The International Swimming Federation (FINA) this Sunday approved a new gender inclusion policy and created an “open category” that prevents transgender people from competing in elite women’s competitions unless they have completed the transition by age 12.
Organization President Hussain Al-Musallam explained: “We must protect the rights of our athletes to compete, as well as protect the fairness of the competition in our competitions, especially in the women’s category. FINA will always be glad to all athletes. Creating an open category will mean that everyone will have the opportunity to compete at the elite level. This has never happened before, so FINA will have to lead. I want all athletes to feel involved so that we can develop ideas during this process.
During the World Championships in Budapest, FINA decided to be the “first sport” to create an “open category”, and for this purpose a working group will be formed that “in the next six months” will outline the forms of the same.
The measures, passed by 71% of the votes of 152 members in an extraordinary congress, require transgender participants to complete the transition by age 12 in order to compete in women’s competition.
The decision came during a swimming controversy involving North American transgender swimmer Leah Thomas, a 22-year-old student who recently became the first transgender swimmer to win a national varsity title, and some argue that Thomas, having competed as a male in the past, took advantage of the physiological advantage classified as unfair.
This view was supported after FINA set up a panel made up of athletes, lawyers and medical experts that concluded that men who became women retained the benefits of “bigger hearts, longer bones, bigger legs and arms”. “.
