Yesterday’s odd social media phenomenon of stories about transgender swimming policy
Christopher Tremoglie
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For some reason, news that the international governing body of competitive swimming mandated that only biological women can compete with each other made the rounds yesterday on social media. It’s a great thing and worth celebrating; however, that decision was made over a year ago. Known as FINA at the time, swimming’s governing body changed policies to protect female athletes’ right to fair competition in June 2022. What did happen recently was the acceptance of a proposal to have transgender swimmers compete in an “Open” category.
But if you search “transgender swimming” on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, a bunch of posts will pop up of people sharing this news as if it happened yesterday. You’ll see many posts stating such things as “Lia Thomas banned from competing” or “world swimming bans transgender male athletes from women’s events.” But all of it is old news that’s been around for over a year, despite many on X thinking it just happened.
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It’s probably a sad social commentary on people mindlessly following social media like lemmings without verifying information or caring about facts and the truth. It’s the perfect example of how misinformation spreads like wildfire and an example of why no one should trust things on social media without doing their own research. Nevertheless, people posted and reposted stories from the Associated Press and other publications from June 2022 as if it was breaking news.
I have no idea what triggered it, but many pundits, influencers, commentators, and other accounts posted this information yesterday. For example, political commentator Dinesh D’Souza posted the news yesterday and credited former University of Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines “whose courage helped make this happen!” D’Souza wasn’t the only one to post this.
D’Souza then posted an article by the Telegraph from June 19, 2022. His post was viewed nearly 485,000 times. He even used the incorrect name of swimming’s governing body. But again, this is news that’s over a year old.
However, what did happen recently was that the international governing body of swimming, now known as World Aquatics, announced it would start an “Open” category for transgender swimmers. The announcement was made on July 25, 2023, 13 months after it announced its intentions to add the category.
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Under the new rules, the “Open” category will be for swimmers who identify as a gender different from their biological sex. The decision comes on the heels of several other sporting organizations (British Triathlon Federation, International Rugby League, World Athletics, Union Cycliste Internationale) adopting policies to prohibit biological men, who want to identify as women, from competing against females due to unfair advantages.
The story’s timeliness aside, seeing these positive developments is good. It seems that sanity has somewhat returned to society, and women’s sports will be protected from radical left-wing cultural agendas and activists.