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Swimmer Lia Thomas’ case against World Aquatics transgender athlete rules dismissed
Lia Thomas’ attempt to challenge World Aquatics’ policy for transgender athletes has been dismissed. Thomas, a transgender woman, argued the ruling was discriminatory and took legal action against it earlier this year, but the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled this week she is not entitled to challenge the rules.
Thomas has not registered to compete in any World Aquatics events and is no longer a member of US Swimming, according to the ruling obtained by CBS News. Thomas, the court said, is “not sufficiently affected by the rules” and therefore cannot challenge them.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport, or CAS, says transgender women can compete in World Aquatic events under two conditions: they did not experience male puberty or their male puberty was suppressed before age 12, and their testosterone levels are consistently below 2.5nmol/L.
USA Swimming’s policy states transgender women must have less than 5 nmol/L of testosterone consistently for 36 months before they can compete at elite levels. But the policy also states that to compete in international events, a transgender woman must meet World Aquatics criteria.
AP Photo/Josh Reynolds
In 2022, World Aquatics voted to prevent trans women who have gone through any male puberty from competing elite events, according to BBC News.
When Thomas filed her challenge to the ruling earlier this year, the court said she “accepts that fair competition is a legitimate sporting objective and that some regulation of transgender women in swimming is appropriate.” But she argued that the provisions she was challenging were invalid and unlawful as they discriminate against her.
CBS News has reached out to World Aquatics, CAS and a attorney for Thomas and is awaiting response.
Thomas was a star on the University of Pennsylvania swim team, earning the best 200-meter freestyle time in the 2022 NCAA season and finishing nearly 40 seconds ahead of her closest competitor in one race.
Thomas previously swam on the men’s team and followed NCAA and Ivy League rules when she began transitioning in 2019. Thomas said during a podcast interview that her coach, Mike Schnur, and team were “unbelievably supportive since the beginning.” Both the university and the Ivy League also released statements supporting Thomas.
But her competing on the women’s team was also met with criticism. While a group of her teammates penned a letter of support, 16 U Penn athletes wrote an anonymous letter to the NCAA saying she should not be allowed to swim on the women’s team.
The issue sparked debate among other athletes and non-athletes. Eighteen-time tennis Grand Slam winner Martina Navratilova wrote on social media that it’s “not fair for women to race against transgender Lia Thomas.”
Olympic gold medalist Caitlyn Jenner, who came out as a trans woman in 2015, said “we need to protect women’s sports,” when talking about Thomas.
Schuyler Bailar, who became first trans athlete to compete on a NCAA Division 1 men’s team when he swam for Harvard, has supported Thomas, whom he once competed against. He said while she receives backlash, many of the messages Thomas receives are positive and sympathetic.
“The story is that trans women are going to destroy women’s sports, and that’s also just false,” Bailar said. “People want to police the women’s category. People care a lot about what they think constitutes womanhood, and a lot of people want to police exactly what womanhood looks like, and end up policing trans women as a result.”
The following is a transcript of an interview with Sen. Mark Kelly, Democrat of Arizona, on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” that aired on Oct. 6, 2024.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Joining us now is Arizona’s Democratic Senator, Mark Kelly. He’s in Detroit this morning on the campaign trail for the Harris campaign. Good morning to you, Senator.
SEN. MARK KELLY: Good morning, Margaret.
MARGARET BRENNAN: I want to talk to you about Arizona, but let’s start in Michigan, which is where you are right now. And it is going to be such a key state to a potential Harris or Trump victory. Vice President Harris is facing challenges among black men, working class people, as well as the Muslim and Arab populations skeptical of the White House support for Israel’s wars. What are you hearing on the ground there from voters?
SEN. KELLY: Well, my wife, Gabby Giffords, and I have been out here for a couple days. We’ve been campaigning across the country, Michigan, I’ve been in North Carolina, Georgia as well. I’ll be back to Arizona here soon. The vice president was out here speaking to Muslim organizations and the Arab community about what is at stake in this election and addressing the concerns that they have. What we’re hearing, issues about the economy, about gun violence, about, you know, supporting American families and the difference between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. You know, Kamala Harris, who has a vision for the future of this country, Donald Trump, who just wants to drag us backwards.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Today in Dearborn, Michigan, there’s a funeral service for an American man who was killed in Lebanon by an Israeli airstrike. It just underscores how that community you’re talking about out in Michigan feel some of what’s happening in a personal way to their community. Given how close this race is, do you think this war and the expectation it could escalate could cost Democrats both a seat in the Senate and potentially the presidency?
