No major sport has had officials brave enough to tackle the divisive issue of transgender participation — until now.
Swimming's world governing body (FINA) has voted to effectively ban transgender athletes from competing in women's elite races. 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. A statement from FINA said that male-to-female transgender athletes will be eligible to compete only if "they can establish to FINA's comfortable satisfaction that they have not experienced any part of male puberty beyond Tanner Stage 2 (of puberty) or before age 12, whichever is later". [Source: SkyNews]
FINA will explore creating an Open Category for Transwomen (biological males).
Athlete Ally, an LGBTQ athletic advocacy group, responded to the announcement and said the eligibility criteria is "discriminatory". They posted on Twitter: "[It] is 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." [Source: SkyNews]
Finally, some sanity on behalf of women competitive swimmers. Hopefully other sports will find the courage too. Australian Rules Football, your turn!
Is this fair? Or is there an intrinsic injustice of pitting one sort of sexed body against another very different sort?
I’m with the real girls on this one. And against the body deniers among us.
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