Transgender swimmer Leah Thomas has lost her challenge to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, the world's highest court for fairness in sport, to overturn World Aquatics Championship rules that bar transgender women from competing in the women's division. Judges ruled that Thomas did not have standing to bring the lawsuit.
World Aquatics, which sets the rules for top-level competition including the Olympics, will introduce a new gender policy in June 2022, stating that transgender women can compete in women's events only if they transition before the age of 12 or early puberty, whichever is later. The decision means that transgender women who went through masculine puberty, like Thomas, will be excluded from participating in women's races.
Thomas began her hormone replacement therapy transition in May 2019. She attended the University of Pennsylvania, where she swam for the men's team from the 2017-18 season through the 2019-20 season. By 2021, Thomas had met the NCAA hormone therapy requirement to swim for the women's team at Penn State, and completed that requirement for the 2020-21 and 2021-22 seasons.
Thomas became the first transgender athlete to win an NCAA Division I title in March 2022 when she won the women's 500-yard freestyle, and she has said she has ambitions to compete in the Olympics.
World Aquatics introduced an “open” category for swimmers who were not determined to be female at birth, but said there were no entries for the division at the opening race of the 2023 World Cup in Berlin in October.
In Thomas' challenge to the CAS, he sought a court order declaring “the challenged provisions unlawful, void and of no effect,” the CAS said in a Jan. 26 statement, restating his position.
Thomas's attorney, Toronto-based Tyr LLC, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In a statement from his legal team, Thomas called the CAS decision “deeply disappointing,” according to Athlete Ally.
“A blanket ban on transgender women's athletic participation is discriminatory and denies them a valuable athletic opportunity that is central to our identity,” she said. “The CAS decision should be seen as a call to all transgender women athletes to continue fighting for their dignity and human rights.”
Swimming is one of many sports that have introduced policies for transgender athletes amid a broader debate about inclusion and competitive fairness. Last year, the governing bodies of athletics and cycling decided that transgender women could not compete in women's events. The International Cycling Union made the decision in July after American Austin Killips became the first openly transgender woman to win a cycling event.
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(Photo by Mike Comer/NCAA Photos via Getty Images)
