Swim England Consultation

[Dreikanter]

Not sure if this has already been posted, but Swim England has a consultation out for members on its trans policy. Closes midnight on 9th August.

Link here: www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/TransgenderPolicy

Why Open and Female? Why not Open, Male and Female?

Why Open and Female? Why not Open, Male and Female?

Three reasons:

1. There would not be enough people in the open.
2. A third section would slow down competitions.
3. The open is effectively the male section, it's just renamed to make it palatable for transwomen and allow women who are using testosterone.

I filled it in again, but instead of ticking 'open and female', I ticketed 'other' and used the box to bitch about how deceptive the wording was.

Also the "fairness " queston.

I dont think its fair male bodies competing in women's races but is that what they mean? Or a "be kind" fair?

I think they can twist the amswers to say whatever they want it to say - yet had really thought swimming was one area behind sex based rights!

I think it means competitive fairness as they specifically said in competition. However I agree it's poor wording.

I wrote a comment on the fairness one saying that this seems to be focused more around fairness for males than for women and girls, it depends how they interpret it.

Filled it in.

I'm wondering if the slapdash and poorly worded survey is partly intentional, so they can make whatever conclusion they wish and then wave away any objections with 'oh, the survey said this' or alternatively 'oh, the survey was gamed'.

I was surprised there was nothing about changing facilities.

Oh, so effectively there'll be 100,000 jobless angry young men who hate women across the world, in their Mum's basements, who'll have spent the last fortnight filling it in 100 times a day.

Great poll, Swim England!

An extremely biased survey, we know who this was intended for, and it wasn't women wanting to protect their sport away from men.

Archiving this page (and can others do so too please?). If Swim England want to use this poll as proof for abolishing women's sports then they should know that we are on to them.

YES YOU CAN.

Oops I didn't mean to shout.

I did ask them what they defined as 'fairness' because TRAs will say fairness is letting male bodies swim and change with women and girls.

It's going to be a repeat of the survey that tiny circulation newspaper did on boys in girls schools. Unless there's some post submission filter to sort out repeats. It's possible the survey will get spiked because the volume of answers is ridiculously implausible.

What a waste of time.

I think both sides of the debate see it as badly written and biased towards the other side.

One of the main findings of the SCEG report on trans inclusion in sport in 2021 was “Competitive fairness cannot be reconciled with self-identification into the female category in gender- affected sport.”

equalityinsport.org/docs/300921/Guidance%20for%20Transgender%20Inclusion%20in%20Domestic%20Sport%202021.pdf

Given this conclusion and the recent FINA decision, I don’t see how Swim England can allow self ID into the female category.

Also given the high drop out rate of girls when they hit puberty in competitive swimming, I’d also hope that the requirement for male people to swim in a male/open category is trickled down to grassroots level (as GB Triathlon have done).

Yes I thought it had qlready been deciddd not to have male bodies race with women in swimming?

I'm wondering if the slapdash and poorly worded survey is partly intentional, so they can make whatever conclusion they wish and then wave away any objections with 'oh, the survey said this' or alternatively 'oh, the survey was gamed'.

Yy.

I've written to them saying their survey is a joke. And hoping they don't make any decisions either way.

Also pointed to news from Australia where their nations swimming body is going to introduce a 3rd swimming category for trans. I can't read the article because it's Australian and I think like the BBC restricted but their Facebook post gives a summary

www.facebook.com/theaustralian/photos/a.10150172022004978/10151823946014978/?type=3

It's a win for the transgender community, as they say sports is a human right and now they will never be excluded.

And a win for women.

www.facebook.com/theaustralian/photos/a.10150172022004978/10151823946014978/?type=

Other link didn't seem to work, hope this one does

I agree that it is deliberately misleading and badly worded to trick people into ticking answers that don't necessarily reflect their views.
It looks like a very poor GCSE project. Indeed most people at GCSE level would probably produce a better questionnaire, or at least the teacher would mark it and suggest corrections.
Presumably the people analysing it have a similar level of skill and comprehension. Which doesn't bode well.
It is anonymous and there is no limit to the number of times one can complete and submit. I wonder who produced it?

I just filled the questionnaire in. I agree it was a load of rubbish but it's better to do something rather than nothing imo.

It is better to do something rather than nothing - but if this was supposed to be a “members survey” then it’s failed dismally because it hasn’t been restricted to Swim England members.

The ambiguity of the questions, the public availability of the survey, and that it seems you can complete it multiple times makes it pretty useless.

I've completed it too, but cannot find their current transgender policy. There's stuff about a D&I Action Plan 2022 which just says along the lines of 'we are reviewing and updating existing policy'
Their 2015 Equality policy says 'SE considers that the aquatic disciplines are gender affected sports under the Equality Act 2010 and refers any transgender athletes to its policy...'

It's so annoying when you get a very poorly worded survey from a professional body. It's not hard to make things clear! WTF do they think the 'fairness' question shows?

I looked quite a while ago (2021?), but it had been removed from the website pending updating.

You can find the British Swimming policy on trans competitors dated April 2015 though.

Irish Rugby have just excluded males from female rugby.

www.irishrugby.ie/2022/08/10/irfu-updates-transgender-policy/

Watching closely which other countries will follow.