Open Letter Re: Safety, Privacy and Fairness for Women and Girls in Public Swimming Pools and Sports in New Brunswick, Canada

To:

Susan Holt - Premier of New Brunswick 

Isabelle Thériault - Minister responsible for Sports in New Brunswick

Husain Al Musallam – President of World Aquatics

Susan Owen - President of Swimming Canada

Annie Robichaud - President of Swimming New Brunswick

Cc:

Rob McKee - New Brunswick Minister of Justice

Robin Ferdinand - Executive Director of Swimming New Brunswick

Re: Safety, Privacy and Fairness for Women and Girls in Public Swimming Pools and Sports in New Brunswick, Canada

Dear Premier Susan Holt, Sports Minister Isabelle Thériault, and Swimming Presidents Husain Al Musallam, Susan Owen and Annie Robichaud:

We, the International Consortium on Female Sport (ICFS), are a group of women’s organizations from ten countries that advocates for sex-based protections of female athletes across the globe. Our purpose is to represent the concerns of women and girls at all levels of sport and recreation.

It has come to our attention through private sources offering firsthand accounts that competitive swimming clubs and recreational facilities in New Brunswick are places where sex discrimination abounds. Men and boys are being allowed to enter female locker rooms and water sports competitions with nothing more than self-declared permit via unverified gender identity claims.

When women and girls in New Brunswick complain about the presence of a man or boy in the women’s change rooms at a pool, they are told: “Everyone has the right to use the space that best aligns with their gender identity.” When female athletes complain to their club coach that a boy has just won their race, the coach will say: “There is nothing to be done because of the World Aquatics policy of inclusion.”  

We, the ICFS, hereby remind everyone involved in this matter – from the premier, to the sports minister and to all swimming leaders local to international - that willful discrimination against female persons (women and girls of any age), whether they are athletes or simply citizens seeking healthy physical activity in the pool, is a clear violation of the International Bill of Human Rights, the intent of the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW, Article 10(g)), and the precepts of the Women’s Declaration (Article 7). 

We recognize that there are two aspects pertaining to the current problem: (1) rules that govern eligibility in swimming competitions and (2) policies that govern public spaces at Canadian recreation centres.

SWIMMING REGULATIONS

Regarding Item 1, we are well aware of the World Aquatics regulation that it is permissible to include boys in girls swimming as long as they are below the age of twelve years or as long as they have not yet experienced male puberty beyond the medically inspected “Tanner Stage 2.”

We, the ICFS, reject the arbitrary decision to choose either age twelve or Tanner Stage 2 as the boundary below which little girls no longer deserve fairness in aquatics competitions. The preponderance of the research on male versus female differences indicates that males have a physical performance advantage over females at all ages.

The most recent study comparing prepubertal children in swimming indicates that boys perform significantly better than girls most of the time. While there are a few cases in which girls have been observed to post faster times that boys, these few cases do not justify a presumption of “no competitive advantage” that little boys have over little girls.

World Aquatics should never have established an arbitrary boundary for fairness without adequate research showing a complete overlap of physical capabilities amongst prepubertal boys and girls in swimming. Indeed, this latest research indicates that the Tanner Stage 2 boundary utterly violates the fundamental principle stated in the World Aquatics policy document:

“Historically, Aquatics sport has been separated into men’s and women’s competition categories. The separation reflects the sport’s commitment to: (1) ensuring equal opportunity for both male and female athletes to participate and succeed in the sport, including through the equal representation in its programs and competitions of athletes of both biological sexes; (2) ensuring competitive fairness and physical safety within its competition categories; and (3) developing the sport and promoting its popular appeal and commercial value. Because of the performance gap that emerges at puberty between biological males as a group and biological females as a group, separate sex competition is necessary for the attainment of these objectives. Without eligibility standards based on biological sex or sex-linked traits, we are very unlikely to see biological females in finals, on podiums, or in championship positions; and in sports and events involving collisions and projectiles, biological female athletes would be at greater risk of injury.”

