Transgender swimmer Lia Thomas has lost her legal case against World Aquatics and any hopes of making next month’s Paris Olympics

The US swimmer Lia Thomas, who rose to global prominence after becoming the first transgender athlete to win a NCAA college title in March 2022, has lost a legal case against World Aquatics at the court of arbitration for sport – and with it any hopes of making next month’s Paris Olympics.

The 25-year-old also remains barred from swimming in the female category after failing to overturn rules introduced by swimming’s governing body in the summer of 2022, which prohibit anyone who has undergone “any part of male puberty” from the female category.

Thomas had argued that those rules should be declared “invalid and unlawful” as they were contrary to the Olympic charter and the World Aquatics constitution.

However, in a 24-page decision, the court concluded that Thomas was “simply not entitled to engage with eligibility to compete in WA competitions” as someone who was no longer a member of US swimming.

The news was welcomed by World Aquatics, who hailed it as “a major step forward in our efforts to protect women’s sport”.

    • SeaJ
      16•20 days ago

      Of it was simply numbers, there would have been a trans gold medalist by now. Trans people make up 1-3% of the population. Over the span of 20 years and hundreds of competitions each year, surely a group that supposedly physically dominates the gender group they are in would at least have gotten one gold medal.

      • @iopq@lemmy.world
        3•19 days ago

        You need to be a one in a million talent. I’m a male and despite not taking testosterone blockers I don’t have enough talent to be successful in any sport against women. Even with my testosterone, I just don’t have elite genetics

    • @Ultraviolet@lemmy.worldEnglish
      11•20 days ago

      3% of the population, about 300 events per Olympics, assume 5 in the past 20 years, so that’s a conservative estimate of 1500 medals. You’d expect 45 medals to just be proportional, and significantly more than 45 would prove an advantage. 0 shows an extremely severe disadvantage.

      Actually more like 60 medals would be the baseline expectation if you’re counting winter Olympics too.

      Even if you estimate as conservatively as possible, 1% of the population and ignore winter Olympics, you have an expected medal count of 15, 0 is a massive anomaly without some sort of significant disadvantage.

      Edit: triple all those numbers to include silver and bronze, realistic estimate of 180, extremely conservative estimate of 45.