The global governing body for the exclusion of transgender athletes from swimming is creating waves in Canada.
FINA adopted a “gender inclusion policy” on Sunday, which went into effect on Monday.
Only swimmers who go from male to female before the age of 12 can compete in women’s events.
FINA is also considering establishing an open competition category.
FINA was the first major international sports federation to announce how it will approach trans athletes in their sport following the issuance of the International Olympic Committee on Equity, Non-Discrimination and Inclusion guidelines last November.
“It’s the first IF to exclude trans, male-to-female trans, in such an explicit way,” University of Toronto Professor of Sports and Public Policy Bruce Kidd told The Canadian Press on Monday.
“I have read the IOC’s general policy in a much more inclusive way, so this is a disappointment to me. Some media have speculated that others will continue in this way, which I think would be regressive, discriminatory, and so on.”
Kidd, Canada’s long distance runner at the 1964 Olympics, was part of a working group at the Canadian Center for Sport Ethics when he established a guide for sports organizations in 2016 to create inclusive environments for participants. trans.
“There are people who oppose it,” Kidd said. “I’ve been participating in one or two public forums lately, and there are certainly people on both sides.
“But at the level of national leadership, there is not much disagreement with the position of the CCES, which is self-recognition, self-identification, there is no requirement for medical or hormonal or surgical intervention, or any disclosure requirement. “.
The CCES allows for a shifting understanding of science from more data to potentially alter that position, Kidd said.
“The empirical record is very limited,” he said. “We are wrong in the direction of inclusion and equity and we are not adding to discrimination, marginalization.”
Attacks on trans women continue to be horrific. Police in sports bodies do not protect women’s sports. Excludes and addresses marginalized women. https://t.co/hr4hMZ4XKQ
– @ _ shireenahmed_
Impact on Canadian swimmers
Although Swimming Canada is not subject to FINA guidelines at the national level, Canadian swimmers are when competing internationally in an FINA-sanctioned event.
Under current Swimming Canada regulations, transgender swimmers wishing to swim for Canada at the Olympic, Paralympic and World Championships events must have a written proof from FINA that they are eligible to do so in order to be able to swim in national selection events.
“Swimming Canada believes that swimming is for everyone,” CEO Ahmed El-Awadi said in a statement on Monday. “We welcome FINA to take these steps to clarify issues such as this.
“We look forward to reviewing the policy in more detail and working with FINA and other key partners to align our policies in Canada.”
The balancing sport currently being pursued is the inclusion of athletes, regardless of gender identity or gender variations in a harassment-free environment, while at an elite level where financial bets are high, it ensures that no athlete has an unfair advantage over the rest of the sport. rural area.
Sport Canada ended last month with financial support from an inclusive survey when more than 200 members of the academic and sports communities stated in a letter that the language of the survey was discriminatory towards transgender athletes.
The intention of the survey was to investigate the views of high-performance athletes on the inclusion of trans athletes in their sports.
Problems in the USA, FINA’s position
The United States has become a battleground for the problem, with some states legislating to ban trans women and girls from playing women’s sports.
Although the IOC issued guidelines and principles on inclusion last November, it ultimately leaves it to the governing body of each sport to draft eligibility criteria and determine whether an athlete has a disproportionate advantage.
Among the principles of the IOC was to reject a general assumption that males confer a sporting advantage in all sports and to discourage dependence on testosterone levels as the main basis of eligibility for female competition.
But FINA claims that, in consultation with its scientific working group, higher testosterone levels in men from puberty give them a competitive advantage in water sports.
FINA said gender-based transition procedures between men and women may mitigate some, but not all, of the effects of testosterone on body structure and muscle function “but there will be persistent inherited effects that will give male-to-female transgender athletes (transgender women) have a relative performance advantage over biological females.
“A biological female athlete cannot overcome this advantage through training or nutrition,” FINA stated in the 24-page document that was the basis for its decision.
It needed a broader scrutiny of the FINA document and more comments over time on such an important topic in the sport, Kidd said.
“There is a process, there are standards of evidence, there is an independent evaluation, there is consultation,” he said. “If they had followed this process and taken a year, I think people like me, I think the world would feel much more confident.
“If they had published it as a draft, and the CCES always left the door open for further testing, you have people from all over the world, scientists, athletes, ethicists, etc., and people came to a consensus of this way, then you ‘I have some confidence in that, but not in that.’