The new policy will be effective from September 1 2023 and means the female category will only be open to athletes with a birth sex of female.

An open category has been created for athletes with a birth sex of male, trans or non-binary competitors and any other competitor not eligible for the female category.

The policy update from Swim England is an extension of the World Aquatics, formerly the International Swimming Federation, announcement at its Extraordinary Congress in June last year, when it voted in favour of requiring individuals to have completed transition by the age of 12 to be eligible for female competition.

In a statement explaining its updated policy Swim England said: "In order for all aquatic disciplines to be enjoyed as sport, there must be inclusive opportunities for transgender participants to compete.

"However, it is widely recognised that fairness of competition must be protected and Swim England believes the creation of open and female categories is the best way to achieve this.        

"Whilst Swim England’s existing policy regarding the use of hormonal therapy was found to be effective at reducing performance advantage, it was insufficient to negate it completely and trans females therefore likely retain an advantage over their cisgender peers.

"As a result, Swim England believes that the restriction of certain competition to birth sex females to be justified and proportionate in the pursuit of fair competition."

The policy only applies to Swim England competitions, and not to the participation in aquatics recreationally.

As part of its consultation on the policy, Swim England sent an online survey to its members, and collated more than 2,000 responses.

The full outcome of the consultation has not been published by Swim England, however the organisation has published a summary of the results.

These include that 86 per cent of respondents said fair competition must be protected within aquatics, and that 74 per cent believed that female and open categories would be the best way to achieve this.

Swim England has pledged to review the policy on annual basis.

Last month the World Athletics Council announced that it decided to exclude transgender athletes from women’s competitions, bringing it in line with the approaches adopted by World Aquatics and World Rugby.