SEN. KELLY: Margaret, nobody wants to see escalation and it’s tragic when any innocent person, whether it’s an American or Palestinian, lose their life in a conflict. Tomorrow’s one year since October 7th, when Israel was violently attacked. Israel has a right to defend itself, not only from Hamas, but from Hezbollah and from the Iranians. But, you know, I and my wife, you know, we feel for the community here who’s been affected by this. And that’s why the vice president was out here earlier, a few days ago, meeting with that community.
MARGARET BRENNAN: But it’s a live issue.
SEN. KELLY: Yeah, sure. I mean, there is an ongoing conflict in the Middle East. Israel is, you know, fighting a war now on, I think it’s fair to say, two fronts and then being attacked by the Iranians as well. And, they- they need to defend themselves, and we need to support our Israeli ally. At the same time, when women and children lose their life, innocent people in a conflict, it is- it is tragic.
MARGARET BRENNAN: You do sit on the Senate Intelligence Committee and so I know you know how intense the efforts are by foreign actors to try to manipulate voters going into November. Just this Friday, Matthew Olsen, the lead on election threats at the Department of Justice, told CBS the Russians are, quote, highlighting immigration as a wedge issue. That is such a key issue in Arizona. Are you seeing targeted information operations really focusing in on Arizonans right now?
SEN. KELLY: Not only in Arizona, in other battleground states. It’s the Russians, the Chinese, the Iranians, and it’s significant. And we need to do a better job getting the message out to the American people that there is a huge amount of misinformation. If you’re looking at stuff on Twitter, on TikTok, on Facebook, on Instagram, and it’s political in nature, and you may- might think that that person responding to that political article or who made that meme up is an American. It could be- it could look like a U.S. service member. There is a very reasonable chance I would put it in the 20 to 30% range, that the content you are seeing, the comments you are seeing, are coming from one of those three countries: Russia, Iran, China. We had a hearing recently, with the FBI director, the DNI, and the head of the National Security Agency. And we talked about this. And we talked about getting the word out. And it’s up to us, so thank you for asking me the question, because it’s up to us, the people who serve in Congress and the White House to get the information out there, that there is a tremendous amount of misinformation in this election, and it’s not going to stop on November 5th.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Understood. And we will do our best to help parse that for viewers. But on the topic of the border, President Biden did announce just this past week new regulations to keep in place that partial asylum ban that he rolled out back in June. That’s what’s credited with helping to bring down some of the border crossing numbers in recent weeks. It was supposed to be a temporary policy, dependent on how many people were crossing at a time. Do you think this is the right long term policy, or is this just a gimmick to bring down numbers ahead of the election?
SEN. KELLY: Well, the right long term policy is to do this through legislation. And we were a day or two away from doing that, passing strong border security legislation supported by the vice president, negotiated by the vice president, and the president and his Department of Homeland Security, with Democrats and Republicans–
MARGARET BRENNAN: But this is not legislation.
SEN. KELLY: –This is bipartisan. This isn’t. But the legislation was killed by Donald Trump. We were really close to getting it passed. That’s the correct way to do this. When you can’t do that, Margaret, when a former president interrupts the legislative process the way he did, which is the most hypocritical thing I’ve ever seen in my three and a half years in the Senate. After that happened, the only other option is executive actions. And this has gone from what was chaos and a crisis at our southern border to somewhat manageable. And if you’re the border- Border Patrol, you know, this is this- you need this. I mean, otherwise it is unsafe for Border Patrol agents, for CBP officers, for migrants, for communities in southern Arizona. So it’s unfortunate that this was the- these were the steps that had to be taken.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Okay.
SEN. KELLY: But that’s because the former president didn’t allow us to do this through legislation.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Senator, we have to leave it right there. Face the Nation will be right back.
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Sen. Mark Kelly says Americans need to know about “huge amount of misinformation” on election
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