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”.

      • @girlfreddy@lemmy.caOP
        -4•16 days ago

        The conclusion has absolutely nothing to do with what you previously wrote …

        Conclusions

        Women and men shooters performed separately but equally in the 2021 Tokyo Olympics in “static” rifle shooting modalities. Men were superior in “dynamic” (i.e., moving target) shooting events. In the newly formed “mixed” team events (one male and one female shooters competing alongside) these performance patterns were maintained and the mixed gender competitive environment did not impede women’s performance beyond. Supported by earlier research [29,30] we endorse the proposition that in future Games, “gender unified” events should be held for the “static” rifle shooting modalities.

          • @girlfreddy@lemmy.caOP
            -5•16 days ago

            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.

            • @SchmidtGenetics@lemmy.world
              3•16 days ago

              Please read the entire thing. You would see how it was on topic if you did, that’s how I know you haven’t.

              Sometime in the early 2000’s Uri Gneezy and Aldo Rustichini conducted a very intriguing field study in an elementary school in Israel [1]. The participants were prepuberty140 children, 75 boys and 65 girls, all in the fourth grade between 9–10 years of age. The researchers studied the performance of the children in a race alone over a short distance of 40 meters (~131 feet) with the teacher measuring their speed. Girls and boys ran on average at the same speed. Then the majority of the children ran a second time with the teacher matching the children in pairs, starting with the two fastest children in the race going down the list independent of gender. Each pair ran on the same track, with the two children running alongside this time. Now, the boys improved while the girls ran slower. In eight mixed-pair races of 11 observations (73%) in which boys were slower than the girls initially, they beat the competition in the head-on second stage. In the remaining 18 mixed-pair races, where the girls had a worse time in the first round, only three girls won the competition (17%). To combat experimental threats, the researchers wisely kept a separate group of children as controls who ran alone in round two as well. This group, yet again showed no gender differences in speed and thus dispelled alternative explanations such as girls getting tired faster than boys. Based on the results, Gneezy and Rustichini concluded “Overall, we find support for the claim that competition increases the performance of males relative to females…This indicates that some strong, robust, and general factors are involved.” They then raised further: “The puzzle that remains concerns the more subtle effects of competition in homogeneous and heterogeneous groups.” (p. 380).

    • BuelldozerA
      -1•16 days ago

      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!

      • @girlfreddy@lemmy.caOP
        -1•16 days ago

        And again, although that is interesting it still doesn’t show the numbers that were quoted …

        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.

        • BuelldozerA
          3•16 days ago

          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.

        • @dogslayeggs@lemmy.world
          2•16 days ago

          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.