{"id":616487,"date":"2025-07-07T09:51:30","date_gmt":"2025-07-07T16:51:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=616487"},"modified":"2025-07-09T18:45:42","modified_gmt":"2025-07-10T01:45:42","slug":"toward-fairness-the-future-of-transgender-and-non-binary-swimmers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/toward-fairness-the-future-of-transgender-and-non-binary-swimmers\/","title":{"rendered":"Guest Editorial: Toward Fairness – The Future of Transgender and Non-Binary Swimmers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Toward Fairness: The Future of Transgender and Non-Binary Swimmers<\/strong><\/p>\n

By Kerri Nicole McCaffrey – Guest Editorial<\/p>\n

\u201cBut you have heard me say many times there should be no discrimination. Nobody should be excluded from our competitions.\u00a0 Our sport must be open to everybody.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

World Aquatics President, <\/em>Husain Al-Musallam –\u00a07\/25\/23<\/em><\/p>\n

**************************<\/p>\n

I am excluded.<\/p>\n

As I begin this piece, it would help in my quest to be objective to let everyone know that I write this from a place of immense hurt and sadness.<\/p>\n

In full disclosure, I am someone currently enduring the suffocating reality of\u00a0 being \u201ccanceled\u201d or made \u201cunofficial\u201d by United States Masters Swimming\u2019s new interim<\/em> policy<\/a> on transgender athletes titled, Interim Policy on Participation in the Men\u2019s and Women\u2019s Competition Category and Eligibility for Official Recognition Programs<\/em>. I want to try to lend my voice to each of the major swimming communities in an effort to urge them to pursue fairness for all swimmers.<\/p>\n

Currently, I don\u2019t have a way to compete in USMS or World Aquatics programs unless I do so as a male. But I\u2019ve been a post-surgical transgender woman with little to no testosterone for more than two decades now\u2014and have a proven record of not placing higher as a woman than I did as a male. Fairness seemed achieved in my own swimming transition\u2014but effectively, I\u2019ve been canceled.<\/p>\n

Jim Wood, my coach at Berkeley Aquatic Club many years ago and the former President of USA Swimming, once said: \u201cI would love to see an organization where everybody was concerned with USA Swimming number one, and their own personal agendas number two.\u201d<\/p>\n

In that spirit\u2014and while feeling I have been treated poorly as a Masters Swimmer\u2014here are ideas which might be perceived as a way for competitive swim organizations to achieve some fairness with their female, transgender female, and non-binary athletes.<\/p>\n

The conclusion\/prediction I reach here, as you will see, is not a happy outcome for me: I want to swim as the female I am\u2014but I do think my analysis will show where competitive swimming is headed.<\/p>\n

I want to consider specifically here fairness for people who are male to female transgender and for those people who are non-binary\u2014non-binary swimmers who in their specific journeys (and there are multiple ways both transgender and non-binary people present themselves in the world) may find themselves needing to suppress testosterone because they have kept their testes or because they are using testosterone in their self-identifying process\u2014or to help themselves feel more whole.<\/p>\n

In discussing fairness for such athletes in swimming, more and more an \u201cOpen Division\u201d is discussed, which might offer some transgender and non-binary swimmers a chance at full inclusion\u2014perhaps even someday, up to Olympic waters.<\/p>\n

******************<\/p>\n

What follows are four of the largest competitive swim organizations for athletes of all ages and abilities\u2014and brief synopses of their Transgender\/Non-Binary swimmer inclusion policies. These are the most salient points, but I do recommend full readings of these policies if one desires every detail (which cannot be totally distilled into a short article). Most of these policies address transgender eligibility but certainly non-binary swimmers might be interested when a discussion of an \u201cOpen Division\u201d arises.<\/p>\n

USA Swimming<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

(375,000 + members)<\/p>\n