Males banned from female swimming competitions

By Catherine Sheehan

The world governing body for aquatic sports has banned males who identify as female from competing in women’s swimming competitions.

FINA announced its policy on 19 June, effectively prohibiting any male who “transitioned” to identifying as female after the onset of puberty, from competing against biological females.

The policy statement asserted that FINA was “committed to the separation of Aquatics sports into men’s and women’s categories” based on a “scientifically-grounded, sex-based criteria”.

In developing its policy FINA set up a working group including independent experts in the fields of physiology, endocrinology, and human performance, as well as specialists in sex differences in human performance and transgender medicine.

The working group reported that “biological sex is a key determinant of athletic performance, with males outperforming females in sports (including Aquatic sports) that are primarily determined by neuromuscular, cardiovascular, and respiratory function, and anthropometrics including body and limb size”.

It also reported that “sex-linked biological differences” are “largely the result of the substantially higher levels of testosterone to which males are exposed from puberty onwards”.

“High testosterone levels generate not only anatomical divergence in the reproductive system but also measurably different body types/compositions between sexes,” the working group found.

The policy decision was made in accord with FINA’s commitment to ensuring equal opportunity for both male and female athletes and to ensuring competitive fairness and physical safety.

“Because of the performance gap that emerges at puberty between biological males as a group and biological females as a group, separate sex competition is necessary for the attainment of these objectives,” FINA’s policy stated.

“Without eligibility standards based on biological sex or sex-linked traits, we are unlikely to see biological females in finals, on podiums, or in championship positions; and in sports and events involving collisions and projectiles, biological female athletes would be at greater risk of injury.”

Save Women’s Sports Australasia welcomed FINA’s ban on males competing against females, with spokeswoman Ro Edge saying the policy would “ensure fairness in competition for women and girls in swimming”.

“The scientific evidence, public opinion and of course common sense all support this move,” she said.

“Male puberty confers a lifelong performance advantage in sport which can’t be reversed. Now other international sports federations must follow FINA’s lead.”

FINA’s policy corresponds with the Catholic understanding of gender as founded in biological sex. Pope Francis has repeatedly warned about the dangers of gender ideology which seeks to ignore the fundamental biological difference between males and females.

In his 2016 Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia, the Holy Father wrote, “This [gender] ideology leads to educational programmes and legislative enactments that promote a personal identity and emotional intimacy radically separated from the biological difference between male and female”.

Photo: CNS/Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart, courtesy Catholic Standard