U.S. Masters On Watch After Swimmer Threatened With Lifetime Ban For Backing Rules Protecting Women's Category
Angie Griffin lost a woman's Masters title to a male & called for U.S. Masters to adhere to the World Aquatics rule that preserves the women's category for females only. Now, she faces a disciplinary, and U.S. Masters has in turn been put on notice by the Aquatics Integrity Unit.
U.S. Masters Swimming is at risk of jeopardising its rare and privileged status as a recognised regulator for the sport in the United States as a result of a disciplinary process it has called against a female athlete.
Angie Griffin, an American Masters swimmer, has been told she faces a lifetime ban from swimming, essentially, for supporting World Aquatics rules that preserve the women's category for females only in all aquatics sports.
What SOS can only describe as the bullying of Griffin began when she expressed her opinion that a male swimmer had beaten her to one of five titles claimed in the women's category at U.S. Masters Spring Championships in San Antonio, Texas, last year.
The swimmer who claimed those five golds was "Ana" Caldas, formerly known as Hugo, a Portuguese male who also went by the name Hannah along the way to a five-year suspension imposed by World Aquatics.
Caldas' claim to women's prizes in the USA unfolded in spite of a rule agreed by the global regulator in 2022 that no swimmer who had developed past Tanner Stage 2 male puberty could be eligible for the women's category.
A reminder of the Masters crisis in the U.S.:
Craig Lord
After that competition, Angie Griffin joined others on a Masters forum on social to call on the sport and its domestic regulator to observe World Aquatics rules. She pointed out the unfair nature of allowing males to race against females.
Responses to her comments included attacks that were overtly aggressive and even openly misogynistic, yet U.S. Masters opened a disciplinary process against Griffin after accepting the word of a complainant advocating that World Aquatics rules should, effectively, be ignored.
Those rules include the need for athletes to take a sex test if required to prove their eligibility for the women's category. Caldas is currently serving a five-year ban after refusing to take a simple, non-invasive sex test (see archive from October last year at the foot of this article).
SOS understands that the case has been drawn to the attention the global Aquatics Integrity Unit, which has issued a formal letter to U.S. Masters noting that it is paying close attention to the action against Griffin and, apparently, has urged the American governors to be mindful of their responsibility as a member-organisation operating under the World Aquatics constitution and rules to ensure a fair and independent process.
USA Swimming is the regulator for swimming in the United States that is affiliated to World Aquatics. However, unlike the standard model for masters in many other nations, U.S. Masters is a separate entity and has recognised jurisdiction in its own waters. If it fails to observe World Aquatics rules on sex-based rights, however, it risks the possibility of losing affiliation to World Aquatics, organisers of the World Masters Championships.
A senior source spoke of a deep concern that U.S. Masters is at risk of allowing any bias that underpins the complaint against Griffin to influence a process that could end up in her being barred for life from the sport she loves. Serious dopers get off far more lightly.
Angie Griffin today states her case in the following video issued by ICONS, The Independent Council on Women's Sports: a network and advocacy group comprised of current and former collegiate and professional women athletes, their families and supporters.
The Statement is accompanied by an appeal for the swimming community to stand shoulder to shoulder with Angie Griffin in support of the rights of women to have fair and safe sport in their own sex-based category. You can SIGN THE LETTER in support of those rights and the message worn on Griffin's t-shirt:
FREE TO THINK. FREE TO SPEAK. FREE TO MOVE.
Here is what Angie had to say - in full:
"I lost a national title to a man last April at the US Masters Swimming Nationals in San Antonio. I unknowingly raced a male in the women's category. I finished second and watched my title awarded to him. He won five women's national titles that weekend.
"I spoke out and now I'm facing a potential lifetime ban from my sport.
"This same athlete has taken women's titles and prize money across multiple events. It was widely reported that the athlete dominating the women's field was male. Several of us filed protests and posted online. I asked US Masters for fairness into an address of policy that allows men to compete in women's events. Instead of addressing the policy, they filed a grievance against me, charging me with unsportsmanlike conduct.
