Why swimming icon Diana Nyad changed her mind on trans women in sports

Nearly two years after publishing an op-ed opposing trans women’s inclusion in elite women’s sports, Diana Nyad has reversed her stance.

Ahead of the release of a new biopic starring Annette Bening and Jodie Foster based on her quest to become the first person to swim from Cuba to Florida without a shark cage, Nyad has been named one of Out magazine’s 2023 “Out 100.” But as the magazine notes, Nyad argued in a February 2022 opinion piece for The Washington Post that while trans athletes should be celebrated, she did not believe trans women should be allowed to compete against cisgender women.

Related: Fairness is a red herring: What the fight over trans athletes is really about

Award-winning journalist Katie Barnes takes on science, policy, and empathy in a new book.

She now says she regrets the harm that essay may have caused.

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“I have come to understand that the science is far more complex than I thought,” she tells Out, “and there are clearly more educated experts than I who are creating policy to ensure that elite sports are both fair and inclusive of all women. I regret weighing in on that conversation and any harm I may have caused.”

“Also, in recent times, the climate for the transgender community has turned dire and dangerous,” Nyad continues. “I now see how all women are negatively affected by the ways transgender women are targeted by discrimination and abuse in sports and elsewhere.”

To her point, among the hundreds of anti-LGBTQ+ bills that have been introduced by Republican lawmakers in state legislatures across the country in recent years, many have targeted transgender young people’s right to participate on school sports teams that align with their gender identity. In some states, like Florida and Ohio, those bills have included provisions requiring invasive physical examinations for any student whose gender identity might come into question.

“I am today firmly on the side of inclusion,” Nyad says. “Trans women athletes deserve our utmost respect. I stand with them in the world of sports and in the fight for full equality for all trans people. We are all sisters and siblings under the blue sky, and we should all have equal opportunities to play the sports we choose, the sports we love.”

As Out’s Mey Rude writes, Nyad’s evolution on the issue is “proof that with compassion, information, and time, minds can and will be changed.”