According to the data on children’s swimming competitions a performance gap exists across all ages. It is not acceptable to force girls to compete against boys. It does nothing to teach children the eligibility expectations that will arise in older age group aquatics sports. And it does nothing to inspire young girls to remain in the competitive stream. Drop out rates in girls’ sports during the early teen years is already too extreme. Adding sex discrimination and unfairness to the context makes the situation worse.

When a little girl cries from the unfairness of losing to a boy in a swimming competition – as is happening in New Brunswick - she deserves better than a coach who shrugs and says: “There’s nothing we can do. Those are the rules.”

Parents have shared with us the psychological devastation that is magnified when the adults in charge of swimming must play along with the charade. Imagine a weeping girl going to the coach to ask why she lost to a boy in a race and, rather than comforting the girl, the coach proceeds to lecture the girl to be more supportive of the boy. The parent asks us: “How can a female coach ask a girl to support the boy who is taking her place?”

The message to little girls is clear: The self-indulgent whims of a boy or man are more important than the achievement of a girl or women. Is this really the lesson parents want their daughters to learn when they sign their children up for a swim club?

This extreme gaslighting of the little girls in New Brunswick swimming is a form of psychological maltreatment, which is a violation of the Canadian UCCMS item 5.2.1.c (p. 4): “Psychological Maltreatment includes, without limitation, verbal conduct, non-assaultive physical conduct, conduct that denies attention or support… [to the athlete].”

It is enormously ironic that this letter cannot include the Sport Integrity Commissioner of Canada, because the office of Abuse-Free Sport is itself in transition. It is in the process of partnering with the CCES, the entity in Canada that happens to be the primary promoter of men in women’s sports at the federal level.

This entire situation is both tragic for little girls and infuriating for their families.

CANADIAN FACILITIES REGULATIONS

Regarding Item 2, the denial to female persons (women and girls) the option of a private, single-sex space to change into a bathing suit is dystopian and cruel. Public swimming pools across Canada are known to be citing Bill C16 as their rationale for allowing a male person to self-identify into the women’s change room.

This is an abominable interpretation of the legislation.

Adding “gender identity” and “gender expression” to the Canadian Human Rights Act in no way eliminated other grounds for discrimination. Adding these new characteristics to the list did not suddenly make it legal to discriminate against women and girls on the basis of the characteristic “sex” nor make it acceptable to allow a man to use the legislation as an excuse to either expose himself to women or to ogle them.

In most swimming pool facilities across Canada a third, private, single-occupancy option is typically available for users who do not feel comfortable changing in the room that aligns with their sex recorded at birth.

For the betterment of society and the enjoyment of swimming, the provision of single sex changing rooms is a logical and necessary requirement, as the characteristic “sex” is the most relevant characteristic to be considered in the context of an activity involving the state of undress. Female persons (women and girls) should be able to enter a changing room labelled WOMEN with complete confidence that the space excludes male bodies of any socio-cultural persuasion.

In summary, the ICFS calls upon the Canadian province of New Brunswick and the sport of aquatics at large to resolve policies that are making the act of going for a swim – whether in competition or for recreation – a moment of trepidation for women and girls.

The current lapses in protection and fairness towards female persons in the context of public pools and programs are unjustified. Failure to fix these problems places the province of New Brunswick and the sport of swimming in a state of perpetual sex discrimination against women and girls.

Please know that going forward we will be checking with our sources on the ground in New Brunswick to monitor whether the problem of men and boys in female swimming and changing rooms has been dealt with.

Globally, we demand that World Aquatics and, by extension, Swim Canada update their sport’s eligibility policy in a manner that eliminates male advantage from the female category at all ages.

We, the ICFS, will not stop advocating for these changes until sex discrimination towards women and girls in swimming is completely resolved.

Yours in Sport,

Founding Members, ICFS

Email: hello@ICFSport.org

https://www.icfsport.org/

Safety, Privacy and Fairness for Women and Girls in Public Swimming Pools and Sports in New Brunswick, Canada

Safety, Privacy and Fairness for Women and Girls in Public Swimming Pools and Sports in New Brunswick, Canada

Open Letter Re: Safety, Privacy and Fairness for Women and Girls in Public Swimm