Kudos to the World Swimming Coaches Association for speaking the truth: “Trans females cannot compete fairly with biological females.”
And more props for proposing what seems like the only reasonable solution, a division in which trans females can compete against other trans females and trans males against trans males.
University of Pennsylvania trans female swimmer Lia Thomas’ record shows how necessary this is. She won the NCAA Division 1 women’s 500-yard freestyle in March after a spectacular season in which she regularly dominated all her competition.
But her dominance was plainly due to the obvious size and strength advantage she enjoys over the other swimmers she competes against. Pre-transition, competing with male swimmers of similar size and weight, Thomas ranked 554th in 200-yard freestyle. That’s too big a jump to be explained by even the most miraculous training regimen.
Letting athletes like Thomas compete in the women’s division is unfair to most competitors, a fact pointed out again and again by those very swimmers as well as commentators like Caitlyn Jenner (herself a trans woman and former gold-medal decathlete).
Some will surely blast the WSCA’s idea as “separate but unequal!” Yet trans female athletes are unequal in size and strength to the women they compete against.
Trans people deserve respect and legal and social inclusion — not special treatment, where obvious, decisive physical differences are ignored in the name of equity. A trans division is the right call. Other sports bodies need to back the WSCA up, before yet another part of human life falls victim to woke insanity.
