Canada voted in favour of world swimming body’s transgender policy

Canada voted for controversial gender policy by the world governing body for swimming.

FINA’s Monday policy allows transgender swimmers to compete in women’s events only if they are male or female.

FINA is considering the establishment of an open-competition group.

Canada’s diving, swimming and artistic swimming associations are represented at FINA by the Aquatics Canada Aquatiques umbrella.

FINA stated that 71.5 percent of voters voted in favor of the new policies.

“Canada did vote in favour of FINA’s gender inclusion policy,” president Kelly Stark-Anderson told The Canadian Press in an email Tuesday.

“The values of inclusion and fairness are fundamental in international sport competition and to us as Canadians. We believe this policy was thoughtfully crafted and protects competitive fairness in FINA competitions, especially for female events.

“We are also supportive of the work FINA will undertake to create a new open competition category, reflecting FINA’s commitment to inclusion.”

Canadian athletes are competing in the biannual world aquatics championships in Budapest, Hungary.

The International Olympic Committee released in November a framework on “fairness, inclusion and non-discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sex variations” and acknowledged that sex verification testing and requiring women to modify their hormone levels were harmful.

The IOC also transferred responsibility for determining whether an athlete has an unfair advantage in the field to international sports federations.

FINA was the first international sports federation to prohibit transgender participation, after the IOC published the framework. World Rugby banned transgender women from playing in 2020.

“It’s interesting to see two very different sports like rugby and swimming adopt very similar trans exclusionary policies,” saidMichele Donnelly is an assistant professor at Brock University who specializes on gender issues and social inequalities in sport.

“Between World Rugby and FINA, it feels like steps backward and really bowing to what I would hope is a minority voice that just is doing real fearmongering.”

The International Cycling Union tightened rules on transgender participation last week by reducing the maximum testosterone level and increasing transition periods for low testosterone levels from one to two years in order to compete.

FINA’s Sunday announcement following the vote was made just weeks after the NCAA swimming championship in Atlanta, where Lia Thomas, a transgender woman, won one of three finals.

She was eighth and fifth in the other two, but didn’t set any NCAA records.

“People who don’t care about women’s sport in any way shape or form, who have taken on the issue as an opportunity to further their transphobic platforms under the guise of fairness and competitive balance in women’s sport is so frustrating, particularly as someone who is really invested in equality in sport and gender equality,” Donnelly said.

“These are people who don’t say anything when women’s sport continues to receive between two and five per cent of all sports media coverage and less in terms of resources on every single level.”

With several U.S. states recently legislating against trans women and girls participating in women’s and girls’ sport, Simon Fraser professor Travers says the climate around transgender participation is worse now than when they authored the 2018 book “The Trans Generation. How Trans Kids (And Their Parents) Are Creating a Gender Revolution”.

“I’ve interviewed a lot of trans kids,” Travers said. “Sport participation has been a real barrier for them. Many of them feel it’s not possible, which can be a bad thing for a child.

“Bans like this on the participation of trans women and girls in sport sends a chilling and damaging message to children and youth. It is a clear signal that you and we are outsiders who don’t belong.

“The open division that’s being proposed by FINA is deeply problematic because it’s going to stigmatize and isolate transgender women. It’s not about inclusion, it’s about exclusion.”

FINA claims that men with higher testosterone levels have a competitive advantage in the water sport of aquasport.

FINA says gender affirming male-to-female transition procedures can blunt some, but not all, effects of testosterone on body structure and muscle function “but there will be persistent legacy effects that will give male-to-female transgender athletes (transgender women) a relative performance advantage over biological females.

“A biological female athlete cannot overcome that advantage through training or nutrition.”

Travers doesn’t buy that.

“What is considered to be fair and unfair is a social decision, and the science just doesn’t convincingly establish that trans women have an unfair advantage,” the professor said. “The FINA ruling is not based on sound scientific evidence.”

Donnelly, a Niagara roller derby athlete, was also a member of the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association’s Board of Directors when it revised a Gender Policy that’s been in effect since 2015.

“I would say roller derby was ahead of the curve in terms of recognizing the problems with any sort of biological, physiological-based policies,” she said.

“So we ultimately determined a self-declaration policy that says, among other things, that if women’s flat track roller derby is the version and composition of roller derby with which you most closely identify, this is the place for you.

“I think it’s incredibly important as an athlete to be able to go into the space where you’re playing and know that both among your teammates, as well as among your opponents, that your right to be there is recognized by everyone.”

This report by The Canadian Press first appeared June 21, 2022.