Trans girls/biological males competing against females

100%

I'm hoping USMS adopts the same rules as World Aquatics.  What happened to fairness in sport?

In my work as a psychiatrist I work with many trans individuals. They are in general a highly marginalized group and being about 0.5% of the population are easy to discount. On the other hand, although biologic females are over 50% of the population they have been highly marginalized in sports and while that is changing it is still an issue.

Masters Swimming is generally inclusive and I applaud this while simultaneously being aware that puberty makes permanent changes to the body which gives those who went through male puberty an advantage.

I just started a thread about the unfairness of older men taking PEDs and I would be hypocritical to not agree that it is unfair for people who went through female puberty to compete against people who went through male puberty.

World Aquatic tends to get just about everything wrong, but I think their rules on transgender athletes are correct. They have an open division for trans swimmers. At the elite level there were near zero applicants, so it never has gone anywhere, but at the Masters level there could be enough applicants..

I think that trans-women should be able to swim with masters teams and compete on a level playing field, but swimming against cis-women is not fair,

I believe in inclusion of transathletes and find this post to be extremely vile and oddly discounting of science. Thanks for your concern but your man-splaining isn't necessary or welcomed here. And you're right, the discussion isn't necessary. 

I think the current USMS policy regarding trans women is a good balance between competitive fairness and inclusion. IMO it doesn't need changing.

USMS is aware of allegations regarding the eligibility of a swimmer who competed at our Spring National Championship. We have received an eligibility review request and will follow our formal process to make a determination.

It's my understanding that a trans female won several events at the recent nationals. I wholeheartedly agree with Mike Sherrill who so eloquently described the ridiculous position held by USMS. I will not renew my membership if USMS continues to allow trans females to compete against biological females and I will encourage others to do the same. "The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who take a position of neutrality in a period of moral crisis." (Winston Churchill) I encourage all Masters swimmers need to let their position be known, either in this forum or by not renewing their membership.               Mark Thompson

1. Love the idea of an Open division. No need for even the “trans” word/term for the division if it seems derogatory or not inclusive. Some USA age group club meets offer that and occasionally you’ll find an adult or Masters swimmer entered in Open events. As a coach, I enjoyed watching that, my swimmers enjoyed it, nearly everyone did. The only unspoken caveat is that if you place/medal, you should give your award to the young athlete you beat out for it.

Been a member since 1981.  Just resigned.  I'm done   Biology rules. 

I, nor the other members of my family, will not be renewing if the policy isn't changed.  I encourage others to stand up for fairness in sport as well.