The US Swimming policy has official updated, leaving changes in policy for the transgender athletes particularly competing in women championships.
As such, transgender swimmer Lia Thomas competing in the women’s NCAA championships who is a biological male would not be eligible to compete.
The policy changes for transgender athletes was announced by NCCA President Mark Emmert and is said to be governed by international sport standards in swimming sport that Thomas currently competes in.
NCAA swimming also released a statement saying that Thomas was officially ineligible to compete for the women’s championships as the policy requires biological male athletes to undergo testosterone suppression for a minimum of 36 months to compete, instead of a year long set by the previous policy.
The issue about biological male transgenders competing for women’s division has been the “talk” in the sports industry. Former Olympic gold-medal winning athlete Caitlyn Jenner shared her sentiments about the transgender’s participation in swimming championship for women citing that ”Thomas’ cardiovascular system and respiratory system are bigger. Thomas’ hands are bigger. Many Americans feel that having transgender athletes at all is unfair.”
However, the USA Swimming retaliated against Thomas’ critics about the inadequacy of testosterone suppression to reverse the impact of the 20-years long nomal testosterone levels that his body accommodated and added that all their policies “relies on science and medical evidence-based methods to provide a level-playing field for elite cisgender women, and to mitigate the advantages associated with male puberty and physiology.”
