The World Cup category for trans swimmers fails: no one registered

World Aquatics tried to open a new competition so that trans swimmers would not compete with women and men at the Berlin swimming championships.

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Published by

Juan Carlos Téllez

4 de octubre, 2023

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The organization of the Berlin Swimming World Cup was forced to suspend its initiative to impose a specific category for trans swimmers held in the German capital. The reason, no one showed up to compete in this category.

World Aquatics (International Swimming Federation) announced months ago that it would move forward with the so-called Open Category, in order to place trans competitors according to their reassigned sexual status. In this way, the federation tried to respond to the controversies over the growing cases of swimmers born male who began to compete in the female category and thereby breaking records and sharing locker rooms and showers with female swimmers, among other things.

However, this announcement does not seem to have caught the attention of trans swimmers, who although on other occasions did not take long to register in the female category; This time they have left all the vacancies in the new Open Category free. This was recognized by the International Swimming Federation itself:

Following the close of registration for the Open Category competitions at the World Aquatics Swimming World Cup – Berlin 2023 meet scheduled for 6-8 October, World Aquatics can confirm that no entries have been received for the Open Category events.

Distances in various events had been made available for the Open Category, introduced on a pilot basis following the adoption of the World Aquatics Policy on Eligibility for the Men’s and Women's Competition Categories.

However, World Aquatics insists on its efforts to promote this new category (since at the time the organization prohibited trans people from participating in the international women's competitio ) and announces that it will try to implement it in the future:

The World Aquatics Open Category Working Group will continue its work and engagement with the aquatics community on Open Category events. Even if there is no current demand at the elite level, the working group is planning to look at the possibility of including Open Category races at Masters events in the future.