Story at a glance
- USA Swimming on Tuesday released a new policy for transgender athletes in elite competition.
- Elite transgender female swimmers under the new policy will be required to provide evidence that a competitive advantage does not exist because of their prior development as a male. Athletes must also show the concentration of testosterone in their blood has been less than 5 nanomoles per liter continuously for at least 36 months.
- The policy will remain in place until FINA issues its own guidelines for elite transgender athletes.
USA Swimming, the national governing body for competitive swimming in the U.S., on Tuesday issued new criteria for transgender athletes in elite competition.
The updated policy “acknowledges a competitive difference in the male and female categories and the disadvantages this presents in elite head-to-head competition,” USA Swimming said Tuesday in a news release, citing “statistical data” that shows the top-ranked female in 2021, on average, would be ranked 536th across short-course male events and 326th in long-course male events.
The governing body added that the policy, effective immediately, “supports the need for competitive equity at the most elite levels of competition.”
The policy update comes as teammates of Lia Thomas, a transgender swimmer at University of Pennsylvania, expressed their “full support” for her transition. Thomas has been at the center of a contentious debate surrounding the participation of trans women in U.S. sports.
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A former USA Swimming official resigned in December after officiating meets for more than two decades, claiming Thomas was “destroying” women’s swimming. Former President Trump at a rally in Texas over the weekend promised to ban transgender women from participating in women’s sports if he were re-elected president.
One of Thomas’ teammates, speaking anonymously to Fox News on Thursday, said she believed the school had forged an uneven playing field by allowing Thomas to compete against other women because Thomas, assigned male at birth, had gone through male puberty.
The NCAA last month updated its eligibility criteria for transgender athletes, which will now be determined by the national governing body of each sport. Under the athletic association’s previous framework, female athletes could compete for a collegiate women’s sports team after completing a full year of testosterone suppression treatment.
Under the new USA Swimming policy, which will be implemented by a panel of three medical experts, elite transgender female swimmers will be required to provide “evidence” that a competitive advantage over cisgender athletes does not exist because of their prior physical development “as a male.”
Trans female athletes must also prove that the concentration of testosterone in their blood has been less than 5 nanomoles per liter continuously for at least 36 months.
The policy will apply to elite transgender athletes who wish to set national records in the 13-14 age group and older, or those who wish to set American records. At the non-elite level, trans swimmers can change their competition category “in a manner that is consistent with their gender identity and expression,” USA Swimming said.
The policy update follows “months of internal work, critical stakeholder discussions, and medical and legal review,” according to USA Swimming, and will remain in place until the Fédération Internationale de Natation (FINA), world swimming’s governing body, releases its own guidelines for elite transgender athletes.
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