'Open category' proposal faces questions over fairness and viability

MANCHESTER, England : World swimming's governing body FINA is setting up a working group to look into creating an 'open category' to ensure inclusivity after voting to restrict transgender women from competing in elite women's competition.

But before the working group has even begun to consider exactly how an open category would work, the concept has already been dismissed by trans athletes.

Details of who would be eligible to compete in an 'open category' and what events such a division would feature in have yet to emerge with FINA giving itself six months to formulate a plan.

So far FINA has said that the open category would offer opportunities for athletes "without regard to their sex, their legal gender, or their gender identity"

But Veronica Ivy, trans cyclist and twice UCI Masters world champion, said the proposal was an "extreme indignity".

"FINA's choice to force trans women into an 'open' category with cisgender men is an unethical non-starter," she told Reuters in an interview.

"It is the very definition of 'separate but equal' and an extreme indignity to the women affected. Trans women are legally, socially, and medically women; we are legally, socially, and medically female.

"We ought to race with women and international sports federations need to cease placing limits on who is 'woman' or 'female' enough," she said.

So far, the only idea floated for swimming has come from the World Swimming Coaches Association, which produced a position statement before FINA's congress on Sunday.

"Through a re-categorisation process, the sport of swimming should offer an alternative competitive model which would ensure inclusion and fairness," said the statement.

Although they have not submitted a proposal to FINA, the statement