"Not for cheating, not for lying, but for saying men and women's sports is unfair.
"World Aquatics has already removed this athlete's times and recognition from the women's category, but USMS expects me to stay silent or face losing my own times and recognition.
"Women's sports can only survive if women are allowed to tell the truth. I'm Angie Griffin. If you believe women's sports are for women, stand with me.
Visit savemastersswimming.com and sign the letter."
One of the world's leading advocates for Fair Play for girls and women in sports, Baroness Davies, a British peer who raced to Olympic and Commonwealth glory in the pool as Sharron Davies in the 1970s and 1980s, told SOS:
"Good to see World Aquatics standing up for women & fair sport in masters competition. It is not ok just to protect the very elite, 1% all females, simply for wanting what males still get, a level playing field. And there must be zero tolerance of bullying, misogyny & harassment from those trying to cheat their way to wins & places they have no right to" -
Baroness Sharron Davies MBE, co-founder of The Women’s Sports Union:
It has been suggested that Caldas is a DSD, but that could only be shown through the simple, non-invasive sex test supported by a vast numbers of women athletes around the world (and that is backed up by academic research conducted by Cathy Devine (links her work below) that was ignored by the International Olympic Committee at great cost op female athletes).
You can read about that and much more research, including material that fed into World Aquatics' decision to adopt rules that protect the rights of female athletes to their own women';s category in Fair Play by Sharron Davies, with this author:
Author profile page
Backgrounder:
Before identifying as a woman, Caldas was a member of an Ohio swimming team for gay men (front row fifth from left).
By the end of the first decade of this millennium, transition led to Caldas entering women’s competitions, with outcomes the athlete could not have hoped to have achieved in male competition. One observer cited by Reddux posted on X:
“As a male athlete participating in women’s swimming, Caldas has held 7 individual U.S. Masters national records and 6 relay records, taking 7 All-American honors and a USMS Pool All-Star honor in 2010, 2011, and 2012,” “He currently holds 1 individual and 2 national relay records along with 37 Masters state records in Arizona and North Carolina. Caldas also set 6 South American ‘women’s’ records and took 1st place medals in four women’s events and two mixed relays including the 160-199 mixed 200m freestyle relay in which the team set a new FINA master’s world record” last year.
That reference to last year became the subject of World Aquatics' scrutiny. The regulator voted in rules to protect the women's category in June 2022. Soon after, it also offered a chance for trans swimmers and aquatic athletes to enter an Open category event in 2023 - but not a single trans athlete engaged in the process, including the likes of Lia Thomas (previously Will and a man in his first year at college in Pennsylvania):
Craig Lord
Archive - October 2025: Caldas Banned
As SOS noted last October when Caldas was suspended for fives years by World Aquatics:
Hannah Caldas, who swam in the 2021 and 2024 World Masters Championships, under the name Anna, then Hannah, has been suspended from Aquatics for five years after having accessed the women's category by claiming to be a member of the opposite sex.
Caldas was born Hugo Caldas and is a biological male who identifies as a transwoman. Since 2022, World Aquatics rules have barred any athlete who developed through Tanner Stage 2 male puberty from the female/women's category:
Craig Lord
In 2023, the international federation reached out to the trans community with an invitation for them to register their interest in competing at the World Cup event in Berlin in northern autumn that year. None registered, including males identifying as (trans)women who believe their have a right to deprive women of their sex-based rights, which in sport are undeniably and highly significant:
Craig Lord
The 2022 rules include these clauses pertinent to the ban on Caldas, who was suspended for violating the following:
- Article 5.1, Article 5.2, Article 6 c), and Article 10.2 of the World Aquatics Integrity Code;
- The violations of the World Aquatics Integrity Code involve providing false information, failing to act honestly, and engaging in conduct that undermines integrity.
- Section F.2 a) and Section F.4 b) of the Policy on Eligibility for the Men’s and Women’s Competition Categories;
- The violations of the Policy on Eligibility for the Men’s and Women’s Competition Categories relate to false sex certification and failure to meet the women’s eligibility criteria.
