The world swimming body effectively bans transgender women from women's events

University of Pennsylvania transgender athlete Lia Thomas competes at the NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships in March. Her success became a focus of debate.

John Bazemore / John Bazemore

FINA, the world governing body for swimming, has voted to effectively ban transgender women from participating in women’s swimming competitions.

The vote — with 71.5% approval at the FINA Extraordinary General Congress 2022 in Budapest — was the latest salvo in an ongoing fight over whether trans athletes should compete according to their gender identity or their sex assigned at birth.

“We have to protect the rights of our athletes to compete, but we also have to protect competitive fairness at our events, especially the women’s category at FINA competitions,” FINA’s president, Husain Al-Musallam, said in a statement.