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British Triathlon has today announced a significant change to their transgender policy. As of 1 January 2023, all triathletes, including age-group and elite, will compete in either a Female Category or an\u00a0Open Category.<\/strong><\/p>\n The Female Category is for those who are the female sex at birth, while the Open Category is for all individuals, including male, transgender and those non-binary who were male sex at birth.<\/p>\n The policy covers competitive events only, so those races that have prizes, times, and\/or rankings, and is applicable to all athletes over the age of 12.<\/p>\n British Triathlon\u2019s current transgender policy, which is still in affect until the end of 2022, states that \u201ctrans women \u2013 over 16 and post puberty \u2013 may compete in their affirmed gender in female or mixed-sex domestic competition by providing evidence that their hormone therapy has brought blood-measured testosterone levels within the range of their affirmed gender or that they have had a gonadectomy. They may compete in any male or mixed-sex competition if they have not started hormone treatment.\u201d<\/p>\n The announcement has come at a critically-divisive time in sport, and follows the recent policy changes at British Cycling and FINA, swimming\u2019s international governing body, who have both done a u-turn to ban transgender athletes from women\u2019s elite events if they went through male puberty.<\/p>\n FINA are now exploring an \u2018open\u2019 category at competitions for swimmers whose gender identity is different than their birth sex.<\/p>\n Unlike triathlon, both sports had high-profile trans female athletes \u2013 Lia Thomas in swimming and Emily Bridges in cycling \u2013 competing in their women\u2019s elite categories.<\/p>\n \u201cWe didn\u2019t want to be a governing body that waited for there to be a problem before we tried to fix it,\u201d said Andy Salmon, British Triathlon\u2019s CEO. \u201cWe\u2019re not aware of any elite level transgender athletes but we don\u2019t know what\u2019s going to happen tomorrow or the next day, and we wanted to be ready for that day. That\u2019s very much driven our thinking and the pace we\u2019ve moved at on this topic.\u201d<\/p>\n World Triathlon are yet to announce their own transgender policy, so questions remain how British Triathlon\u2019s will align.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have a really strong relationship with World Triathlon,\u201d said Salmon. \u201cAnd we\u2019ve been talking to them about this since last autumn. I aim for British Triathlon to continue to support World Triathlon to follow a good process, which has been really crucial in developing our policy. We hope they come up with a policy that\u2019s very much aligned with ours.\u201d<\/p>\nTransgender policy changes in cycling and swimming\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n
What is World Triathlon\u2019s transgender policy?<\/h2>\n