Swimming's world governing body, FINA, has voted to restrict the participation of transgender athletes in elite women's competitions and create a working group to establish an "open" category for them in some events as part of its new policy.
The new policy states transgender women must prove they had not experienced male puberty "beyond Tanner Stage 2 [of puberty] or before age 12, whichever is later.
Transgender men are fully eligible to compete in men's swimming competitions.
The decision — the strictest by any Olympic sports body — was made during FINA's extraordinary general congress after members heard a report from a transgender taskforce comprising leading medical, legal and sports figures.
Its new eligibility policy for FINA competitions states that male-to-female transgender athletes are eligible to compete only if "they can establish to FINA's comfortable satisfaction that they have not experienced any part of male puberty beyond Tanner Stage 2 [of puberty] or before age 12, whichever is later".
The policy was passed with a roughly 71 per cent majority after it was put to the members of 152 national federations with voting rights who had gathered for the congress at the Puskás Aréna in Budapest.
[Source: abc.co.net]
