The Trap Of Swimming's "Open" Category

 On Sunday 19th June 2022, world swimming organisation FINA (now World Aquatics) became one of the first to give in to the anti-trans hysteria, and ban trans women from ever competing in women's (which have now become 'female') races.

At the time I believed this would either never happen, or would maybe happen once for publicity.

From Erin Reed (@ErinInTheMorn) on Twitter, June 19 2022: "This is essentially a ban of trans women from swimming entirely, unless they start transitioning under the age of 12. No Olympics. They'll create a "separate category" which will basically have a single swimmer per race by themselves. This is terrible."

With my reply: "Doubt that 'open' category will ever see the light of day. Or maybe they'll do one event for publicity, before shelving it over the optics, competitiveness & the inevitable backlash. But in the end they can ban who they want from their events - maybe it's time to set-up our own."

And it looked like I was going to be completely right. I'd forgotten about it, and everyone else had to. They had got rid of the 'cheat' Lia Thomas, and had enough time pass between the announcement, that everyone - including the anti-trans, 'fairness in (cis) women's sport' activists - had forgot about it too. Then after a year, it was announced by World Aquatics President Husain Al-Musallam, that an event would happen "place in the future". Then out of nowhere, on Wednesday 16th August, it was announced the events would take place at the Swimming World Cup competition in Berlin in October.

Even now, there is little information on who and how athletes will compete in these 'open' events. But if it ever wasn't the case, this is looking like a 'trap' for anyone involved in this 'debate'.

The anti-trans ecosystem - whether that is the 'fairness in (cis) women's sport' ex-athlete activists, the anti-trans 'centrists', or the right-wing media and political influencers who have manufactured this whole hysteria - have already got two major 'talking points' going. Even though we don't even know if this is a 'third' category. The first is "they'd better have an 'open' changing room to protect the (real) women". The 'gender critical' sphere see all men (which includes all trans and intersex people) as just waiting to predate on the delicate, unprotected women, on a spark of their brain synapses, because of their penis.

I've challenged this group - usually on Sharron Davies's Twitter (more with her a bit later) - on this, and get called for NAMALT ('Not All Men Are Like That'). This 'feminist' movement are turning 'equality' into needing all private spaces be separate, because men 'can't be trusted'. Rather than tackling the real causes for violence - the power imbalances rooted from our patriarchal hierarchical systems - because they're 'too difficult', the rhetoric they're running with would logically bring in a segregated system, where women are at best 'equal but different', and at worst, should be part of a traditional society, where they are limited to gender stereotypes and those roles within it. And they should be happy about the 'safety' and 'security' of their enforced place and status in that. That ends up with them being no different to the many hard and far-Right propagandists you can see anywhere online or being promoted within our right-wing media ecosystem daily.

The second is 'this is a reward for mediocre men/males' and 'a second category for males', and so is unfair to 'women' (cis/'female'). If you are a trans activist like myself, whilst I don't agree with this framing - it's just more of the 'they're doing it to cheat to win' bullshit - it certainly could be a way to challenge this in the courts given the 'indignity' and 'traps' that this third category would create. It seems like it would fall foul of both 'sex-based' equality laws and gender based ones too.

In this recent interview on right-wing 'news' channel GB News, Davies - who is a routine go-to for our right-wing media sphere on trans athletics - seems very confused. At 1:17, she says "trans-identifying females (this is a dog-whistle in the anti-trans activist sphere who want to disguise their true belief - that trans people aren't a thing, and are corrupting deviants trying to groom your kids) will still opt to race with the females". On at least one occasion, I replied to her Twitter, that this is false. Unless they haven't taken testosterone, they will fail the upper testosterone limit, brought in against intersex assigned females like athletes Caster Semenya and Christine Mboma. They cannot compete in the 'female' class.

From this point on, with right-wing 'attack dog' Patrick Christys urging it on, they both insinuate the common belief within the anti-trans sphere, that trans women are just 'identifying for a year' to cheat to win 'female' events, which then leads to Davies saying "you're rewarding mediocrity" in having trans and/or non-binary classes. And that is the real point of this. It is no longer about 'fairness' when it comes to trans people competing. It's fine for them to be uncompetitive and be unfair to them. They want trans people out of sight and not able to compete in sports at all - even at community level - to eventually remove them from sight of all society. The belief is that it's all a 'mental illness', so this 'tough love' will get you to desist. And if it's not enough, we'll then make sure you do - one way or another.

