FINA Votes To Restrict Transgenders From Women’s Elite Swimming Competitions
This FINA policy will affect Lia Thomas, who will be unable to compete against biological women in the Olympics but will be able to compete in the new “open” category FINA plans to establish.
FINA, the governing body of professional swimming, has finally voted to restrict biological males’ participation in women’s elite swimming competitions. They plan to have an “open” category in which transgender swimmers can compete.
ESPN reports (archive link):
Swimming’s world governing body, FINA, on Sunday voted to restrict the participation of transgender athletes in elite women’s competitions and create a working group to establish an “open” category for them in some events as part of its new policy.
The new policy, which takes effect Monday, will require transgender competitors to have completed their transition by the age of 12 to be able to compete in women’s competitions. The working group will spend the next six months to determine how to set up the new open category, FINA said.
“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.”
According to ESPN, the policy was passed “with a roughly 71% majority after it was put to the members of 152 national federations with voting rights that had gathered for the congress at the Puskas Arena.”
Here at LI, we’ve been covering the on-going struggles of women swimmers at UPenn who have been told to “get over” seeing transgender swimmer Lia Thomas’ male genitalia in the women’s locker room and who cannot possibly beat Thomas. The latter point was hit home by Florida governor Ron DeSantis when he unofficially declared Emma Weyant the actual winner of the 500y freestyle swim.
This FINA policy will affect Thomas, who will be unable to compete against biological women in the Olympics but will be able to compete in the new “open” category FINA plans to establish.
ESPN continues:
The regulations would have a major impact on the career of Lia Thomas, who earlier this year became the first openly transgender woman to win a NCAA Division I women’s swimming title.
Thomas told Sports Illustrated in March that she wants to continue to compete after college, with the 2024 U.S. Olympic trials as a goal.
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Comments
They belong in the shallow end of the gene pool.
All his other problems aside, this guy is a shameless, narcissistic cheater.
Not to mention an asshole.
You just described the entire thing democrat party.
Instead of saying “They should have transitioned before the age of 12” and then clarifying that they are not encouraging anyone to transition before the age of 12, why didn’t they just say NO?
btw: When did we start saying “transition” and how do we stop?
Excellent questions.
Stop by saying MUTILATION rather than the oh-so-gentle “transition.”
“Has So-and-so
transitionedundergone (permanent) mutilation yet?”Helps to drive home the point of what’s really going on.
Exactly. Anytime I hear these assholes and their enablers say “gender affirming surgery” I quickly correct them and say they’re engaging in genital mutilation. Do not let these evil people control language.
or STERILIZATION; once the full course of puberty blockers are applied and successful then the child is sterilize FOREVER. The effects are irreversible.
If I had a nefarious plan for population control and reduction, they why not convince the uninformed like 5, 6 and 7 year olds that they need only TRANSITION to make everything better.
Perhaps because there are some rare people whose gender is not physically determined at birth, or not consistent throughout the body. Those folks – or their parents – face some really difficult decisions about what to do. But a specific gender, once chosen for such infants, can be advanced with hormone therapy and possibly surgery. Most likely at an early age. This people are different from the gender confused mental cases of the teenage years.
A little research into sex determining DNA can provide further information.
But surgically changing an XY to a fabricated SS or an XX to an XY with the issue being confronted here.
Gender is always determined at birth. If you have a Y chromosome you’re a male. You cannot change this. A few people are born with birth defects that may include other chromosome combinations, but if it includes a Y, then male.
Those few defects are not the people we are discussing, The people we are discussing are mentally ill.
I believe gender is determined many months before birth.
“What is a woman” is an enlightening movie.
Exactly. This ‘solution’ below is designed to fail. The only viable rule for women’s competition is NO men, no exceptions.
* new policy, which takes effect Monday, will require transgender competitors to have completed their transition by the age of 12 to be able to compete in women’s competitions. The working group will spend the next six months to determine how to set up the new open category, FINA said.”
At least some people are showing a modicum of sanity. It would be interesting to know how each of the nations voted.
It’s a start, but it needs to go back to chromosomes. Anyone with a Y=male.
Ic – I have advocated for a long while using chromosomes as a way to run sports. It would no longer be called men sports or women sports, but Y chromosome sports and X chromosome sports.
This is a pragmatic decision. Trans athletes will be able to compete in an open class category but unable to unfairly use their physical advantages of their biological sex to dominate in the women’s events. IMO, if this becomes the standard across more sports then many of the more narcissist individuals who have been seeking attention v actual competition will fade away.
“Trans”. Oh come on: this guy is a transvestite. Period.
He can be whatever he wants to be when he plays dress up but the rest of the world shouldn’t be forced to participate in his fantasy. As I recall he hasn’t had ‘bottom’ surgery so the label of ‘lady boy’ would also seem to be accurate.
Take your wiener in one hand and your schnitzel in the other and go sit over there with the men.
The word “pragmatic” is double-plus-ungood speech for the ideological left.
But you are precisely correct. Well said.
No woman would win in an open competition. Not saying it’s impossible, only that it is unlikely.
Frank Grimes or Grimey, “But this was a contest for CHILDREN!”
Lenny, “Yeah, and Homer beat their brains out!”
