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World swimming bans transgender athletes from women's events

43 Comments
By CIARÁN FAHEY

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43 Comments
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"Women's" events.... There is a hint in the name. WOMEN not Trans women. Or men who want to be women.

Good move by the swimming authorities.. Common sense prevails.

37 ( +44 / -7 )

This was a good move. They should make a category for trans women/men next. I don't know the science to know if they should be one category, or two, but they should be given an opportunity to compete.

12 ( +22 / -10 )

This is about bodies. Bodies come broadly in two types, male or female. It's not about the body's occupants and whatever it is that they identify with.

22 ( +27 / -5 )

The right thing to do.

25 ( +30 / -5 )

It appears sports organizations are finally doing some efforts to properly base their decisions instead of going around in circles with bad science and overreactions towards both sides.

This does not seems like a decision that will become final in the long term but a tood step towards a proper balance. Eventually a something with solid scientific basis will be decided, but for now it is extremely good that they finally abandoned the terribly "testosterone levels decide everything" approach.

14 ( +19 / -5 )

Sanity prevails. The physical advantage male-born athletes have over women is incredible. Parents of girls who swim competitively can breath a big sigh of relief today!

As for a "third category" being brought in - I highly doubt with the incredibly small number of trans people who become elite athletes this would be feasible. You may struggle to find even 3 competitive entrants in any olympic event.

23 ( +24 / -1 )

Sanity at last.

Sensible. Biology is actually a real thing.

21 ( +23 / -2 )

Awesome news! Glad to see FINA cares about women's rights!

18 ( +20 / -2 )

Finally people are putting an end to this nonsense. Women's sports are for real women.

20 ( +22 / -2 )

Do you currently have or have you ever had a penis ?

if you answer yes to this question, you cannot compete in woman’s events.

13 ( +18 / -5 )

I have no problem with someone identifying with whatever gender (although in full disclosure, I am still behind the curve on some aspects.) And I really do not care which bathroom they use.

But allowing those born as male to compete with female athletes is just fundamentally unfair in any sport that is determined by raw strength or speed. The trans athlete will just simply have an unfair advantage.

12 ( +13 / -1 )

World swimming bans transgender athletes from women's events

Apparently, transgender athletes are not banned from competition, despite the headline’s claim. Gender confused athletes can compete. They simply have to compete with other athletes of the same gender, i.e. sex.

-1 ( +2 / -3 )

I breathe a huge sigh of relief. This was definitely the right thing to do. Make a separate category for trans people.

3 ( +6 / -3 )

Common sense decision. Thankfully.

5 ( +9 / -4 )

At least one worldwide governing body of a sport has displayed sanity in this regard. If identity politics continue to prevail over common sense then I guess all of those East German/Soviet bloc athletes of obvious transgendered yet never openly admitted status back in the 70s and 80s Olympic Games should get their medals and/or records reinstated! For a laugh, watch the "Heather Swanson" character from one of the episodes of South Park. It just shows the sheer idiocy of having transgendered athletes compete against biological females.

5 ( +8 / -3 )

This decision is securing an even playing field for women to compete with women.

No more no less.

The rest is politics. That has no place in sport

9 ( +10 / -1 )

If you want to be a woman so badly you're willing to have your penis removed, surely you're also willing to give up competitive sports

10 ( +11 / -1 )

Seems people have been brushing up on their basic biology.

7 ( +9 / -2 )

World swimming’s governing body has effectively banned transgender women from competing in women’s events, starting Monday.

Makes sense, because they are not women.

7 ( +13 / -6 )

Do you currently have or have you ever had a penis ?

FYI, it's not the penis but the testicles and their presence during growth that make the biggest difference. Should be obviously, but yeah, they're most important organs. But I get what you're saying - if one transitions from male to female after the main development phases are almost finished, that person benefits from all the advantages of a male - stronger and leaner muscles with different fast fibers ratio. Even decades of hormonal treatment can't change that, especially in case of an elite athlete still training seriously.

