Fina stops transgender swimmers from competing in women's elite events

Coming from trans swimmers tweets upthread I mean

This hyperbole about transwomen being put at risk of drowning or excluded from sport is infuriating. Why not just own the situation for what it is and push for as many sports to have open categories as possible. I'm sure there would be plenty of corporate sponsorship and public support for open teams or athletes.

That is interesting Horizons...

So this new ruling by FINA could be used in athletics to reset the guidelines for males to do athletics. Meaning it it might cut through the 'what about Semenya' conversations.

Ie. make it about male puberty full stop.

I hope so. Go Coe!

Notwithstanding, values for strength, LBM and muscle area in transwomen remain above those of cisgender women, even after 36 months of hormone therapy

Even transwoman Joanna Harper's study, quoted above, shows that any loss of performance in male athletes undergoing testosterone reduction treatment does not reduce the advantage of having a male body

And now it looks like Athletics may follow:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/athletics/61865789

We have always believed that biology trumps gender and we will continue to review our regulations in line with this. We will follow the science.

I feel a bit gas-lit, but happy!

Good, although I've seen plenty of articles today from "women" with penises complaining about how the loss of strength is not taken into account.

It bloody well is, blokes. You might have sacrificed some of your muscle mass, but you know full damn well you still have an advantage and I would venture that's exactly why you want to compete as women in the vast majority of cases. Because winning matters more to you than fair play.

Agree, not sure how many will buy tickets, watch the events on TV, buy the merchandise etc. And who will sponsor ? Sports although good for us is a money making enterprise.
I would be amazed to see any open category for long, once its realised that really no one wanted this, they just wanted validation.

Oh have heard it all now!

this ruling had absolutely no bearing on kids swimming lessons at bloody all!

Someone with a penis is told they have to compete with other people with penises (or is it penii ?) and it means more will drown?

i learned to swim in my late 40s. I now swim for a competitive masters squad. I can compete. Sure. I’ll never be elite though.

I still don’t want men in the lanes when I’m racing because it means I’ve got absolutely no chance of not coming last.

how do these people even think this? Do they say this shit out loud before they tweet it?

Jesus they aren't doing themselves any favours here

I’d have thought being able to swim was a key part of being an elite swimmer.

Totally dishonest post by the trans swimmer. Nobody is banned from competing, in fact special mention is made that transmen on testosterone can compete in the male category if they have a medical certificate to prove they are taking testosterone for therapeutic reasons. Transwoman can also compete in this category, what they can't do is compete in a category where all the evidence shows they have an unfair advantage as they have male bodies.

This policy for elite swimmers will lead to higher drowning rates. 🧐Shame on FINA!

Won't they just rebrand mens as open - like darts today? There is the open and then females and at least one women plays in the open

Of course it's not a blanket ban, she's talking absolute nonsense

I follow a transgender swimmer on Instagram, she’s done quite a bit to encourage people to take part in swimming, particularly open water and the benefits of cold water, which is great. She posted the below today. This decision hasn’t banned any transgender people from swimming though has it? It just means men who identify as women can’t compete against them right?

The thing about this issue is that the data is crystal clear and there is tonnes of it. Women cannot be competitive when competing against men and how people like Lia Thomas identify makes no difference to that whatsoever.

Erasing natal women from sport is not an acceptable price to pay to placate a small group who want inclusion entirely on their own terms.

Thank you Dreikanter Think the polite phrase for that is cherry picking.

Taken from Twitter.

Lots of pp saying that an additional 'open' category is fair. I disagree. Female swimmers won't be able to compete in an elite level open category for obvious reasons, so it will effectively be an additional category for males. Given that resources are finite, that will surely end up reducing support and opportunities for female swimmers. If there is to be an open category, it should replace the male category.

Agree with everyone what excellent news this is.

A quibble re the title: this decision doesn't stop transgender swimmers from competing in women's elite events, only males. Presumably transmen who haven't taken T (or had any other advantageous medical interventions) will still be welcome in women's events (as they are in most single-sex spaces).

I should add of course that from a spectator perspective people enjoy marvelling at outliers of human physiology such as the cyclist Miguel Indurain's resting heartrate of 28bpm [only 1 bmp higher than the world record].

The imagination of spectators seem to be captured rather less wholly by 'gifts' which are shared with 50.5% of the world's entire population.

The comparison with Phelps' feet is incredibly tiresome, for reasons not limited to the following:

(a) The 1980s-born male swimmer who was actually famous for having outsized feet [size 17] was Ian Thorpe, with Phelps' being 'only' size 14;
(b) Thorpe's feet (news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/other_sports/831211.stm) are actually are reminder of the extent to which being a large person, with large hands and feet, confers an advantage in swimming - Thorpe, an athletic, very but not freakishly tall man, has bigger feet than the single woman on the entire planet of 8 billion or whatever it is, does (www.guinnessworldrecords.com/news/book/2019/4/woman-with-worlds-biggest-female-feet-gets-her-custom-made-size-15-wedding-shoes-568744), with the woman in question looking in photos [sorry] rather awkward and unathletic.
(c) Having separate sporting categories for foot size would obviously be a nonsense, with far too many questions over measurement [e.g. whether you measure width/length/volume, whether you factor in toe-webbedness etc]; where to draw the line [e.g. above sized 13 or similar?]; and how many entrants there'd be in each category in a given year.

(d) But if there actually was a sporting category for people with outsized feet then the likes of Ian Thorpe absolutely would have to go in it, it'd be ludicrous for him to be able to identify his way into a category for swimmers with little trotter-like feet.
(e) In those few sports where physical size has been deemed to confer an intolerable advantage on bigger people but where there's a will to get smaller people involved [primarily the combat sports, also weightlifting] & necessitating multiple within-sex categories, the weigh-in is a huge deal/can attract many TV viewers/is carried out with great precision etc. Nobody thinks that a boxer using last minute various dehydration techniques including sauna/laxatives/etc etc etc is 'cheating', [s]he's just doing what's sensible to get into an competitively advantageous category. Self identification into weight classes would be beyond nonsensical.

A sensible decision.

Waiting for the BBC getting backlash for reporting it...

And of course, Phelps only retains one of his 5 LC world records now (400m IM)

Which is only 1.34s faster than the next best, by Ryan Lochte, but 22s faster than Katinka Hosszù’s world record of the same event.

No one ever mentions Paul Biedermann, Caleb Dressel, Kristof Milak or Ryan Lochte, all men who have swim faster than Phelps. No one mentions their arm span, or claim they have webbed toes. Phelps is just the go-to for nonsense arguments.