Transwimmers Beware.....

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Joe Guy
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Transwimmers Beware.....

Post by Joe Guy »

Darn! Just when I was considering changing genders and competing in women's swimming in the FINA World Championships.

World swimming bans transgender athletes from women's events

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — World swimming’s governing body has effectively banned transgender women from competing in women’s events, starting Monday.

FINA members widely adopted a new “gender inclusion policy” on Sunday that only permits swimmers who transitioned before age 12 to compete in women’s events. The organization also proposed an “open competition category.”

“This is not saying that people are encouraged to transition by the age of 12. It’s what the scientists are saying, that if you transition after the start of puberty, you have an advantage, which is unfair,” James Pearce, who is the spokesperson for FINA president Husain Al-Musallam, told The Associated Press.

“They’re not saying everyone should transition by age 11, that’s ridiculous. You can’t transition by that age in most countries and hopefully you wouldn’t be encouraged to. Basically, what they’re saying is that it is not feasible for people who have transitioned to compete without having an advantage.”

Pearce confirmed there are currently no transgender women competing in elite levels of swimming.

The World Professional Association for Transgender Health just lowered its recommended minimum age for starting gender transition hormone treatment to 14 and some surgeries to 15 or 17.

FINA’s new 24-page policy also proposed a new “open competition” category. The organization said it was setting up “a new working group that will spend the next six months looking at the most effective ways to set up this new category.”

Pearce told the AP that the open competition would most likely mean more events, but those details still need to be worked out.

“No one quite knows how this is going to work. And we need to include a lot of different people, including transgender athletes, to work out how it would work," he said. "So there are no details of how that would work. The open category is something that will start being discussed tomorrow.”

The members voted 71.5% in favor at the organization’s extraordinary general congress after hearing presentations from three specialist groups — an athlete group, a science and medicine group and a legal and human rights group — that had been working together to form the policy following recommendations given by the International Olympic Committee last November.

The IOC urged shifting the focus from individual testosterone levels and calling for evidence to prove when a performance advantage existed.

FINA’s “deeply discriminatory, harmful, unscientific” new policy is “not in line with (the IOC’s) framework on fairness, inclusion and non-discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sex variations,” Anne Lieberman of Athlete Ally, a nonprofit that advocates for LGBTQ athletes, said in a statement.

“The eligibility criteria for the women’s category as it is laid out in the policy (will) police the bodies of all women, and will not be enforceable without seriously violating the privacy and human rights of any athlete looking to compete in the women’s category,” Lieberman said.

FINA said it recognizes "that some individuals and groups may be uncomfortable with the use of medical and scientific terminology related to sex and sex-linked traits (but) some use of sensitive terminology is needed to be precise about the sex characteristics that justify separate competition categories.”

In March, Lia Thomas made history in the United States as the first transgender woman to win an NCAA swimming championship, the 500-yard freestyle.

Thomas said last month on ABC’s “Good Morning America" that she was aiming to become an Olympic swimmer. She also disputed those who say she has an unfair biological edge that ruins the integrity of women’s athletics, saying “trans women are not a threat to women’s sports.”

Thomas didn't immediately respond to a message left with the University of Pennsylvania seeking comment.

Dr. Alireza Hamidian Jahromi, co-director of the Gender Affirmation Surgery Center at Temple University Hospitals in Philadelphia, said 12 is an arbitrary age.

“Where did that 12 come from?” he said. “Is that a specific age that everybody is supposed to have passed through puberty, because it may not be the case.”

Age of puberty varies for different people, he said.

Hamidian Jahromi said the transition involves three stages: social, medical involving hormones and surgical. “Which of these three do they mean? Should the patient have undergone surgery by that time, which is almost impossible,” he said.

Other sports have also been examining their rules around transgender athletes.

On Thursday, cycling’s governing body updated its eligibility rules for transgender athletes with stricter limits that will force riders to wait longer before they can compete.

