The FINA World Championships approved a new “gender inclusion” policy on Sunday after 71.5% of FINA’s member federations voted for support at FINA Extraordinary General Assembly 2022.
Under the new Gender Inclusion Policy, which will come into force on June 20, 2022, male-to-female transgender athletes will be under the age of 12 or before they reach Stage 2 on the Adolescent Tanner Scale.
The policy also states that athletes who have previously used testosterone as part of hormone therapy to confirm gender from female to male will only be in women’s competitions if testosterone has been used for less than a year in total. He states that he is eligible to participate. Occurs during puberty, serum testosterone levels return to pretreatment levels.
As a result of the vote, FINA said it would establish a new working group to develop open category events for athletes who do not meet the Governing Body’s eligibility criteria for the male or female category.
FINA oversees swimming, water polo, diving, artistic swimming, open water swimming and high diving swimming competitions.
“We must protect the rights of athletes to compete, but we must also protect the fairness of competition in our events, especially in the women’s category of FINA competitions,” FINA’s sign. President Almsalam said. “FINA always welcomes all athletes. Creating an open category means that everyone has the opportunity to compete at the elite level. This has never been done before, so FINA We need to take the lead. We want all athletes to feel it. It’s included in being able to develop ideas during this process. ”
A few months later, in January 2022, the International Federation of Sports Medicine and the European Federation of Sports Medicine issued a joint position statement disagreeing with some of the IOC’s positions.
FINA has formed and used that information to form a working group to “examine the best available statistical, scientific and medical evidence regarding gender differences in sports performance and the gender benefits associated with men”. He said he responded by establishing eligibility criteria for transgender athletes. ..
The working group consisted of transgender athletes and coaches, a science and medicine group, and an athlete group that FINA says includes a law and human rights group.
On Monday, the IOC issued a statement to the CNN stating that “Olympic sports are governed by the League of Nations (IF).”
“The framework is not mandatory and provides guidance to IFs regarding eligibility criteria for gender segregation competitions. The previous consensus statement issued by the IOC on the topic of eligibility for trans-athletes and athletes with gender variations in 2015 is also IF. Is not binding.
“The IOC believes that sports organizations are well suited to define the factors that contribute to performance advantage in the context of their sport.
“They also determine the thresholds at which an advantage can be imbalanced, devise relevant criteria, and the mechanisms needed to offset the imbalanced advantage when it is determined to exist. Suitable for developing. “
At the time of her transition in 2019, the NCAA demanded that transgender athletes receive a year of hormone replacement therapy that would be cleared to compete.
Despite the backlash, Pen Athletics and the Ivy League maintained their support for transgender swimmers, with more than 300 current and former swimmers signing an open letter defending her competitiveness. ..
