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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.
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.”
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Sen. Mark Kelly says feds need to do a “better job” of letting Americans know “there’s a huge amount of misinformation” on election
Washington — Sen. Mark Kelly said Sunday that the federal government needs to do its part to inform Americans of the vast swath of election misinformation that’s being consumed on social media platforms like X, TikTok, Facebook and Instagram.
“It’s up to us, the people who serve in Congress and in 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 Nov. 5,” Kelly said on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.”
Kelly, who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he’s seen these misinformation operations target not only his state of Arizona, but also other battleground states.
“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,” Kelly said.
In a committee hearing last month on foreign threats to the 2024 election, Kelly presented screenshots of Russian-made web pages showing fabricated headlines designed to look like Fox News and The Washington Post, targeted at voters in battleground states.
“So my constituents in Arizona and others — they seek to influence the outcome of these elections, and that is absolutely beyond the pale,” Kelly said at the Sept. 18 hearing. “We’ve got to do something about it.”
Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump each have the support of 49% of Arizona voters, according to CBS News’ battleground tracker as of Sept. 30.
In another battleground state, Pennsylvania, Trump returned Saturday to hold a rally in Butler three months after an attempted assassination on him. He was joined by members of his own party and billionaire Elon Musk, who said Trump was the only way to preserve democracy and warned of a last election if he does not win in November.
Speaking to CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday, Kelly called the social media mogul a hypocrite.
“He’s standing next to the guy that tried to overturn the 2020 election on Jan. 6, saying that this is somehow going to be the last election and they’re going to take away your vote,” Kelly said. “And you know, it just doesn’t pass the logic test.”
At the White House press briefing on Friday, President Biden – speaking from the podium for the first time since taking office – said he’s confident of a free and fair election but alluded to the 2021 insurrection at the Capitol in his concerns on whether it will be a peaceful transfer of power.
“The things that Trump has said and the things that he said last time out when he didn’t like the outcome of the election were very dangerous,” Mr. Biden said. “If you notice, I noticed that the vice-presidential Republican candidate did not say he’d accept the outcome of the election, and they haven’t even accepted the outcome of the last election.”
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