There has always been an open category – the men’s competition. Women have been able to compete in the men’s leagues if they were able … but none have been able. They have tried in golf, baseball, basketball, … but the women just aren’t good enough. The one sport where the women do compete with the men on an even field is in drag racing, but that’s about it.
In general, men have about a 15% advantage over women in physical pursuits which means that the best woman in the world is still not good enough to compete with the top men.
But the fact is that the men’s competition IS, and always has been, the open category. It is where the best in an activity participate, and guys who like to pretend they’re girls and girls who like to pretend they’re guys and normal girls can all try and compete against the men. But it turns out that only men win these competitions so the pretend people will not be able to provide any decent competition. But they like pretending stupid stuff, anyway, so they can just pretend that they won. That would still be more reasonable and rational than their pretending they can change their sex.
The best way forward in dealing with trans ideology within our litigious society is to follow a pragmatic path that mirrors how parents deal with children. Refuse to give ground on biological differences. Continue to have male and female sports and facilities but offer an open option.
This will diffuse lawsuits about restrictions from participation in daily activities; use of restrooms, showers and locker rooms because we remove the binary limitations and create a third option. The same holds for participation in athletics. Joe wants to be Jane? Ok but we all know you aren’t a biological female so traditional spaces for biological females remain off limits but you can still role play in a third space and no one will stop you from living your life.
We should allow these folks to play dress up by providing them room to do so while maintaining and preserving traditional biologically based norms. Similar to dealing with a young child who threatens to run away and the parents help them pack and act disinterested thus denying the attention being sought.
I am not sure an open competition will work well. It seems to me that it will be dominated be a lot of second rate male athletes who are, in effect, competing for “participation trophies”, since they could not win in the top category.
If male athletes who couldn’t qualify to compete in the male events want to try the open category alongside trans athletes that’s fine. I seem to have repeated myself.
Maybe that’s for the best. A retired truly world class male athlete coming in to the open and destroying someone like Thomas would be appreciated.
Anyone who let’s kids under 12yo transition to opposite gender should be locked up.
Hope this ruling stands because the Leftists will be coming after them.
Jordon Peterson on ‘trans’ surgery:
Doctors & Psychotherapists: Butchers & Liars:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayWyzvo9SNY
Vegan cats aren’t vegan by choice. It was made by their owners. It’s animal abuse.
Children who have transitioned by age 12 didn’t make that choice. It was made by their parents/guardians with assistance from “professionals” who specialize in institutional child abuse. It’s child abuse.
The parents of these poor kids are the ultimate narcissists. Talk about Munchausen by proxy…
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/9834-factitious-disorder-imposed-on-another-fdia
Don’t forget the school peer group and the parents who sent the children to those schools.
They shouldn’t make a special trans event group. Let them compete with the other men if they can. If they can’t, like 99.9% of all the other males that are not that, good they can sit home.
A good example might be weight classes in boxing. Seems reasonable to me.
Women cannot compete with men of the same weight in boxing. Not even close. They would get destroyed.
It’s child abuse to try to change the sex of a child. They should make their own decision when their an adult.
Better yet – society should come to back to sanity and admit that it is impossible for anyone to change his sex.
A guy can be feminine (if one wants to appeal to gender) but he can never be anything but a guy.
I read some stat on how many wnba players identify as some version of transgendered. There are a few.
I did not read that any demanded to play in the NBA.
“They shouldn’t make a special trans event group.”
Oh, I dunno. I think it would be hilarious if they made an open group and Lia Thomas was the only one who showed up. Or even better, Lia Thomas and one of his male former teammates who used to kick his ass regularly.
I’ve seen 12 year old boys that looked 18 with muscles and height to match
Stop using the word “transsexual.” I refuse to use a term that hasn’t been adequately proven. But so many people are just using that term so they won’t get yelled at.
Women pretending to be men and men pretending to be women.
To me, a transsexual is somebody who has had the renovations done. Everybody else is just a cross-dresser.
” open ” category?–bovine?–porcine?–canine?–asinine?
So…….. who is going to compete in the “open” category. I am sure transgenders will not want to compete if they forfeit their overwhelming advantage. Real women and men will not want to compete for obvious reasons. So the open category will likely not be long for this world unless they are just forced to go through all the trouble and expense to maintain it for face-saving purposes.
No. The gender for sports should be determined by genetics.
The discernment of female, trans/homo/bi/etc. and trans/neo is perfectly timed to celebrate transgender spectrum month.
Trans/neo/social.
For a long time I have been saying they need three categories:male, female, other.
Calling it “open” is just more verbal molly coddling…
All I have to say is that this is a good start, and needs to trickle downwards.
and the “transitioning before age of 12”. Disgusting, just absolutely disgusting.
Well, really, I don’t mind it as an accommodation for those born so genetically atypical (not XX or XY) that a choice has to be made at a very early age.
I do mind. Competition events like swimming do not need to suffer delays caused by the 0.00001% of insane individuals hogging the limelight.
I’d like to play in the NBA, but I’m not good enough. No one need make a special game for me in the women’s league.
Who cares what that guy Thomas wants. The world bowing to a very small minority of people is not how it should work. At least FINA had enough alrhough id like to see who the 29% of woke idiots are that buy into the transexual nonsense are so their countries can be banned
The putrid Mr. Thomas finally did something good.