And so we get to the 'traps' of either competing in this, or engaging with it in any way.

Let's say this 'open' category is as Davies and others want. The 'male' (formerly 'men') events would be the only place for all trans, non-binary and intersex athletes to compete. Imagine going in and competing in that if you're a trans woman. Remember to this movement, there are 'only two genders'. By competing you are reinforcing their belief that you are always a man, because you (supposedly) have male chromosomes, and have or have had a penis.

Now, let's say it is this "mediocrity" third category, and there are trans men, trans women, non-binary and intersex people only. Firstly, there are very few if any 'international standard' athletes in any sport across those identifying groups. So the fields will be very sparse. Maybe the organisers open it wider. Now you have different and perhaps a wide spread of talent levels. Imagine there is a trans woman and a trans man in the race, and the trans woman wins. They are not going to take talent levels into account when they're running their discourse on that outcome. You've just 'proven' that all trans women aren't women, and are still men (or as you now see trend on Elon Musk's Twitter all the time now - 'Con Men').

But it's not as if not turning up will stop them running new agitprop against trans people. Even if Lia Thomas hasn't competed for 18 months, if she doesn't turn up to this event, it will 'prove' 'all she wanted to do was cheat to win women's events', and to some further 'prove' 'she just wants to beat up on the poor women - with her sexual fetish/kink - who have to put up with losing to her height and wide shoulders'. If these events get no entries, not only will they laugh, they already have their 'talking point' readily 'confirmed'.

And even if there are entries for this (I doubt there will be), and the results come out as expected by us trans activists - that the trans men will finish ahead of the trans women (which also shows that this 'unfairness' doesn't matter to the 'fairness in sports' gang - well, they have another talking point ready for it. They were 'deliberately sandbagging their performance to make us look wrong'. This has already been done before, in the many years that Semenya was able to run without testosterone suppressing drugs (and even still after she was forced to take them to compete). When she didn't win - or win by 'far enough' - it was because she was 'saving her performance' for the big events 'so she could keep on cheating to win medals, by hood-winking the sport'.

It's a no lose outcome for the 'gender critical' tribe - and a no win for trans people and rights activists, whatever happens. Just more rounds of bile and rhetoric.

And even if this 'open' event does happen - who and how is anyone going to compete in this event? From the few bits of info we know, you have to be a member of a national federation, but which national federation is going to send athletes when there is no reward for them? There is no World Championship, Olympics or other big event. So they will be spending money for nothing in return. And if there is one thing sports organisations don't do, is send athletes to events for no return. There are numerous occasions when qualified athletes - often women - are not able to compete at World Championships and especially Olympics, because their national organising body don't think it's worth sending them, if they have not shown they have a chance they can either win or challenge for medals.

So the likelihood is you're going to have to fund your trip to Germany on your own back. And for what exactly? The peering eyes of not only the ghoulish media who have happily ran this hysteria for a number of years now, ascertaining if you're Thomas you've always been 'cheating' - or if you're some random European who found their way there, whether you're 'holding back to try and make us look silly' - but the whole of the anti-trans ecosystem online, that will judge your appearance and existence, and cut their agitprop no matter what the result. A result that gets you nothing materially in return for your bravery and endeavour.

Who wants to put themselves through that? Especially when it's just the tip of a much larger iceberg of constant hate, legislation, derision, and erasure that is being conducted by the state and its operators in the media and political class, all as a distraction for their real sole interest - the capitalist class - from you ever recognising that they are who are making your life worse every day as this economic system collapses in on itself, and the damage it has caused is unleashing environmental damage and destruction, that you will feel and be left to deal with as they're swimming in their pots of gold they've stolen from your labour. Not trans people (and further into the rhetoric once trans people are 'disposed of', 'LGB' people too). You have more, more important, 'battles' to fight against, to just continue your validity in society, to exist in any material way, as an equal human being.

So in my opinion you should not engage with this in any way. We cannot win the 'war' the Right have decided to have against trans and LGBTQ+ existence, by taking any part in this charade.