Lee Heard, Charity Director for RLSS UK, provides an update below on the charity’s policy position for transgender athletes in lifesaving sport.

“The approach to deciding how best to achieve inclusion and fairness in sport when considering the involvement of transgender athletes continues to be publicly discussed and debated. What we have seen, and something that is well documented by the UK Sports Councils, is that there is widespread recognition that the outcome of any decision is likely to cause tension as it is an emotive and personal subjective. The important consideration is that having no policy has the potential to cause more harm than good and so it is crucial that we take a view of the guidance available to us and create a policy that can be adopted by our lifesaving community.

“We also understand that it is vital that we continue to take advice on changing national policy and guidance, including keeping a close eye on policy release in Ireland, and more importantly reviewing the impact of our policy on our members. This is the start of our process to ensure we get this right for our members and we have no doubt that this subject will continue to evolve.

“The development of our policy started with seeking advice and guidance from Sports Councils and other National Governing Bodies who too are on a journey with us. It has been useful to benefit from the widespread discussions and intricacies within other sports, but most importantly aligning our own discussions and approach to guidance that has been initially published by the five UK Sports Councils.

“After a period of reflection and development, RLSS UK has now launched its Transgender Inclusion Policy. The policy has been a process involving: our newly formed LGBTQ+ Network; our Safeguarding, Equality and Diversity Advisory Group; our Sports Action Group; the RLSS UK Trustee Board, and its Governance Committee.

“At this current time, any event that is gender-affected will include two distinct categories – Female (for those competitors assigned female at birth) and Open (for any competitor irrespective of sex). The intention is to ensure the competitive integrity of our sport is maintained in events that are gender affected.

“Following the 2022 Cultural Audit we continue to work through our action plan to help make sure our society is fair and inclusive for our members.”

To read the new policy visit the RLSS UK policy webpage.