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It took a while, but common sense finally prevailed about transgender female athletes as world swimming’s governing body voted on Sunday to protect female athletes’ right to fair competition. FINA adopted a new policy that stipulated that any transgender women who wanted to compete in women’s swimming must transition before age 12 to avoid the biological advantages of male puberty. This rule change comes after Lia Thomas, the former University of Pennsylvania transgender swimmer, dominated the women’s Ivy League swimming season this year and won a national championship.
In addition to this “Lia Thomas rule,” FINA also suggested the creation of a new “open competition category” for those who transitioned later to keep competition fair.
“FINA’s approach in drafting this policy was comprehensive, science-based and inclusive, and, importantly, FINA’s approach emphasized competitive fairness,” said Brent Nowicki, the governing body’s executive director, to the BBC.
Husain Al Musallam, FINA’s president, stated that while it was important to be inclusive, it was just as necessary to protect competitive fairness regarding women’s athletics. Musallam is absolutely correct. At its core, fair competition among women was what all the outrage surrounding Lia Thomas’s participation was truly about. FINA was dedicated to “protect the rights of our athletes to compete,” but he had enough courage to emphasize the responsibility to “protect competitive fairness.” Thankfully, a group had enough courage to stand up and do the right thing.
And while many on the Left will invariably consider this announcement as discriminatory and “banning transgender athletes,” in reality, FINA did what should have been done all along. Furthermore, it provided a formidable solution for transgender women in sports with the open competition category.
“FINA will always welcome every athlete. The creation of an open category will mean that everybody has the opportunity to compete at an elite level,” Musallam said. “This has not been done before, so FINA will need to lead the way. I want all athletes to feel included in being able to develop ideas during this process.”
While many radical left-wingers tried to assert their usual claim of bigotry or whatever “-phobia” du jour they concocted pertaining to Lia Thomas and transgender athletes, the main issue was unfair competition. Thomas was born male and competed on the men’s team for three years, then competed with women. It was always unfair to the female athletes, but the adults protecting college student-athletes were too afraid to do the right thing.
Their failure to act shows just how awful those on the Left truly are when it comes to true equality. They’re motivated by power and political influence, not morality and fairness. FINA did what the NCAA and the Ivy League should have done from the beginning — protect female swimmers from the raucous bullying of the transgender supporter mob. Hopefully, other sports and organizations will follow suit.
