Transgender swimming ban: Cate Campbell backs Fina restrictions

Australian Olympic champion Cate Campbell has supported Fina’s vote to restrict transgender women from taking part in elite female swimming competitions, saying she had “wrestled long and hard” with her views on the polarising issue before concluding that fairness is a “cornerstone” of professional sport.

Fina’s historic decision has also elicited criticism; the policy shift has been slammed by transgender advocacy groups and swimmer Maddie Groves described it as “discriminatory and unscientific”.

On Monday, at the world championships in Budapest, 71% of the global governing body’s 152 national federations voted in favour of proposed new rules stipulating that male-to-female transgender athletes could now only compete in the women’s category provided they had not experienced any physical parts of male puberty.

It also pledged to create a working group to establish an “open” category for trans women who do not meet the new criteria to race as female.

Before the vote, Fina heard evidence from scientists, lawyers and elite female athletes including Campbell.

Campbell, in her address, said she believes in inclusion, and reflected on her move to Australia from Malawi as a nine-year-old. The four-time Olympic gold medallist said she wants transgender and gender-diverse people “to be part of the broader swimming community”.

Ultimately, though, she said women’s fight to “be included and seen as equals in sport” had only been possible because of their gender category distinction, and that to remove it “would be to the detriment of female athletes everywhere”.

“We see you, value you and accept you,” Campbell told the congress. “My role, however, is also to stand up here, having asked our world governing body, Fina, to investigate,