Angie Griffin is facing a lifetime ban for speaking out for fairness in women's Masters Swimming

About a year ago, what would have been US Masters swimmer Angie Griffin’s first individual National Championship was given to a male, Hugo “Hannah/Ana” Caldas, who has been misrepresenting himself as a woman and stealing women’s opportunities and awards in swimming, rowing, crossfit, and the now-defunct Grid League weightlifting competition over a 16-year period. Griffin, pictured above, didn’t know any of that last April.

During the 2025 National Championship meet several news sources identified Caldas as male. On May 1, Griffin and other Masters swimmers filed a complaint against US Masters Swimming claiming their policy of allowing males to race against females was unfair.

Instead of responding to her documented evidence of unfairness and calls for reform, seven months later, Griffin received an email saying a grievance had been filed against her claiming her posts on the USMS Community Forum constituted bullying, harassment, and unsporting conduct. To be clear, USMS is defending a man they enabled to lie and cheat women out of awards for 16 years, has been called out by their own parent organization for lying about that man’s sex, have violated their own policies they know to be unfair to allow a man to compete in women’s events, and have facilitated and promoted public attacks on Griffin’s character. Griffin now faces a USMS tribunal over her conduct—not for lying or cheating—for speaking out for fairness for women, with a potential lifetime ban from Masters swimming. USMS has never threatened such severe punishment before, for any offense.

The tribunal was scheduled to take place via Zoom on April 7, 2026, but on March 28, was postponed. No new date has been set.

So determined is US Masters Swimming to punish Angie Griffin, to protect a lying, cheating man, and to persist with their absurdly misogynistic policies they are willing to risk their status as a US regulatory body to continue with this sham tribunal. USMS has come under scrutiny by the Aquatics Integrity Unit for what is widely acknowledged by the swimming world to be harassment and bullying of Griffin as retribution, as an example to others of what happens when women stand up for their rights.

That’s the stripped down version. The details are much crazier. This shameful campaign of abuse is a slow motion train wreck but it’s necessary to wade into the mess to understand the lengths a national sports organization, whose job it is to make their sport fair, will go to allow men to compete in women’s swimming. And to punish women who object.

I talked with Angie on the phone.

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Angie Griffin swam in USA Swimming programs as a kid and in high school, but gave it up as an adult. About ten years ago she was overweight and decided to do something about it, so she got back in the water. Someone at the city pool suggested she try Masters Swimming.

“It opened a whole new world to me,” she said. “Friends and competition and feeling young again.”

Unlike other sports, US Masters Swimming is a separate entity from USA Swimming. World Aquatics is the international organization. USA Swimming has an 18+ program for more serious swimmers, while Masters Swimming is considered the more recreational track. USMS emphasizes participation—just for fun :) — over competition to justify inclusion of males in women’s events, but of course, they treat the ability of men to choose the category in which they participate as a matter of life and death. And they are apparently willing to die on that hill.

“You don’t have to qualify for Nationals, but Masters swimmers take competition very seriously,” Angie said. “Ten years ago, 11 now, when I first went to Nationals there were tons of Olympians there. It was also in San Antonio. Sort of why winning that 50 Breast would have been awesome ten years later at the same pool. It was such a fun experience to be racing against these celebrities. That’s what’s so great about Masters Swimming—everyone’s included, but it shouldn’t be at the expense of women.”

“I did see him [Caldas] at the meet. I didn’t voice my suspicions but nearly everyone, men and women, at the meet wondered aloud if he was using steroids, or what. I just thought he was really big for a girl—not that tall but broad, big shoulders, big biceps, really intimidating. I swam right next to him in two races on Friday—I got second and third. Sunday was redemption—I anchored our winning relay. It was the best feeling ever, winning that National title.

“Monday I got off the plane and my phone was blown up with texts, stories on the internet about Caldas being trans, that he won five National titles just that weekend, and he’d been taking national and world titles and Crossfit prizes for years. My mind was blown.

“People say, oh it’s just Masters, but it would have been my first individual National Championship. I’d get my patch. It meant something to me. I trained for it. It might not seem like a big deal, but I spent time and money getting to Texas. I just love swimming and I love racing. I wake up early— 4am—swim or lift weights, go to work climbing utility poles, go home, make dinner and crash at like 8pm. It’s not just Masters.”

The Protest Letter

Angie and others who had raced against Caldas researched policies and filed a protest with the US Masters Swimming Board, pointing out that they had lost places and titles to a biological male, and comparing the larger swim organization’s policies with USMS—World Aquatics banned males who have gone through male puberty, and USA Swimming (in April 2025) required males to have testosterone levels of 5nmol/liter or less for 36 months. In sharp contrast, Angie revealed in her protest letter what she found out when digging into USMS’s transgender policy.

