The Times (of London) has a new report out saying:
the international swimming governing body will seek to raise the bar on transgender inclusion in women’s sport high enough to prevent a repeat of Lia Thomas’s controversial victory in the prestigious US college championships.
Fina, the swimming governing body, is set to vote on a new policy in June and a source close to those devising the rules told The Times that under the proposed regulations Thomas — who won the 500 yards event at the NCAA championship — “would not have been able to compete with women . . . and the female category will be protected from athletes who have male advantages from male puberty and development”.
Brent Nowicki, the former counsel for the World Anti-Doping Agency and now the executive director of Fina, told The Times that Fina wanted to set “an industry standard” for all sports. Senior sources emphasised that the intention is not to exclude a swimmer such as Lia Thomas from the sport but to “make sure that elite athletes with male advantage do not get to compete in the female category”.
The proposed policy will insist that trans-women undergo at least 36 months of testosterone reduction therapy, rather than a year, which is the present precedent. Testosterone levels will also be only one measure of physical advantage, with the rules designed to ensure “prior physical development of the athlete as a male, as mitigated by any medical intervention, does not impact fair play in the female category”. Elite status is likely to start from the age of 12, about the time of puberty.
“Fina intends to produce a policy that is easy to understand and sets an industry standard,” Nowicki said. “We are working with medical and science experts, as well as current and retired athletes. We need to find the right balance of inclusion and fairness, while following the president’s [Husain Al-Musallam] message of no discrimination. We can confirm that we consulted with US swimming and worked with them as they developed their policy. We hope that our new policy will be followed by US Swimming and other stakeholders, but we do understand that we cannot intercede with national level competition in the NCAA.”
The aim is to have the new policy put to a vote of the General Congress of 206 Fina nations on the eve of the World Championships in Budapest in June. “That’s the plan but no deadline has been set because we’d rather get it right than rush it through,” a source close to the process said.
