this post was submitted on 12 Jun 2024
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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”.

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[–] cannibalkitteh@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Well this comment section is awful.

[–] AncientFutureNow@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago

Lot of good choices for blocking and making your Lemmy experience less hateful. There are def some terfs and terf-adjacent types in here.

[–] Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago

Just one of many ways in which conservative politicians and institutions run by them are trying to exclude trans people from society.

Competition rules forbid participation after undergoing “any part of male puberty” while laws forbid any sort of prepubescent transition or even blocking of puberty.

In closing, I would like to relay the following message to World Aquatics and the Court: FUCK you and your oppressive bigotry! 🖕🖕🖕

[–] LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (18 children)

So we cant compete if we have ever had testosterone in our blood, even though cis women also have blood testosterone and can undergo testosterone related hormonal puberty if they have certain conditions, and also we are not allowed to transition before the age of 16 which would mean we had undergone some measure of testosterone hormonal puberty. Also, the concept of "male puberty" is awfully ill-defined isnt it. Have cis women with PCOS gone through "male puberty" ? What specifically constitutes "male puberty"? What hormonal levels are necessary to qualify for "male puberty"? Can Cis men with hormonal deficiency disorders compete in womens sports? To what end does this ruling "protect women's sports"? This does nothing in a sport that has 1 single trans female athlete except specifically ban her from competing under some misguided notion of "fairness". I'd love to see them describe how excluding anyone is meant to protect anything, let alone fairness. When will height categories be instituted? When will we make wingspan brackets? How exactly is this competition meant to be fair to begin with?

So this is just a de facto ban on trans women participating in any sports under this organization. Nice. Just say that then. No woman is going to accept being forced to compete in a men's category, so all you have done is single out and exclude one group of women based on their status as transgender. Creating an "open" bracket does nothing either, as there are probably only 1 or 2 trans athletes who would be competing in this organization anyway.

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[–] Glowstick@lemmy.world 0 points 3 months ago (15 children)

I know I'm gonna catch heat for this, but sex-segregated physical competitions is one of the very few places where trans women shouldn't be treated the same. Women's sports competitions aren't segregated by gender, they're segregated by sex. Trans women are women in gender, but their body isn't a biologically female body. That's the exact definition of transgender - when your body's biological sex doesn't match your sense of gender. So by definition, trans women don't have a biologically female body.

The whole point of sex-segregated sports is for people with female bodies to be able to have a fair competition, instead of them not even getting a chance to compete at all because if they had to compete against biological males then almost 100% of females wouldn't even make the team. This is the whole reason why sports competitions are segregated by sex.

TLDR trans women should always be treated as women - except for sex-segregated physical competitions

[–] Xanthrax@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (3 children)

Dude, hormone blockers exist. They don't have any advantages if they're on hormones/ hormone blockers.

Edit: I'll die on this hill. Enjoy being evil the future.

[–] DarkGamer@fedia.io 1 points 3 months ago (2 children)

My understanding is that's true for muscle mass. However, if they transition after puberty like Lia Thomas did, height and wingspan will remain; both of which confer huge advantages in swimming. Apparently that's a major reason why Michael Phelps did so well, his arm span is ridiculous.

[–] LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 3 months ago (21 children)

Are there no cis women with large wing spans or abnormal height, though? Are they still allowed to compete? Why would trans women specifically be excluded for that?

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[–] AbidanYre@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Phelps has huge palms that support his paddling ability and is 14 feet tall, which essentially act as flippers (the kind of fingerless arms that seals have).

That site could use a little more proof reading.

[–] Moneo@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago

Probably AI. There's probably a reddit comment out there joking about how Phelps is 14 feet tall.

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[–] WormFood@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago

this is not correct, on average trans women don't perform any better at competitive sports than cis women

check the results section of this review paper for more info: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10641525/

[–] SeaJ@lemm.ee 1 points 3 months ago (2 children)

On HRT, trans women have similar muscle mass to cis women. They do not have an advantage.

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[–] LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 3 months ago

Kind of a contradiction in that trans women aren't female bit lol. Very much depends on how you define that and how you measure it.

The categories are also not called female categories, they're called women's categories, which is effectively the same thing in this conversation. Female is a loose category encompassing people with many typed of bodies and many hormonal levels and many degrees of feminization and masculinization. This is effectively excluding one group of women specifically and ignoring all other groups that have advantages.

[–] Ultraviolet@lemmy.world 0 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Trans women have been allowed in the Olympics for 20 years now. There have been zero trans medalists. If this advantage actually exists, why aren't they winning?

[–] Glowstick@lemmy.world 0 points 3 months ago (2 children)

If i had to guess I'd say it's simply numbers. Compared to the rest of the population, trans people are extremely rare, and so there likely just haven't been enough trans people to have been there yet.

[–] SeaJ@lemm.ee 1 points 3 months 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.

[–] Ultraviolet@lemmy.world 0 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] dogslayeggs@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago

You are completely ignoring the externalities of competing at the Olympic level. Trans people are going through so many societal, cultural, interpersonal, and internal conflicts that focusing on training at an Olympic level is going to be more difficult. You can be the most physically gifted athlete in the world, but if your head is not in the right space to train 12 hours a day while still going about your normal life then you aren't going to be able to compete at that level. Hell, look at how far Tiger Woods's performances fell after his public disgrace. Yes, some of that was drugs and some was from an injury, but a lot of sports is mental.

Also, you are ignoring that while the Olympic committee might allow it, do you think most countries in the world are so open about trans people?

Also also, do you remember the controversy around the East German women's team from the 70s? How everyone suspected some were men? There might have been trans people winning medals, just maybe not openly.

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