TRANSGENDER swimmer Lia Thomas (25) cannot compete in the Olympic Games after losing a legal battle against the World Aquatics (WA). Thomas gained public attention in March 2022 when she won the women’s NCAA title, the highest college title in the United States.
In the summer of the same year, WA changed its rules, thereby banning anyone who, as they explained, “has gone through any part of male puberty” from competing in the women’s category. Since then, Thomas has been banned from swimming in the women’s category. She attempted to overturn this decision to compete in the biggest sports event but was unsuccessful.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) was asked to annul the rule changes, claiming they were invalid, illegal, and discriminatory. Her case was dismissed on technical grounds, with the explanation that she “simply did not have the right to participate in World Aquatics competitions such as the Olympic Games or world championships” because she is no longer a member of the American team.
WA welcomed the Court’s decision, stating, “We believe this is a great step forward in our efforts to protect women’s sport.”
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Thomas swam for the Pennsylvania men’s team for three years before starting hormone therapy in early 2019. She insisted she is a woman and belongs in women’s swimming, and in a 2022 interview with Sports Illustrated, she explained her motives:
“It’s very simple. I’m not a man; I’m a woman and I belong on the women’s team. Transgender people deserve the same respect as all other athletes,” Thomas said at the time. As a swimmer, William Thomas was ranked 462nd among American college students, while as a female swimmer, she was convincingly first.
Swimmers requested that Thomas not be allowed to compete in the women’s category In February 2022, 16 of her teammates anonymously sent an open letter to the college and league administration, requesting that she not be allowed to compete in the women’s category because she “could break all the records of the Penn university, the Ivy League conference, and the NCAA in general, which she could never do as a man.”
“We fully support Lia in her decision to affirm her gender identity and transition from male to female. Lia has every right to live her life authentically. But in sports competition, the biology of sex is a completely different topic from gender identity. Biologically, Lia has an unfair advantage in the women’s competition, as evidenced by her leap from 462nd to first place,” reads the letter published by The Washington Post two years ago.
Thomas, however, argues that there is no middle ground and that she is like all the other swimmers on the team. “I just want to show transgender kids and younger transgender athletes that they are not alone and that they do not have to choose between who they are and the sport they love,” Thomas told Sports Illustrated at the time.
