World Swimming Organization FINA bans transgender women from competition
In yet another attack on the transgender community globally, World Swimming’s governing body FINA (Frech: Fédération Internationale de Natation) announced a new ruling this week that now bans transgender women from competing in swimming events effective of Monday, June 27, 2022.
The new ruling is very specific and exclusionary. FINA declares that only transgender women who transitioned before the age of 12 can compete in women’s competitions. Anyone who transitioned after the age of 12 will be excluded.
FINA is calling this new policy the “gender inclusion policy” and was created with the knowledge that very few countries around the world allow citizens to transition at such a young age. Sweden recently changed their laws to allow this to happen, but this is exceptionally rare.
In an effort to make it appear like transgender women were not being excluded from the sport entirely, FINA proposed the idea of an “open competition category” where trans women who transitioned over the age of 12 would be able to compete against other.
James Pearce, spokesperson for the FINA president said that “a new working group will spend the next six months looking at the most effective ways to set up this new category.”
Allegedly, this would likely include multiple events, but there are no details surrounding this at the moment.
Pearce confirmed that there are currently no female transgender athletes competing at elite levels.
The very clearly transphobic policy is discriminatory for many reasons. However, it was devised with the knowledge that the World Professional Association for Transgender Health just recently lowered its recommended minimum age for starting gender transition treatment to 14, while some surgeries were only lowered to 15.
With this recommendation in place, the likelihood that countries will adjust their laws and policies surrounding adolescent transition is almost non-existent.
FINA members voted with an astounding 71% in favor of the new policy. Prior to the vote, presentations from three specialist groups were delivered. These consisted of one athlete group, a science and medical group, and a legal and human rights group that had allegedly been working together to form recommendations.
It is unclear at this time what those recommendations were, and whether FINA chose to enact them or act in spite of them.
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