The International Cycling Union (UCI) increased the transition period on low testosterone to two years, and lowered the maximum accepted level of testosterone. The previous transition period was 12 months but the UCI said recent scientific studies show that “the awaited adaptations in muscle mass and muscle strength/power” among athletes who have made a transition from male to female takes at least two years.
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Scooter
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Re: Transwimmers Beware.....

Post by Scooter »

FINA members widely adopted a new “gender inclusion policy” on Sunday that only permits swimmers who transitioned before age 12 to compete in women’s events.
The World Professional Association for Transgender Health just lowered its recommended minimum age for starting gender transition hormone treatment to 14
So they don't want to come out and say that transgender women can never compete as women, but that is the effect of imposing a qualification that no transgender person could ever meet.

Dishonest and gutless.
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MajGenl.Meade
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Re: Transwimmers Beware.....

Post by MajGenl.Meade »

My heart breaks for all 16 of them
For Christianity, by identifying truth with faith, must teach-and, properly understood, does teach-that any interference with the truth is immoral. A Christian with faith has nothing to fear from the facts

Big RR
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Re: Transwimmers Beware.....

Post by Big RR »

Scooter--
So they don't want to come out and say that transgender women can never compete as women,
Would you have preferred that they did that? I think they are trying to tie it to something that indicates when a trans athlete receives an unfair advantage rather than ban all trans athletes from swimming, but I would like to see how the age was chosen and what scientific evidence there is for the advantage or lack thereof based on the age when gthey transitioned (as well as how they define the transition).

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Scooter
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Re: Transwimmers Beware.....

Post by Scooter »

I would prefer that they use criteria that are actually achievable in accepted medical practice, but if they are not going to do that, they should state plainly that they have no intention of ever allowing trans women to compete as women, rather than trying to avoid answering for what they are actually doing by obfuscating with fake criteria.
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Big RR
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Re: Transwimmers Beware.....

Post by Big RR »

Point taken; I agree if people are not going to transition before 12, it should not be the criterion. But I do think this is a concern that will have to be addressed by most major sports which have women's divisions. Personally, I do approve of an open division; while I understand that some may find it offensive that they cannot compete as women because they are Trans, they should understand that the rules of the sport are there to assure fair competition, not to decide who is, and who is not, a woman.

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BoSoxGal
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Re: Transwimmers Beware.....

Post by BoSoxGal »

The criteria is based on the Tanner scale of puberty - anyone who has transitioned beyond stage 2 on the Tanner scale as a biological male cannot compete regardless of age of gender transition. The Tanner scale is the factor to be considered, not the age.

This article explains it much more thoroughly. The new FINA guideline is intended to remove the possibility of unfair advantage which is indisputable because of significant changes that occur to the male body during later puberty - dramatic increases in height, muscle mass, heart/lung capacity, bone density.

https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/sport ... 022-06-20/
The new eligibility policy for FINA competitions states that male-to-female transgender swimmers (transgender women) are eligible to compete in women's competitions only if "they can establish to FINA's comfortable satisfaction that they have not experienced any part of male puberty beyond Tanner Stage 2 (of puberty) or before age 12, whichever is later".

WHAT IS 'TANNER STAGE 2'?
Typically boys will begin puberty at ages 11-12 and complete the process by 16-17. Tanner Stage Two is the second of five stages of puberty. While puberty timetables vary according to a number of factors, boys can have completed stage 2 and entered stage 3 by the age of 12 or 13. In some cases it may be earlier or later.
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Scooter
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Re: Transwimmers Beware.....

Post by Scooter »

And again, given that
The World Professional Association for Transgender Health just lowered its recommended minimum age for starting gender transition hormone treatment to 14
FINA is imposing a standard that they know any trans would-be athlete is almost certainly unable to meet. So let's not attempt to dress it up as anything but a flat out rejection of trans women ever competing as women. Why not own up to that, and have done?
"If you don't have a seat at the table, you're on the menu."

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