Transgender ban draws debate
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MELBOURNE • Fina's decision on Sunday to restrict transgender athletes in elite women's swimming has quickly divided opinion, within sports as well as in wider society.
Several top Australian swimmers, including Olympic champions Emily Seebohm and Cate Campbell, welcomed the ruling by the sport's governing body after its members heard a report from a task force comprising leading medical, legal and sports figures.
Campbell, 30, urged people to "listen to the science and experts".
"Women, who have fought long and hard to be included and seen as equals in sport, can only do so because of the gender category distinction," she said before delegates voted in favour of the ban.
However, compatriot Madeline Groves, 27, who won a butterfly silver at the 2016 Rio Games, was scathing of Campbell's comments.
"You're OK with ostracising an already marginalised group? Real accepting. Shame on everyone that supported this discriminatory and unscientific decision," she said on social media.
Athlete Ally, an advocacy group for LGBTQI+ people in sport, called the announcement "harmful".
"If we truly want to protect women's sports, we must include all women," it said on Twitter.
Fina said it will create a working group to establish an "open" category for them in some events as part of its new policy while David Gerrard, vice-chairman of its sports medicine committee, said it was "the best outcome" for the sport and its athletes, and was backed by robust process.
"It recognised the athlete's voice, the scientific, objective evidence and the somewhat more subjective, human rights (and) legal issues which were argued very forcefully by the lawyers present," New Zealander Gerrard, a former Olympic swimmer, said yesterday.
Among Fina's supporters was the British sports minister Nadine Dorries.
"It is just unacceptable that trans women compete in women's sport. I've been of the opinion Fina came for a long time, and have discussed this with my own department and established a policy.
"I'm going to encourage other sports (to do the same)," she told LBC Radio on Sunday.
REUTERS
