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”.
Genetics are predominantly on the favor of the male side unfortunately.
I have a lot of trouble accepting claims like this when Lea Thomas is beaten by cis women all the time.
It’s not a claim, it’s genetics, and what’s wrong with accepting that some people are better than others? It just gives her an unfair advantage from genetics(hormones in this case) helping her. It won’t make her a top athlete, who claimed that?
Would be different if the top male athlete did it, like say Phelps, there would not a be a women who could compete with them. That’s just friggen genetics.
Either genetics predominantly favor biological males, in which case a world-class swimmer like Lea Thomas should win virtually every meet, or it’s more complicated than that.
There will always be outliers on both sides yes, but take the top 10% of male and female athletes and put them against each other, and the men would win 80% of the time. Because they are genetically predominately better at the stuff required for athletics. Wider hips aren’t really great for running for example…
Reality of often disappointing.
Lea Thomas is in the top 10% and does not win 80% of the time.
Does Crosby win 80% of the time? Mcdavid? Brady…?
Give your head a shake dude.
Dont try to argue in good faith with someone who doesn’t
It’s not my fault that your claim does not match reality, at least when it comes to swimming.
It’s not a claim… it’s the result of genetic study….
Wide hips aren’t great for running, not every woman has wide hips, but most do. So yeah some are going to be able to do it.
Now, almost every man doesn’t have wide hips, so they have inherent advantage right there.
She wasn’t the TOP male swimmer, I’m sure if we look at her fastest time as a male it would be slower than the top female. Her going over won’t suddenly make her faster, it just means the competition is easier….
Her ranks when swimming against men were 554th in the 200 freestyle, 65th in the 500 freestyle, and 32nd in the 1650 freestyle. Those ranks are now, when competing in the women’s team, fifth in the 200 freestyle, first in the 500 freestyle, and eighth in the 1650 freestyle.
Her time for the 500 freestyle, where she is ranked #1 against women, is over 15 seconds slower than her personal bests before medically transitioning, and even THEN she was only 65th in the event against men. The same event where she was 65th is now 15 seconds slower and ranked #1. That’s the gulf between the two events.
I just pasted this-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lia_Thomas
But, you are correct. She ranked those numbers eventually. Do you know when she ranked that low? After she started taking hormones.
Which proves my point that it’s more complicated than just genetics.
That’s not a very thoughtful argument. This is about comparing the top percentages of athletes. Lea Thomas is not 100% the best woman swimmer in the world, since she does lose sometimes to the best women. But when she competed against men she lost every single time. It’s about the top 0.1% of women swimmers not being able to compete with the top 10% of male swimmers. Lea Thomas wasn’t even close to the top 10% of men but instantly became the top 1% for women. No, all men aren’t instantly the best female athletes. But in a lot of sports the absolute best women’s athletes can’t compete with even average teenage boys.
That’s not true.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lia_Thomas
In general, sure, but not all men are more muscular and stronger than all women.
Furthermore, even if, say 90% (or even 100%) of the heavyweight category were men, it would still be fairer for everyone.
No but taking the top 10% from each male and female athletes and putting them against each other, the men would still be on top 80% of the time.
But like I said, that’s fine. The point is that we would then be categorizing people not according to their gender but by factors that directly affect their athletic performance.
Another benefit would also be that it would allow a wider range of people to participate at the national and international level, seeing as it would not remove all but those women and men who possess the optimal physical traits required for that particular sport.
That’s starting to sound a little like an eugenics competition….
I would say the opposite, in fact.
Eugenics is the belief and practices that aim to “improve” the genetic quality of a human population to meet an idealized optimal standard. Under my proposed system, you could argue it would allow for a greater diversity of individuals that would be able to compete, and therefore would lower the necessity of having the optimal physical traits required in order to take part in each sport.
Back to the discussion. It would basically be this if we took the 10% of each and put it into 4 categories.
Group A 85%men 15% women
Group B 70%men 30% women
Group C 55%men 45%women
Group D 5%men 95%women
It just doesn’t work. You would be hand picking less qualified men to compete with the women just to fill it up.
On what basis doesn’t it work, though? I’m still not sure I understand what the problem is with your example.
Another way of looking at it is that we would in fact be widening the criteria of who would be considered “qualified”.
In only one group would the women win a significant portion of the events? You basically created an Olympics with a bottom 25% female category, and 3 male categories. The women can already compete with the men if they want to, but they want medals too, not just to be there…. The best women would be overshadowed by the best men, you would only be showing off the worst of the top female athletes.
Expanding? When you need a d list male to compete with a b list female? Come on.
Citation needed.
There is a thousand, but I find this Pretty interesting myself
The conclusion has absolutely nothing to do with what you previously wrote …
Did you read it all? Or just skip to the conclusion?
The introduction had great links with their why they are doing this study.
I read it. The conclusion tells what the study learned, and it has absolutely sfa to do with the original statement.
Maybe try and stay on topic instead of throwing shit around hoping some will stick.
Please read the entire thing. You would see how it was on topic if you did, that’s how I know you haven’t.
https://boysvswomen.com/#/
That’s about as straightforward and easy to understand as it can possibly be. Many times Women’s Olympic Finalists wouldn’t qualify for the boys high school varsity team!
And again, although that is interesting it still doesn’t show the numbers that were quoted …
I’m not impugning anyone in any way with this comment but the very best biologically female athletes in the world, literal World Record setting Olympians, in many cases aren’t fast enough to compete with High School boys.
This is an even worse outcome than “Top 10% female athletes…” because this is the top 1% of female athletes, the crème de la crème, compared to the top *under age male *athletes.
There’s a lot of events, such as 100m to 800m sprints, where the female Olympians not only lose they can’t even qualify for the race!
In other events, swimming in particular, the biologically female Olympic Champions set World Record times…that were beaten by High School Boys.
You can follow the links to the raw data and do the math yourself if you want a precision answer but there’s no real question that the Top 10% of biologically female athletes, the Olympians, would lose to the Top 10% of biologically male athletes 80% of the time or more.
I’m going to quote what you wrote to me on another post: "If you don’t understand, far be it from to educate you.
Go read a book."
The person showed you a citation that shows in track and field the top 0.1% (not 10%) of women would get 6 medals vs the top highschool boys (who are outside the top 10% of men) getting 81 medals. That’s young boys beating the absolute best women 93% of the time. In swimming it was worse: 1 medal vs 47 or 98%. In soccer, the US Women’s National Team, arguably the best of the best women’s team in the world, would regularly lose to highschool boys teams. I’m sure there are some sports where the gulf is smaller, but it’s going to be rare.