More threats to womens sport - FIFA and FINA

[BatDuck]

Today FINA are due to vote on their new trans inclusion policy following the Lia Thomas scandal. I was hoping for a good outcome until I saw Cathy Devine tweet that the following groups will make presentations before the vote:

1. scientists


2. human rights experts


3. trans athletes

guess who’s missing?

And now I’ve just read FIFA are looking to loosen their approach so every man and his dog can identify into.

www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/sportsnews/article-10930499/Experts-fear-FIFAs-make-easier-transgender-women-harm-female-football.html

I despair.

Excellent news from FINA and it sounds like a step in the right direction. Lia Thomas's statement of 'Let trans kids play' on an arm when competing sums up everything that was wrong with the situation. They are competing, not playing and competition needs to be fair.

Absolutely excellent - and in force from tomorrow, which shows serious intent.

Now what about medals and records won unfairly in women's sports by TW athletes who passed through male puberty?

Records which a female is unlikely to ever be able to break?

Oh the pained tone in the BBC article on this is very evident:

www.bbc.com/sport/swimming/61853450

There are concerns, however, as highlighted in Fina's decision, that athletes retain an advantage from going through male puberty that is not addressed by lowering testosterone.

Because it's a fact, you maroons.

And it turned out that elite women swimmers did get to address the congress as well - reposting this here as well as on the other thread as I think Cate Campbell did a fabulous job with her speech, which is reproduced in full at the end of the article

www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-20/cate-campbell-speaks-to-fina-ahead-of-transgender-athlete-call/101166396

It's a good speech but they always seem to throw amateur sport under the bus. Fairness is just as important to us in amateur sports as elite. The bottom line is that women simply won't play if it's unfair (and in my sport, also unsafe) and sport is enormously beneficial to individuals and societies.

Yes I agree in principle @Truthlikeness but I think there is probably an element of just not engaging with the amateur sport aspect in the FINA context because it wasn't the question at issue.

The amateur sports are more likely to follow the lead of the elite levels over time, I would think, so it will probably be a moot point and not necessary to address specifically at this time. Plus FINA doesn't govern local sports so can't purport to make rules outside its scope.

Also I imagine if transwomen aren't eligible to compete in women's sports at elite levels, they may be less bothered with trying to compete at the amateur levels because they can't continue upwards iyswim. And if a third category is put in at elite levels then T groups might sort out their own amateur sporting comps / categories for pre-elite levels, which would be the ideal outcome really

Thats a fair point re the scope of FINA, but I'm not sure about transwomen not bothering with amateur sports. 99.9% of all of us who complete in them have no expectations of any elite career :-) We just do it because we really enjoy our sports. Transwomen will still get the validation of being in women's sport and the enjoyment of being much better than most of their peers.

Plus there are already plenty of transwomen in many amateur sports, so I think changing policy and removing them could actually be very difficult. The safety angle is probably our best best.

Some promising signals from Seb Coe on the athletics front

www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/sportsnews/article-10934773/World-Athletics-president-Sebastian-Coe-backs-FINAs-ruling-transgender-athletes-banned.html

Also in The Times 🙂

According to Sky rugby has also decided transwomen are not eligible. Seems like a domino effect!