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”.
For a while I’ve been thinking that all sports should get rid of gendered male/female competitions and replace them with
weightcategories that take into account physiological characteristics like muscle mass, testosterone levels, weight, height, etc. This would result in, say, three to four categories ranging from lightweight to heavyweight.Why wouldn’t this work?
A 150 lb male will almost always out-perform a 150 lb female. The genetic differences are still vast even in the same weight category.
That’s why they would need to take more into account than simply weight. Surely multiple physical and hormonal factors could also be measured and an aggregate total value be applied to each athlete.
It’s not a genetic difference, for one, it’s a hormonal one. Children pre-puberty are effectively identical in terms of physiological gender differences aside from environmental factors.
Except for the fucking ovaries and prostates.
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.
Reality of often disappointing.
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.