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by DYLAN NOLAN
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By a 15-3 vote, team representatives from the Lowcountry swimming organizations comprising the Coastal Carolina Aquatic Association (CCAA) decided on Tuesday evening (February 17, 2026) to enact a controversial gender-segregating policy to govern the league’s competitive swim bouts.
The CCAA moved to formalize their transgender swimmer policy after the 2025 season – when a male swimmer asked to be able to participate alongside the girls.
The league’s proposed – and now adopted – solution bars boys from competing against girls for points, but allows them to continue to swim against them in exhibition heats.
Some parents believe this policy change is immaterial because boys and girls regularly swim in the same exhibition heats. These parents argue that since exhibition races are not counted towards the participating teams’ official score, athletes are competing agains themselves – and aren’t concerned with outpacing their competitors.
Other parents contend these exhibition heats matter greatly because the majority of athletes do not compete in scored heats, and therefore only have the opportunity to compete in these races.
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RELATED | CCAA TO VOTE ON TRANSGENDER POLICY
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In an email sent to league officials prior to the vote, parent and former swim coach Michael Mulé opined that the logic which recognizes that male biology gives a swimmer an innate advantage should carry through to all levels of the sport.
Mulé said the proposal “acknowledges an important truth: that it is not fair for swimmers to compete for points outside of their biological sex,” and reasoned that “If the committee has determined that competing for points outside one’s biological sex undermines fairness, then the same fairness concern applies to all swimmers in that heat and event.”
This was an opinion also expressed to CCAA board members by U.S. congresswoman – and 2026 gubernatorial candidate Nancy Mace in a letter last month.
“Exhibition competition or not, a boy swimming in a girls’ heat, using girls’ private facilities, tells every girl in your league that her safety and her rights don’t matter, her achievements don’t matter, and her privacy doesn’t matter,” Mace wrote (.pdf).
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Before CCAA team representatives voted to adopt their new policy, a proposal on whether to verify athlete’s gender through a birth certificate or doctor’s note was rejected in a 14-4 vote.
South Carolina attorney general Alan Wilson – another 2026 gubernatorial candidate – slammed the vote in a press release the following morning.
“Last night’s vote is an outright failure to protect fairness and privacy for girls,” Wilson said, adding that as the father of a daughter “this issue is not abstract or political, it is about protecting opportunities and boundaries that matter for our daughters.”
“Biological reality does not disappear because an organization chooses to ignore it,” Wilson said, vowing if elected governor to never “waver in defending female athletes and standing with parents.”
In an email sent out after the vote, coach Mike Walsh – who is also the highly-decorated head swim coach at Charleston’s prestigious Porter-Gaud school – expressed hope that “parents and swimmers can come together this summer and be the best example of how a team should work together.”
“If we can do that then our children will reap the benefits and this wonderful league will keep going,” he said.
Whether or not that harmony can be achieved remains to be seen, but count on FITSNews to keep our finger on the pulse of the CCAA and other Palmetto State institutions affected by the rise of transgenderism.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR…
(Via: Travis Bell)
Dylan Nolan is the director of special projects at FITSNews. He graduated from the Darla Moore school of business in 2021 with an accounting degree. Got a tip or story idea for Dylan? Email him here. You can also engage him socially @DNolan2000.
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3 comments
Typical “have it both ways” idiocy.
Background where these people are from. Then you will understand why they are freaky.
Find a new pool or a create a new league – this is absolutely shameful.