USA Swimming is the biggest governing organization for competitive swimming in the country and is now introducing new policies regarding transgender athletes.
This was triggered by the national spotlight on UPenn swimmer Lia Thomas, and as you can probably imagine, some people on the left are not happy about it.
Jo Yurcaba reports at NBC News:
USA Swimming announces new policy for elite transgender athletesThe national governing body for competitive swimming in the United States released a new policy Tuesday for transgender female athletes, and it faced swift criticism from some advocates.USA Swimming, which has more than 400,000 members who compete on club teams all the way up to the Olympic team, released the Athlete Inclusion, Competitive Equity and Eligibility Policy, which is effective immediately.It lays out two requirements for trans women who are members of USA Swimming: The concentration of testosterone in their blood must be less than 5 nanomoles per liter continuously for at least 36 months before they apply to compete, and they must provide evidence that going through puberty as their sex assigned at birth “does not give the athlete a competitive advantage over the athlete’s cisgender female competitors.”A panel of three independent medical experts will be charged with reviewing applicants and implementing the policy.In a news release Tuesday, USA Swimming cited statistical data comparing male and female cisgender athletes, who identify with their sex assigned at birth, that shows that the top-ranked woman in 2021, on average, would be ranked much lower in male events across short and long swimming distances.
Some critics believe this is all about Lia Thomas:
The left-wing organization Media Matters for America is calling this a result of a “right-wing media hate campaign” because that’s how they see every problem in the world:
USA Swimming capitulates to a right-wing media hate campaign and prematurely ends trans swimmer Lia Thomas’ seasonAfter months of obsessive coverage in right-wing media, USA Swimming released new rules governing the inclusion of trans athletes which appear to bar University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas from finishing her season.Following intense pressure from right-wing media, the swimming association will now require three years of testosterone suppression, as well as approval from three “independent medical experts,” before allowing trans women to compete in the female category. Thomas had previously exceeded the rules set by the NCAA, suppressing her testosterone levels for over two years. According to a February 1 press release, the new rules are “effective immediately.”In changing these goal posts, USA Swimming is capitulating to a right-wing hate campaign that repeatedly deadnamed and misgendered Thomas, a 22-year-old trans woman, and relentlessly framed her participation as a dire threat to women’s sports.
Biological males competing in women’s sports, and shattering records along the way, is a dire threat to women’s sports.
At some point, women athletes will simply throw up their hands and ask, why bother?
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY