hormone replacement therapy in the spring of 2019.
After that, she broke multiple women’s records on behalf of her college women’s team.
More than 300 college, national or Olympic swimmers have signed in support of Thomas and all transgender athletes, but some of Thomas’ teammates and parents wrote anonymously to support Thomas’ right to choose his or her gender, while saying she was It’s not fair for women to compete.
USA Swimming revised its regulations in February to allow transgender athletes to compete at elite levels, while limiting unfair advantage with regulations, including a 36-month testosterone test before competition.
At last year’s Tokyo Olympics, New Zealand weightlifter Laurel Hubbard became the first openly transgender athlete to compete at the Olympics with a gender different from her birth.