After the banning of almost all transgender women from elite swimming competition, we must prepare for battles ahead
A long list of elite sports – swimming, water polo, diving, artistic swimming, high diving and open-water swimming – are affected by new rules that exclude almost all transgender women from competition. The policy, from swimming’s international federation Fina, is the largest ban on trans people’s participation in sport to date.
I am a trans man and a professional athlete in events including the triathlon, and it was immediately clear to me that swimming’s new policy is not based on science, facts or human rights, and that it will deeply harm all women in sport. The impetus for this attack on transgender athletes is instead based on media narratives, hypothetical “what-if” scenarios and stereotypes. Fina’s policy is a solution in search of a problem. It seems likely that other sports will come out with similar decisions. In the UK the culture secretary, Nadine Dorries, has said she will urge them to do so.
