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”.
But like I said, that’s fine. The point is that we would then be categorizing people not according to their gender but by factors that directly affect their athletic performance.
Another benefit would also be that it would allow a wider range of people to participate at the national and international level, seeing as it would not remove all but those women and men who possess the optimal physical traits required for that particular sport.
That’s starting to sound a little like an eugenics competition….
I would say the opposite, in fact.
Eugenics is the belief and practices that aim to “improve” the genetic quality of a human population to meet an idealized optimal standard. Under my proposed system, you could argue it would allow for a greater diversity of individuals that would be able to compete, and therefore would lower the necessity of having the optimal physical traits required in order to take part in each sport.
Back to the discussion. It would basically be this if we took the 10% of each and put it into 4 categories.
Group A 85%men 15% women
Group B 70%men 30% women
Group C 55%men 45%women
Group D 5%men 95%women
It just doesn’t work. You would be hand picking less qualified men to compete with the women just to fill it up.
On what basis doesn’t it work, though? I’m still not sure I understand what the problem is with your example.
Another way of looking at it is that we would in fact be widening the criteria of who would be considered “qualified”.
In only one group would the women win a significant portion of the events? You basically created an Olympics with a bottom 25% female category, and 3 male categories. The women can already compete with the men if they want to, but they want medals too, not just to be there…. The best women would be overshadowed by the best men, you would only be showing off the worst of the top female athletes.
Expanding? When you need a d list male to compete with a b list female? Come on.
Ah yeah, I see what you mean. Fair point.