Out you go Lia
The needle has moved a little.
British sports governing bodies are under mounting pressure to reform their policies after world swimming banned transgender athletes who reached male puberty from elite women’s events.
In a seismic move for Olympic sport which will mean that American swimmer Lia Thomas can no longer compete in elite races, swimming’s rulemakers announced that transgender women must now establish that they “have not experienced any part of male puberty”.
Finally.
Fina, world swimming’s governing body, also announced plans to establish a new “open” category of competition to include transgender women that, according to president Husain Al-Musallam, would involve “some of our biggest events”.
It’s unclear why anyone but men who claim to be women would want to race in the open category.
Al-Musallam said swimming’s new policy was “based on real science” and there is confidence it will prove robust against any legal challenge in being “necessary and proportionate to achieve a legitimate” objective. “Our athletes must come first,” he said. “Of course, I understand why transgender athletes would like to compete in a category of their choice. However, I have an obligation to every single one of our athletes.”
Yes we all understand why male transgender athletes would like to be able to choose their category: so that they will be assured of winning (until all the other guys do the same thing).
British swimmer Sharron Davies, who was denied Olympic gold in 1980 by state-sponsored doping in East Germany, called on other sports to follow swimming’s lead.
“All the sports should be doing this,” she said. “I can’t tell you how proud I am of my sport for doing the science, asking the athletes/coaches, and standing up for fair sport. Biological females deserve the same opportunities of success in sport as their male counterparts.”
Funny how recently this was just obvious.
It’s time to put up, or shut up. If they decline to enter the open category, they can no longer claim to be being “banned from sport.” The real test of how much they really love “their” sport will be if they keep pursuing it when given the opportunity do do so, without the easy wins and the violation of women’s boundaries. Will “Lia” Thomas continue to swim once the locker room he’s required to use is a sausage fest? Or will we have rage and protest at the sporting equivalent of trans third spaces for toilet facilities? Their bluff has been called. Will love of sport be forgotten when women’s spaces become denied territory?
Non-trans males might also compete in the open category, because it is a second chance to win. If there’s prize money or anything else of value on offer as prizes, the net effect of having a men’s division, a women’s division, and an open division is that men will win 2/3 of the prize money compared to only 1/3 for women. So much for parity.
I’ve been assured by many people that the only reason there are separate events for men and women is because men are terrified of losing to women, so no doubt women will dominate the “open” events.