- and Section B.2, Section B.7, and Section B.9 of the Operational Requirements to the Policy.
- The violations of the Operational Requirements to the Policy concern non-compliance with policy terms, missing required documentation, and breaches of procedural obligations.
Caldas is out of the sport until 18 October 2030, while the swimmer's results between 19 June 2022 and 17 October 17 2024 are expunged.
In August, U.S. Masters Swimming’s Eligibility Review Panel found that Caldas was eligible for competition in the female category, but that ruling ignored World Aquatics rules.
New York Aquatics issued a statement on behalf of Caldas in response to the World Aquatics suspension. It include the following:
Today, World Aquatics announced a five-year suspension of masters swimmer Hannah Caldas from World Masters competition and the disqualification of her results from the Doha 2024 World Aquatics Championships.
During the investigation, World Aquatics required Ms. Caldas to undergo a genetic or chromosomal test—at her own expense—to “prove” compliance with the organisation’s “chromosomal sex” requirement under its Gender Policy to take part in the older-adult recreational World Aquatics Masters competition. This test was required even after Ms. Caldas provided World Aquatics with her birth certificate identifying her as female.
The statement then cites Caldas as saying:
“Chromosomal tests are invasive and expensive procedures. My insurance refuses to cover such a test because it is not medically necessary. No U.S. state requires genetic tests for recreational sports events like these. Not even U.S. Masters Swimming, the national governing body for recreational adult swimming in the U.S., demands this for any of its events.”
SOS notes that the sex tests required are not 'invasive', according to female athletes who have taken the tests. Caldas cites U.S. rules but fails to grasp that all athletes racing internationally are subject to international rules. Caldas is no exception.
Challenges to the presence of biological males in female sport are in process at the U.S. Supreme Court:
Craig Lord
The New York Aquatics statement goes on to say that: "Masters swimming does not award prize money; in fact, Ms. Caldas personally paid thousands of dollars to travel to Doha and compete. She has also faced repeated violent threats in recent months simply for participating in swimming events."
SOS notes that none of that, of course, changes the fact that Caldas, in common with all other athletes, must comply with World Aquatics rules. The Statement cites Caldas acceptance of a penalty:
“I understand and accept the consequences of not complying with a World Aquatics investigation. But if a five-year suspension is the price I must pay to protect my most intimate medical information, then it’s a price I am happy to pay - for myself, and for every other woman who does not want to submit to highly invasive medical testing just to swim in an older-adult competition.”
SOS notes that every female athlete who has spoken out (and spoken to us) about the issue since 2018-19, when the debate took off, has been supportive of sex tests. In that sense, Caldas is not only not representing "every other woman" but in the most relevant issue in the case - sport and the context of sport and biology - the word "other" is a personal opinion, not a fact.
Caldas told New York Aquatics that a line has been drawn and that "... I am prepared to let it all go. My life and privacy have been invaded enough. It is time to prioritise my health and personal safety.”
SOS notes that those words are welcomed by female athletes, who have long noted that those like Hannah Caldas who wish to live their lives identifying as transwomen are welcome to do so (and many more of us would add 'and should face no hostility because of who they are, but like the rest of us, must understand that there are plenty of areas in life where sex matters - and that must also be respected and accepted). Those areas include races and safe places where women - biological females - also have rights, including legal rights; and those include the right to have a women's sex-based category in sport in the interests of fair and safe play - and in the interests of ensuring that girls have a fair and safe place to develop their interests in sport devoid of reasons to quit and consider sport to be "not for me".
end of archive
State of Swimming now understands that Caldas has not "let it go". More on that down the line, should it turn out to be so.
Meanwhile, ahead of an editorial, here are few links relevant material that screams of why males (and yes, that is the truthful word that must be used in sport if constitutional commitments to fair and safe play are to be honoured) have no place in female races and spaces.
From Cathy Devine in the UK:
More on Fair Play for female athletes and how the IOC has let women down:
Tommy R Lundberg
Deeper Dive with Devine:
