ILGA Portugal says that FINA made the ″disappointing″ and ″dangerous″ decision
At issue a decision on transgender athletes.
ILGA (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Intervention) Portugal considers that the International Swimming Federation (FINA) has taken a decisive, discriminatory and dangerous decision in wanting to create a separate category for trans female athletes.
On Sunday, FINA reported that it had approved a new women’s policy on gender integration, creating an “open category” that prevents transgender women from competing in elite competitions if they have not completed the transition by the age of 12.
The decision, according to the organization’s president, Husain Al-Musallam, is based on the need to “protect the rights of athletes from competitors”, but also to “protect the competition category of events, especially FINA”.
These swimming decisions will be the ballad for the controversy surrounding an American swimmer Lia Thomas, a 22-year-old male-born student who recently became the first transgender swimmer to win a college national.
FINA has passed the first determination that competition be an open category, to be a requirement that transgender athletes have completed their transition before age 22 in order to compete in women.
Women who were born male and became female could only compete in the female categories, making the FINA recorders, if they had made the transition process before the age issue, one that did not affect male athletes, who would continue to compete with the power. male category.
In the view of ILGA Portugal, “FINA is a category aware that it is separate for trans and intersex people, and this is not only disappointing, but dangerous: creating equality is not the objective, but arbitrary segregation”.
The association for the defense of the rights of LGBTI people maintains that “the concept of “male puberty” is inherently complex – much more complex than the FINA decision implies”.
“The vast majority of people start producing testosterone during puberty – but at different levels. The question then remains of “where and how is the line drawn”, asks ILGA Portugal.
On the other hand, ILGA refutes that there is an “unfair advantage” between female athletes over the remaining athletes, maintaining that they have been given by standards of fidelity, “although many traits of different physical traits have advantage to advantage that are not monitored or segregated, such as height and blood oxygenation, for example”.
“The focus on testosterone is centered on defining who can and cannot be considered a woman – not on protecting sport from the alleged ‘unfair advantage'”, argues ILGA.
For the NGO, FINA had “margin for advancement”, but it had “margin for advancement”, but “which is serious, even more so that what precedes to recognize that it may be adopted by other modalities”.
It is also mentioned that the International Swimming Federation should have as members the Federation societies, associations, organizations constituted by people resulting from civil and intersex associations, defending that “would have resulted in less discriminatory decisions”.
The question of the framing of transgender athletes in competitions has generated debate at the level of the different modalities and FIFA, together with other bodies that range from different sports, announced that it would review its regulations in order to fit the athletes.
In the International Cycling Union, the International Cycling Union last decided the levels of testosterone levels for transgender athletes.
The International Competitions League also decided to exclude trans athletes and the president of the women’s competition, or the British Coe, A will already take the same measure as Sebastian will already take the same feminine measure.