USMS Award Recipient

U.S. Masters Swimming Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Award



Recipient: Rook Campbell
Year: 2023
LMSC: Southern Pacific

Rook Campbell was a member of the USMS National Committee, Diversity and Inclusion Committee (2022 – 2023). When a task force was created to review the current USMS policy regarding competition for transgender athletes, Rook volunteered to help the group find a way toward a discussion that would promote fairness and equality in Masters swimming for transgender athletes. With Rook’s leadership in the Transgender/Non-Binary Task Force, USMS benefitted from a much more informed perspective on the needs of transgender swimmers that was used to shape policy moving forward.

Rook received the 2022 Diversity Equity and Inclusion Award in recognition for helping trans athletes by publicly chronicling his own transition and for co-founding with West Hollywood Aquatics (WH2O) in 2019 the Lanemate project, a Trans and Nonbinary Swim Clinic designed to eliminate and reduce gender stigma.