“What I discovered is that USMS changed its transgender guidelines in December 2024 based on the Rules Committee recommendations that are documented in that Committee’s July 9 and August 11, 2024 minutes. The Committee was to review USA Swimming and WA rules and err on the side of less “strict” rules. (Why?) The minutes reflect that the main concern of the Committee was related to who could file a protest, and absent was any significant discussion of the 2022 WA (then FINA) guidelines that are well documented regarding science, safety and fairness.”

Another way to say “less strict” is “unfair.” USMS policy that was in place during 2025 Nationals says that to be eligible for women’s events, men must undergo “hormonal therapy appropriate for the female gender” for a year to “minimize gender-related advantages.” They specified a maximum testosterone level of 5nmol/liter, which is more than double the average female level. BEYOND THAT, the USMS policy says men who don’t alter their hormones at all can still participate in women’s events but their times will be removed and they cannot receive titles, awards or recognition. Note: USMS understands “trans women” are male, that even after hormone suppression they retain advantages, and that including them will introduce unfairness to women. Thus, their focus, not on making fair policy, but on shutting down protests.

Angie, that troublesome and well-informed protester, continued: “The rules are unclear about the exact information and when exactly in the one year period the test results must be done. And the level of testosterone that would meet the testing requirement is double that of a typical woman. How is this fair by any standard?”

Her protest went on to present evidence that Caldas is a biological male who had gone through male puberty and, awkwardly for USMS, had competed in USMS events in the male category in 2002-2004, and “possesses inherent physiological advantages that cannot be mitigated by hormone therapy alone.”

She requested five things from USMS: 1) Detailed documentation that Caldas met the required guidelines, 2) Transparency regarding testosterone compliance, 3) Re-evaluate all the standings from the National meet for women who swam against Caldas, 4) Change USMS policy to focus on fairness, not just inclusion, and 5) Notify USMS members directly of changes to the transgender policy.

She concluded: “I reiterate that this is not about exclusion, I am a proponent of inclusion. It is about ensuring a level playing field for all competitors. …While USMS was so focused on inclusion with its policy, fairness to women in the sport was clearly overlooked.”

It was a helluva protest—calm, reasoned, evidenced, documented, factual. And a real problem for USMS.

USMS Violated Their Own Unfair Policy

Which is why it took them four months to reply. Angie and company also filed a protest about ANOTHER male swimmer at the 2025 National meet who won nothing. Two weeks later, USMS responded that that man was indeed eligible to compete in the women’s category. Since this man received no awards, according to USMS policy, he could participate in women’s events without submitting documentation of his testosterone levels. Just a not very talented man competing in women’s events to affirm his identity. Completely valid, according to USMS policy.

But they were running into trouble answering Angie’s complaint against Caldas. Maybe because, though they knew Caldas is male, USMS had never collected documentation of his testosterone levels that their own unfair policy required, and he had hoovered up LOTS of recognition. They’d been violating their own policy, and allowing a man with unknown levels of testosterone to compete in women’s events for more than a decade as they awarded him 28 women’s Masters national titles. Oops. This was going to require some pretty spectacular prevarication. That’s what took four months.

On August 22, USMS finally replied to Angie’s protest. They said that Caldas had presented “documentation reflecting her sex assigned at birth and her gender identity, including a birth certificate, passport, and U.S. citizenship documents.” All of these documents were falsified, as became evident a few months later. USMS had no answer for why this “woman” had entered male events using a male name between 2002 and 2004: “The documents the swimmer submitted all demonstrate that she was assigned the female sex at birth and that she identifies as female, although she swam in the male category at USMS events 2002-2004.” There. See? A born female decided at some period in her adulthood to use a male name and swim on a male team in the male category for a few years, and then reverted to a woman’s name and the female category where “she” won 28 USMS National titles. That’s USMS’s story, and they’re sticking by it.

So, as of August 2025, USMS lied to Angie, pretending that Caldas is, not transgender, but born female, as evidenced by changeable pieces of paper, thus absolving them of ever having to collect or document his testosterone reduction. Which they likely did not ever do. Also, as a “born female,” by USMS rules, Caldas would be able to not only participate but be recognized as a Masters national title holder, something he’d accomplished 28 times over 16 years. Just in Masters swimming. To say nothing of awards in rowing, Crossfit, and Grid League weightlifting. All of this, because none of these organizations actually defend the female category. With a cheek swab. We know how to verify sex just like we know how to verify age or weight. Organizations, like USMS, prioritized inclusion of males in the female category over fairness for women, and were willing to debase themselves and the sport, and gaslight women, with absurd lies in order to do so.

“When I saw USMS stand firm that he [Caldas] was female, I was so angry, furious is the strongest word I can find,” Angie said. “I was done with Masters swimming. I was done funding them. I was just going to walk away.”

