Swim clubs in Washington have been having trouble sanctioning meets due to clashing policies between the state and the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee (USOPC).
While the USOPC’s competition category policy, which USA Swimming follows, aligns with the “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” Executive Order signed by President Donald Trump in February, the issue reportedly being run into deals with Washington state and specifically King County law.
Washington state law prohibits discrimination on the basis of “gender identity or expression,” while King County’s code explicitly prohibits discrimination in “places of public accommodation” (including pools) on the basis of gender identity or expression.
The Weyerhaeuser Aquatic Center, a public facility in Federal Way, Wash., that has hosted several high-level meets over the years, is a public facility and has recently been facing this issue–it’s restricted from hosting a meet under a discriminatory policy.
The conflict highlights the state-by-state nature of U.S. policy and the fact that national governing bodies like USA Swimming are not government entities. When those rulebooks don’t align, events can fall into a gray area.
The Weyerhaeuser Aquatic Center is scheduled to host one of the 2026 Speedo Sectionals meets this coming March.
Although the law may prevent the facility (and likely others) from sanctioning an event, there may be a workaround if organizers pivot to hosting meets as an “observed” or “approved” competition rather than a “sanctioned” meet.
At sanctioned meets, all USA Swimming policies must be observed, and the national governing body runs the whole operation. The rules at “observed” and “approved” meets are a bit looser. They’re usually run by a different organization, but USA Swimming recognizes the results as legitimate. Functionally, for the relevance of times being official, they’re more or less the same, which may be the short-term fix here.
Good on Washington. Many commenters do not understand biology and it shows. Swimmers who have transitioned, especially if they transitioned before completing puberty, have a biological disadvantage compared to ones who are not transgender. Trans women have lower testosterone than cis women due to puberty and testosterone blockers. Trans men are smaller than cis men.
If we’re going to define things by chromosomes, there are six “biological” genders: XX, XY, XO, XXY, XYY, and XXXY. The most rare is 1 in 20,000 births, so odds are you’ve met someone in each category.
Swim is not discriminating based on your gender identity. You are welcome to wear long hair, nails, earrings and we will call you by your chosen name. The competition group is determined by biology, not gender.
How many swimmers are ineligible to compete?
This is good. Biological men should NOT be competing in biological women’s sports. It’s a tough lesson for the swim families in Washington, but elections matter…
Are the clubs barred from just doing Open + Cis Girls’ divisions?? Or even mixed prelims + split finals? There’s no perfect solution, but when we’re talking about having the meets happen at all I feel like some compromise is justified
I think there are (currently) two problems: 1. do any sanctioning bodies even allow divisions like that? 2. having a “cis girls” division could definitely be considered “discrimination on the basis of ‘gender identity or expression'” I would imagine. I do think going forward having some kind of biological women’s division and an open division is probably the best solution.
NCAA and USMS can no longer hold meets at King County Aquatic Center either, until this is resolved.
USMS had Summer LC Nationals there. There were a few “protests”…..one was clever
A USMS short course meters championship meet that was supposed to happen this past weekend was canceled due to this policy conflict. The Snohomish Aquatic Center may be getting a whole lot more meet bookings if something can’t be done to allow competition at KCAC.