Elite swimming opens doors to transgender athletes in an open category

Already at the time of referring to all the fronts of conflict that, also in sports, opened the Russian invasion of Ukraine, an attempt was made to install the idea that, in certain cases and especially in a scenario of war, there is no perfect solution. Rather, anything that is decided will run the risk of being absolutely fair or absolutely unfair depending on where it comes from or what the person involved thinks.

Far from approaching the level of drama involved in a war, it was nevertheless expected that, in the midst of a powerful current of gender diversity, sports would also be affected by those of the law. Not only because it’s a developing issue in many of our societies, but because, mainly due to issues of biotype, biological development and even chronological peculiarities, opening the game involves very different challenges between one sport and another. Just as in the processes of learning and even preparing for High Performance, they are different, for example, for weightlifting and for canoeing, the same thing happens when it comes to establishing equivalence parameters for women and trans people to compete together. And I am only referring to issues related to the body of each person and not to the itching that exists in this regard, which makes the possibility of a debate almost inadmissible.

“On March 17 of last year, my teammates, me, and other swimmers from other universities were forced to compete against a biological man named Lia Thomas, who competed as a man for three years at the University of Pennsylvania,” Riley Gaines, a recent graduate of the University of Kentucky, where she was a member of the swimming team and a 12-time champion of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), said in a viral video. That 1-minute 25-second video that circulated heavily on social media at the end of February was part of her speech at the presentation in Virginia of a bill entitled “equality in women’s sports”. Some days later, the trans swimmer mentioned by Gaines stated in a podcast: “There are those who are using the guise of feminism to promote transphobic beliefs.”

Thomas erased the college league records set by legendary swimmers such as Missy Franklin or Katie Ledecky, since she takes half a pool away from her competitors. The topic is very controversial and the sport has been trying for a long time to seek a Solomonic decision: to be inclusive with transgender athletes without neglecting the demands of the rivals.

The international water sports federation, World Aquatics, announced on Wednesday that the World Cup in Berlin on October 6 to 8 will welcome “swimmers of all sexes and gender identities”, who will be able to compete in a third category, which is neither male nor female: it will be the “open” category.

This new division will give transgender athletes the opportunity to swim on the elite stage after last June, World Aquatics voted to prevent transsexual swimmers from competing in women’s races if they have been through any part of the male puberty process.

The open category will feature races at distances of 50 and 100 meters in all styles, and participants will compete for two days in timed finals.

Berlin is the first of three dates on the World Cup swimming circuit, with events also scheduled in Athens and Budapest.

“The minimum classification and marking requirements will be available soon. For this inaugural event, the emphasis is on getting more experience for future development and celebrating diversity,” World Aquatics published on its official website.

Vice President of the German Swimming Federation, Kai Morgenroth, expressed her enthusiasm and said: “Berlin is delighted to defend this innovative initiative. We are proud to organize an event where swimmers can compete without barriers. Berlin is Germany’s center of diversity and inclusion and, therefore, the perfect place for such a progressive project.”

Episodes like these anticipate the future. A future that is surely near and conflicting.

A time to be very prudent when it comes to handling valid strictly sporting arguments with timing without hurting susceptibilities or falling into discrimination. Always remembering that each sport can have its logic. And that the perfect solution will never appear in this type of situation.