In early 2025, after several years and lots of deliberation, Anne Isabella Coomes dove headfirst back into her favourite sport and petitioned to join competitive swimming.

An aquatic aficionado, Anne has been swimming for over 60 years, or, as she puts it, for “as long as I’ve known I was transgender.”

Fluttering in and out of the sport over her six-decades of experience, the 67-year-old tells PinkNews she took it upon herself to dip her toes back into the pool once again in January after just over two years away from the pool lanes.

However, in 2023, the UK’s competitive swimming regulator, Swim England, updated its policy on trans and non-binary athletes, effectively forcing trans feminine competitors out of the “female” category. Anne knew she had an uphill battle ahead of her.

“I thought, I’m going to take up competition again,” she says. “Then it occured to me, I was taken back to a conversation I had with who I believe with the diversity and inclusion office in 2023. They rang me up to tell me what the new regulations were.”

Anne Coombes feared she would be outed wearing a ‘female’ swimming costume

Anne’s gender identity hadn’t been a problem in 2022 when she swam in the women’s category on several occasions, including at a Sheffield national 200 metre race. She had, as she put it, “jumped through the hoops of the old regime,” engaging interviews about her personal health, having her testosterone levels monitored by a panel of experts, and filing documents upon documents of paperwork.

Now, despite having been approved to compete before the new policy was implemented, Anne had an ultimatum – forcibly out herself by competing in the “open” category, which had replaced the men’s category to include any non-cisgender female competitor, or give up competing in the sport she loved.

Instead, she decided on a third option: prove the ludicrousness of Swim England’s new policy through malicious compliance.

“I said [to Swim England], OK, can I just clarify which costume I need to wear?” she recalls. “Costumes are very important in swimming because a costume slips through the water far easier than skin does, so the more costume you can wear, the more advantage you get.”

Anne decided that for her return race, she was going to wear traditional “male” swimwear, completely topless, to prove the point that despite what some may say, she was being held to the standards of a woman, so she must be a woman.

“There is this morality clause,” she says. “It’s to stop people having high cut legs, that sort of thing. Morality and coverave of skin are what generates the rules, so I asked, ‘Do I need to wear a female costume?’ and they said yes, very very quickly, oh yes you must because apparently my nipples are now offensive.

“And so I said, ‘Right, let me just envisage this situation … what you’re saying is the next time I compete, I’ll be stood there in the starting blocks wearing a female costume and all the people around me will be wearing [swim shorts].

“Everybody in the audience will look over and think, well clearly she must be transgender because if they weren’t they would be competing in the women’s. And then they’ll look at the electronic scoreboard and read my name. That will out me on the spot and as far as I’m aware, you’re not allowed to go around doing that.”

‘It’s a vehicle for me to raise trans issues’

Anne was told by Swim England that she did not need to ask for approval from a referee to wear the male gear, but that they would be in their right to disqualify her should she choose to do so.

Her main goal, she says, was to show how “illogical” the expectations put against her and other trans women had been.

“If you’re a trans woman, you’ve got to wear a women’s costume, but compete with a man. That illogicality is what I’m trying to use to point out the whole damn thing is stupid.”

Despite this, she said she’s not put off of swimming, but has now made it part of her mission to prove that trans women deserve to compete as much as anyone else.

“It’s a vehicle for me to raise trans issues,” she says. “Goodness knows we need help at the moment. Things are going backwards with the Supreme Court ruling and what’s going on in the [US] which i worry will come over here. So I’m using this opportunity in swimming to try and raise that profile.

“Trans people have to raise their profile. They have to do what they don’t want to do. What I’d really like to do is just melt in the background and be treated as a woman and carry on, but I can’t do that. I’ve got to stand up to be counted.”

Having to choose between a sport she loves dearly and a decision to transition, which she said has turned her life around, is as ridiculous as it is heartbreaking. Anne says she spoke with solicitors following the implementation of the policy, and theorises that she is the only ‘masters’ level swimmer – the category for over-25s – who is an out trans woman.

“That’s an awful lot of fuss for Swim England to go to just for me, I’m flattered if that’s the case,” she jokes. “It just shows how ridiculous the whole damn thing is to be honest.

“Clearly Swim England know all about me … but what fascinates me is, what if they didn’t know about me? How would they know what category to put me in?

“It doesn’t need to be a problem,” she adds. “There are far bigger problems in this country that need to be sorted out. Transgender people aren’t the issue that need to be dealt with.”

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