5 ( +7 / -2 )

agree with most here. common sense prevailed

11 ( +12 / -1 )

This is quite curious. Five minutes ago, A few posters here were declaring measures like this to be nothing but hatred and saying "love and kindness" must win out.

Now they do a 180 when they see their opinions are not in the majority.

Interesting, that...

0 ( +4 / -4 )

Her record shall stand!

In a hundred years from now some scientist will dig up Lia’s bones and—-hopefully unencumbered by the nonsense we are currently suffering through—-will declare “this is the skeleton of a male human.”

7 ( +10 / -3 )

Ive mentioned it many times it's not even about performance issues/physical advantages for me.

It's just observing the appropriate categories, like in the use of toilets, male toilets for males , female for females.

4 ( +5 / -1 )

A no brainer here obviously, why such a debate or discussion needed to be had is beyond me. If they decide to create a category for them to compete in amongst themselves then you won't hear me complain. Men vs Men, Women vs Women, and then the third category I'll leave that for the organizers to label.

7 ( +7 / -0 )

If something is only fair for trans-women, but not for trans-men, then it isn't fair.

I don't believe the chemistry is perfectly clear that there are just 2 types of people. There are natural deviations in different hormones across everyone.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

I watched the transgender female weightlifter from New Zealand at the Olympics, and she did not win or even place, and missed most of her lifts actually. Transphobia is not the way to go.

Hubbard was also the oldest weightlifter at those games. These two facts are neither here nor there. Is there an advantage to having been born biologically male? Does it matter? If there were a proven advantage, would it change your mind? Some activists are arguing that fairness is besides the point and that it's just Hubbard's human right to participate, even without medical intervention.

It will be interesting when we have this same debate come up in the future, after genetic modifications for physical traits start to happen... I wonder if there is already a similar issue occurring with Paralympics and prosthetics....?

Division by gender has generally worked, because there was a fairly clear performance differentiation in most cases. Competitive sports are by their nature fairly unfair though... Height, limb length, age, muscle types, propensity for body fat, intelligence, and many other factors make some people more suited to certain sports than others.

You're only looking at fairness as if that's all sports are about. It's not. People care about meaningfulness first and fairness is only one component of that. What are we seeing? That's the question people ask themselves. There have been games played between professional women and high school boys but these aren't considered meaningful to people because people do not know how to evaluate them. This is the issues that plagues the participation of transgendered people in (at least some) sports. There may be some sports where it might work, but there may be other female sports that just won't be meaningful to audiences if they include people born as male or people that have gone through male puberty. This is because it may be hard to evaluate the outcome. Leah Thomas is an example of this. It's just unclear if Thomas has an advantage or not and it may be truly hard to know.

-3 ( +0 / -3 )

FINA’s decision is great. An open division will be created so queers and trans can compete, without question. Provisions are in place for people who transition early and people who transition later in their lives with the open division.

If we run into a situation where the athletes gets a natural chemical advantage, we still have the open division available instead of asking the athlete to suppress their chemical advantage.

A great day for sports, a bad day agendas. This is fairness.

3 ( +4 / -1 )

At last!

2 ( +3 / -1 )

Just make a separate field for trans women and trans men.

3 ( +4 / -1 )

About time!

4 ( +5 / -1 )

Yep, seems like a common sense move. it does not discriminate against trans individuals, but protects those who would be unfairly discriminated against by letting someone who grew up as male to compete as a female.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

athletics is rumoured to be next to follow suit.

I feel for trans people. They finally feel like they are who they are meant to be BUT that doesn't make it biologically so I'm afraid. Male hormones have an amazing effect on muscle growth and strength and it's simply not fair to allow biological males to compete as females even after surgery and hormone treatment. I think realisation is coming that this whole issue will go 1 of 2 ways.....they can push it and keep trying to compete and have society as whole push back....which does no one any good. Or they can accept that for more societal acceptance and understanding they will have to give up some of their hopes and dreams of competing as women. Life is a negotiation, we don't always get everything we want.

5 ( +5 / -0 )

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