FINA's transgender athlete restrictions make waves in Canada

The world governing body of swimming's exclusion of transgender athletes is creating waves in Canada.

FINA adopted Sunday a "gender inclusion policy" that went into effect Monday.

Only swimmers who transition from male to female before age 12 are allowed to compete in women's events.

FINA is also considering the establishment of an open competition category.

FINA was the first major international sport federation to announce how it will address trans athletes in its sport following the International Olympic Committee's issuance of fairness, non-discrimination and inclusion guidelines last November.

"It's the first IF to exclude trans, male-to-female trans, in such an explicit way," University of Toronto sport and public policy professor emeritus Bruce Kidd told The Canadian Press on Monday.

Kidd, a distance runner for Canada in the 1964 Olympic Games, served on a working group for the The Canadian Centre For Ethics in Sport when it established in 2016 a guide for sport organizations to create inclusive environments for trans participants.

"There are people who rail against it," Kidd said. "I've participated in one or two public forums in the last while and certainly there are people on either side.

"But at the national leadership level, there's not much disagreement with the CCES position which is self-recognition, self-identification, no requirement for medical intervention either hormonal or surgical, and no requirement to disclose."

The CCES allows for a changing understanding of the science from more data to potentially alter that position, Kidd said.

"The empirical record is so limited," he said. "Let's err in the direction of inclusion and fairness and let's not add to the discrimination, the marginalization."

Atta