World Aquatics’ Fairness Revealed USMS’ Unfairness and Lies

Then, in October 2025, World Aquatics banned Caldas for five years for violations of multiple rules including providing false sex certification, failing to meet women’s category eligibility criteria, and failing to take a sex verification (cheek swab) screen. Recall that World Athletics offers a female sex category for females only; they do not accept bogus falsified documents as sex verification. WA had been alerted to Caldas’ sex by the same news reports that emerged after the 2025 USMS National meet, noting that Caldas had won two women’s World titles at the 2024 World Masters Championship, their jurisdiction. Retroactively asking for documentation of his female sex, Caldas must have submitted the same falsified birth certificate and passport he’d passed off to USMS. WA wasn’t buying it, Caldas refused to take a sex verification test, and WA banned him for five years from World Aquatics events.

This put USMS in a very awkward position. USMS risked losing association with WA, and national regulatory status, if they did not also ban Caldas from their own events, but of course upholding the ban would confirm that Caldas was male and reveal that USMS was lying to members about Caldas’ sex, and had allowed this male to participate and take women’s awards without ever documenting any testosterone reduction as their policy required. Got it? Oh what tangled webs we weave when we seek to deceive.

As it turns out, Angie was in no way the first or the only person to correctly call Caldas a man and highlight USMS’s years-long culpability in violating women’s right to fair sports. Jonathan Kay published a scathing, in-depth expose for Quillette on October 31, 2025. Kay traced Caldas’ move from participation on a gay men’s swim team to a multi-sport swath of grifting, misrepresenting himself as a woman and cheating women out of scores of national and world titles, all aided by organizations that simply accepted his lie. In fact, “Hannah” Caldas was on the USMS Sports & Medicine Committee in 2012. Employed and originally swimming under the name Hugo Caldas, Kay reported he first changed his name to Hannah, and later to Ana, which disturbingly, is the name of his sister.

The Grievance

On November 1, Angie posted a link to the Quillette article on the USMS Community Forum under a thread titled Trans girls/biological males competing against females:

This Community Forum thread was started around the date of the 2025 USMS National Championship by another USMS member who saw obvious unfairness in USMS’s policy. Many of the commenters agreed with this position, some in much less measured manner than Angie did, but her comments were singled out.

On November 21, Angie received an email from USMS apprising her that a USMS member had filed a grievance against her, claiming her posts on the Community Forum violated USMS’s Code of Ethics, including failure to treat fellow members with respect and dignity, and displaying unsporting conduct. The grievance referenced only two of Angie’s posts as evidence of ethics violations—the one that included the link to the Quillette article, above, and this one:

With only these two posts as evidence, USMS declared that the grievance “had merit” and should proceed to a tribunal. Following are some of Angie’s other comments posted between early May and early November. This is the evidence of bullying, harassment, and unsporting conduct that USMS found serious enough to drag her before a tribunal, and threaten her with a lifetime ban from Masters Swimming. Though out of context, they are remarkably innocuous. Perhaps recognizing that anyone could see that these public posts did not constitute bullying, harassment, and unsporting conduct, the Community Forum moderator went about deleting them. Luckily, Angie took screenshots.

Speaking Out For Fairness Is Deemed Unethical and Unsporting

“I felt so small. Like David and Goliath.” Angie called Kim Jones, the co-founder of ICONS for help.

“Talking about changing policy and asking for fairness is not hateful. I don’t want to hurt anyone by this; I want women to not be hurt. I never targeted the individual. I was sharing publicly available information that could help direct policy in a fair direction.

“If the National Board of Review rules against me, I could be banned from the sport for life. This has never happened before, that’s how severe they think my violation is.

“If the tribunal comes down in my favor nothing really changes. Maybe they retract his [Caldas’] times. The stress it’s caused for the last six months will go away. This has nothing to do with USMS policy or what happened at Nationals—it’s about me being a bully and disrespectful to another swimmer. Even if I ‘win,’ they’ll still think I’m a horrible person.

“I asked Bill Bock (ICONS legal counsel), ‘Should I just quit?’ He said: ‘You have to go through with the tribunal because the accusation is a black mark against you, against your character.’ And that’s the thing—I don’t have bad sportsmanship. I cheer for all the girls in my age group. They’re saying disagreeing is violence and bullying. It’s not.”

The National Board of Review ignored several of Angie’s objections during the process, reiterating that her conduct was on trial, not USMS policy or fairness for women.

At the now-postponed hearing, Angie and the grievant will have 30 minutes each to state their cases. The bitter irony of this insane kangaroo court is the number of egregious ethics and human rights violations that are NOT being reviewed: A man has lied, cheated, and presented falsified documents to steal more than 30 women’s national and world titles in four different sports for 16 years; a national sports organization knowingly violated women’s right to fair sport, failed to follow the procedures of their own unfair policy, and lied to members about a man’s sex; disagreement has been criminalized by calling it misconduct; and that national sports organization has facilitated a campaign of abuse against the woman who pointed out these violations and failures.

Instead, the National Board of Review will judge the behavior of the woman who lost a National Championship to a man, and said something about it.