The Swimsuit Situation

Something like two years ago, my friend Sasha asked if I wanted to come with her to go swimming, since we both used to swim competitively when we were younger. We swam for a couple months together, and then she gradually dropped off and I stuck with it. I swam on my own once or twice a week at the Koret gym at USF, and eventually felt like I’d plateaued.

I thought about joining the Masters^[1] swim team at USF a couple of times. I even “tried out” for the team and was accepted. I used to be pretty good back in the day, so that’s no surprise. In high school I competed at the county level, and was very close to making it into North Coast Sectionals in the 100 fly. I actually knew the guy who took my spot in the slowest seed for that meet - he was a couple hundredths of a second faster than me, but I’m glad he got in because he swam a personal record there and moved up considerably.

Of course, the main thing holding me back from competing again was the gender stuff ™️.

The Gender Stuff

I don’t think I’ve told the story in full, certainly not in writing. But the gist of it is: I came out in 2020 like so many other trans people. I was working at Coinbase at the time, and working remotely gave me the time and space to process how I felt in isolation from being perceived, and that experience really reinforced how I felt as a non-binary person. Of course, that identity evolved over time, but by the time I started swimming again, I decided that I wanted to wear a one-piece swimsuit.

As a child, I was once a pool shirt kid. I had enough of a sense of my body and society to know I was a little pudgy, and I prefered covering up. However, all the little boys would go topless at the pool, and I felt that social pressure. I mostly ignored that though, but then around the age of 12 I decided I wanted to start swimming as a summer sport.

It’s one thing to wear a little rash guard for sun protection in a pool recreationally, but once you want to start swimming seriously, it’s time to strip down to almost nothing. Looking back, even as I swam daily through my summers, all the way through swimming as a D3 athlete in college, I always felt that I was topless every time I went in the pool. It was just “the rules” that boys had to be topless. The only way you were allowed to cover up more was to wear thigh covering jammers instead of the bikini-bottom cut that we all just called speedos.

I wore the hell out of those jammers, until I started water polo, and the pressure to switch back to speedos wore me down.

Still, as a newly out nonbinary person, one of the ways I wanted to take care of my inner child was to start wearing a one-piece swimsuit. You know, like from the swimsuit emoji - 🩱. I hadn’t started transitioning yet, but I just went to the men’s locker room, changed into my suit, and did my workout like everyone else. No one ever gave me trouble for it, thankfully^[2]. However, as I started to more seriously consider swimming on an official team, I realized I was going to have to reckon with the “real world”^[3].

Da rules

There were three problems I would face in competing as a gender-nonconforming trans person.

1. Binary gender categories

As it turns out, USMS has figured out how to bring adult swimmers of all ages together. From early 20’s to as old as people are allowed to get these days, you simply race against people who have similar times to you, and you win points for your team based on how you rank in your age category, after the fact.

For less popular categories, such as certain relays and very long endurance races, they also have a few mixed gender races in most meets as well.

However, for most races, you have to register ahead of time with the league as a man or a woman, and you will compete against the gender you’re registered as.

2. You must be this trans to ride

According to the USMS Transgender policy^[4], if you want to compete and have your times tracked

• Anyone can compete in the men’s category
  • You know, the “normal” gender
• To compete in the women’s category, you must demonstrate that you have had below 5 nmol/L of testosterone in your blood consistently for the past 12 months^[5]

If you want to compete with women and you don’t meet this standard, you can still race, but your times will not be officially counted.

So whatever. I’m not a woman^[6], and having my times tracked is important to me, so that I can compete with myself and track how I improve over time. I’ll go ahead and race with the men and it won’t be a big deal.

Except…

3. Men’s swimsuit guidelines

It turns out that in order to compete in the men’s category, just like when I was a child, swimmers are required to compete topless. I’m not joking, this is codified in the rules.

According to rule 102.12.1 B^[7],

In swimming competitions, the competitor must wear only one swimsuit in one or two pieces. All swimsuits shall be made from textile materials.

For men, the swimsuit shall not extend above the navel nor below the knees, and for women, shall not cover the neck, extend past the shoulder, nor extend below the knees

So, this becomes a problem. I started HRT in Summer 2023, and by the time I wanted to start competing, my preference for wearing a one-piece swimsuit became less optional.

Just for a second though - how is this a real policy? The league has decided

1. Men’s is the default category
2. All “Men” must compete topless

Me and my little C cups aren’t even the problem here. What about trans men? Not everyone who transitions wants or gets top surgery. I literally assumed growing up that wearing “girls” swimsuits was implictly off limits for me, but never once did I consider that someone could say no and point to an extremely clear rule that says men must have their titties out.

This is an extremely exclusionary policy, and I can’t imagine what purpose it serves other than to make life harder for trans people.

Getting an exemption

So, having decided that I did actually want to swim, and after joining San Francisco’s LGBT swim club, the Tsunamis, I decided to reach out to the Rules committee. On May 16 2024, I reached out to the rules committee, outing myself as a trans swimmer, and explaining that I needed a formal exemption to cover my breasts while competing. I even provided a helpful visual aid.

They got back to me the next day, and said they needed time to process the request. One meet went by (an open-water swim in Berryessa), but then they did get back to me one month later in June, so I was allowed to swim in the long course regional championships up in Marin.

There are two caveats though.

• My exemption is only approved for one year at a time. I’ll have to reach out again annually to renew my exemption, for as long as the policy stands.
• I am required to reach out to the head timer at every meet I compete in, providing them with my formal exemption, and explaining that I’m allowed to wear women’s suits

Hooray.

My first race

Fortunately, things from this point on are going fine. I’m still swimming for the Tsunamis, and I had my first race since college!

I swam in the Marin Long-Course Championships on August 3rd, and emailed the timers ahead of time with my exemption. I was pretty happy with my times, and I took home some ribbons for the Tsunamis. Importantly, I have official competitive times attributed to me again, under my own name ^[8].

I had fun, an it’s nice to be back into a sport that’s meant a lot to me for so much of my life. Swimming is a regulating activity for me, and it keeps me feeling sane. I’m looking forward to the next meet I’ll be able to attend, this time back in my home pool at Heather Farms.

1. Master’s swimming is the main adult competitive swim league in the United States. See usms.org ↩

2. I enjoy making fun of liberals as much as the next person, but being left alone as an obviously gender-nonconforming person is such a privilege, and I’m very grateful to be surrounded by SF liberals (and conservatives with enough sense to keep their mouths shut) ↩

3. Read: the rules of a swim league headquartered in Florida ↩

4. transgender_policy.pdf ↩

5. Fun fact - the healthy range for cisgender women is 0.5 to 2.4 nmol/L, and anyone can have health problems if their testosterone falls below those levels! ↩

6. At present ↩

7. USMS Rule book ↩

8. https://www.usms.org/comp/meets/indresults.php?SwimmerID=08AE7 ↩