Trans women who have experienced any part of puberty will not be eligible to compete in elite women’s swimming on the international stage.
FINA said in a statement that they had created three groups to study the issue of trans inclusion in elite swimming.
- Athletes
- Science & Medicine
- Legal & Human Rights
After analyzing the conclusions of these groups, FINA developed a new policy that will apply at all FINA events. The policy will also be followed for world record ratification, wherever the competition took place.”
FINA President Husain Al-Musallam said,
We have to protect the rights of our athletes to compete, but we also have to protect competitive fairness at our events, especially the women’s category at FINA competitions.”
The new policy got overwhelming support from voting members, with 71.5% of them supporting the policy.
This essentially means all trans women are banned from the sport unless they transitioned before the age of 12.(You can read more about the specifics of the new policy at Out Sports.)
Previously, former Penn swimmer and national champion Lia Thomas had expressed an interest in making a run at Team USA for the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics.
This new policy kills any hope of trans women of competing in the female category at the Olympics.
Fina, the global governing body for swimming, said Sunday it would ban transgender women from participating in women’s swimming events if they transitioned after the age of 12. https://t.co/LIrpzVz4zs
— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) June 19, 2022
(Photos, YouTube, screen grab; via Out Sports)
