Lia Thomas and other transgender athletes are banned by world swimming's governing body FINA from competing against women: Separate 'open category' will be set up

FINA, world swimming's governing body, adopted a new policy to prohibit transgender women from competing in women's races
Under the new rules a transgender women can only compete in women's races if they have completed their transition by age 12
They will then have to prove that they are continuously suppressing their testosterone levels
A separate open category will be created for swimming competitions in future
The decision came after the International Olympic Committee left it up to individual sports federations to develop rules about transgender athletes
A task force concluded that biological women 'cannot compete' against anyone who went through male puberty who will have higher testosterone levels
The rule will prevent Lia Thomas from competing against women in international events leading up to the Olympics

Elite swimming is the first sport to ban transgender athletes from women's races even if they went through male puberty, the international sports federation for swimming announced Sunday. Lia Thomas, a transgender swimmer, is pictured

The decision to ban transgender athletes from FINA events was made during the federation's extraordinary general congress as the world championships take place in Budapest.

Members of the organization heard from a transgender task force comprising leading medical, legal and sports figures, which first convened to discuss the issue after the International Olympic Committee urged individual sports federations to create guidance on transgender athletes in November.

At the time, the IOC urged the federations to shift their focus from individual testosterone levels, and called for evidence to prove when a performance advantage existed.

Husain Al Musallam, the president of FINA, announced the new policy on Sunday

The experts concluded in their policythat there needs to be eligibility standards based on biological sex, writing: 'Without eligibility standards based on biological sex or sex-linked traits, we are very unlikely to see biological females in finals, on podiums on in championship positions.'

As the scientists explained, biological males see their testosterone levels increase 20 fold during puberty, while the levels remain low in biological women during puberty - often around the age of 12.

'A biological female athlete cannot overcome that advantage through training or nutrition. Nor can they take additional testosterone to obtain the same advantage, because testosterone is a prohibited substance under the World Anti Doping Code.'

The policy was passed with a 71 percent majority after it was put to the members of 152 national federations with voting rights who had gathered for the congress at the Puskas Arena.

Around 15 percent voted no to the policy on eligibility in the men's and women's competition categories, while 13 percent abstained.

Husain Al-Musallam, president of FINA, then announced the news on Sunday afternoon.

'I do not want any athlete to be told they cannot compete at the highest level,' Al-Musallam told a congress of his organization today.

'I will set up a working group to set up an open category at our meets.

'We will be the first federation to do that.'

And following the news, Olympic swimmer Jessica Hardy Meichetry thanked the organization for its decision, while Ross Tucker, the co-host of the Science of Sports podcast tweeted: 'Thank you FINA for listening to women, your own swimmers and coaches, and to science in creating a policy that respects women’s sport.'

Comment

You need to be a member of CaribbeanFever / FeverEyes / CaribFever to add comments!

Join CaribbeanFever / FeverEyes / CaribFever

Comment by alexachris on June 30, 2022 at 8:00am: Since it's easy dashboard's user interface for managing and controlling the whole activity really entices the audience to use to come here as their primary choice. It has a huge dedicated community to keep it in a flow in making it easy to use, search engine friendly file architecture makes it absolutely best for small to medium size applications like cipd assignment writing Ireland

Comment by vaughn mitchell on June 26, 2022 at 3:29pm: Damn right, I was waiting for someone to come to their senses. Damn dude want to race against women. These women train hard to get to the Olympics, and this fool want to take their dream away.

Comment by caribmama on June 23, 2022 at 9:41pm: Create your own teams. These girls have worked hard for years only to have strong males dressed up as women taking their medals from them.

Comment by John Smith on June 23, 2022 at 2:30am: OMG..

Think of us for Company Registration in Kerala and Business Registration in Kerala - https://www.parpella.com/one-person-company-registration/

Comment by Sheldine Forde on June 21, 2022 at 12:40pm: LMFAO

Comment by Tyrone on June 21, 2022 at 9:53am: All women should feel threatened with these nasty mofos running around, because they're trying to take women's places. This is just overbearing that even stories like this is at the top of the list. These nasty mofos want to be acknowledged as women, but have a penis, I don't get it. These mofos are confused and need psychiatric help.

Comment by mr1stroke on June 20, 2022 at 7:03pm: You can call your self transgender, trans woman's trans girl, there is nothing female about you, face it you are a man with a dick who wants to be lime women and suck dicks, if you want to be in a team how about male up a transgender team, you cannot be a born male walking a round with a dick competing in a woman's team, how fair is that? Damn creatures