TRANS DEBATE’S ‘LIGHTNING BOLT’ MOMENT
The scientific data that convinced swimming’s powerbrokers to vote for milestone rule
YOU don’t need a science degree to know that male swimmers have an unfair advantage over women once puberty kicks in.
It’s written in Australian swimming’s record books and on the honour board of every swimming club in the country.
Every open age women’s world and national record has been beaten by a boy as young as 14 or 15.
At 14, Kyle Chalmers was faster over the 50m and 100m freestyle than the fastest female sprinter of all time, Sweden’s Sarah Sjostrom, while her 50m world record of 23.67 seconds has been eclipsed by 4121 male swimmers.
American Katie Ledecky, widely regarded as the best female swimmer, holds the top 20 swimming times by women for the 800m freestyle, including the world record (8:04.79).
But 458 male swimmers have bettered that time, including Mack Horton, who did so when he was just 15.
It was that history of performance that convinced FINA’s leaders to propose a new policy effectively banning transgender women from competing in elite female events.
The data was bundled up in a de- tailed presentation by international scientists to delegates at last weekend’s FINA Congress in Budapest, where the groundbreaking vote to back the proposal was made.
Swimming Australia chief Eugenie Buckley was in the room and later told the Saturday
Herald Sun the scientific presentation was something of a lightning bolt moment.
“I think that performance edge presentation was the most compelling for me,” she said. “I know the athletes spoke with emotion, and that was great, but for me, that performance edge, I was like, ‘OK, I get it now’.”
The differences in performances were part of a broader presentation from the science and medical group that also touched on exercise physiology, transgender and gender fluid identification and biological sex differences in muscle fatigue and endurance performance.
The key point that led FINA to conclude any testosterone reduction programs were unfair was that the physical benefits males derive from puberty can’t be reversed.
“It’s called the legacy of testosterone,” FINA chief executive director Brent Nowicki toldNews Corp.
“So, you can’t shrink the person. There’s certain effects of testosterone that either can’t be undone or can’t fully be undone.
“Muscle mass, bone density, your height, shoulder structure, lung capacity.
“Scientists will give you the list of all those things that either you can’t undo or can’t substantially undo to the point where you eliminate the legacy effect of testosterone.”
FINA created three independent groups to shape and draft the most comprehensive – and controversial – policy on transgender participation.
But it was the weight of evidence from the scientific group that ultimately determined the direction the policy would take, because it tackled the fundamental issue that the differences in testosterone levels meant male and female athletes could never truly compete as equals.
“That was sort of the foundation from which we were looking at. We’re talking about fairness, what is competitive fairness and how do we ensure that that pool is competitively fair based on science,” Nowicki said.
“Where we drew the line was, where the impact of testosterone meets between girls and boys. At that point, it’s arguable that the legacy effects of testosterone start to develop and you can’t undo that or you can’t undo all of that.”
The delegates only saw the scientific evidence when they arrived at the Congress.
The vote to implement the presentation took place less than an hour and a half after the presentations were made and questions taken from the floor. More than 70 per cent supported the new rules.
Swimming Australia president Tracey Stockwell, who won three gold medals for the US at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics when she was a teenager, said she wished she could have had more time to review everything, but was impressed with the depths FINA went to in order to get everything right.
“It was a good process and we commend FINA on that, the experts that they got,” she said.
“We didn’t have a lot of visibility about it but I understand why. I think to protect those experts that were doing a lot of the research and formulating the policies.”
FINA’s landmark decision has been applauded and criticised but elite athletes have mostly backed it, including swimming’s newly crowned 100m and 200m freestyle champion David Popovic.
At just 17, the Romanian said it made sense.
“It’s simply a fact that males are a little bit faster than females,” he said.
“There are sports where women are better but not in the ones where your body has to be used to its full capacity.
“That’s just how nature goes and there’s nothing wrong with that.”