June 13, 2024 - 8:00pm
This week, women’s sports scored a small victory after the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) determined that transgender swimmer Lia Thomas would not be eligible to compete in World Aquatics competitions, including the Paris Olympics this summer.
Thomas challenged the current rule, which prohibits anyone who has undergone “any part of male puberty” from competing in World Aquatics meets, demanding that it be overturned in order to allow males who identify as females to compete in women’s sports. CAS said no.
The swimmer has been central to the debate raging about males being allowed to compete in women’s sports. In 2022, Thomas tied Riley Gaines at the NCAA Championships in the 200-yard Women’s Freestyle — before winning an NCAA college gold title in the women’s 500-yard freestyle, beating Olympic silver medalist Emma Weyant by 1.75 seconds.
Previously competing as Will Thomas for three years at the University of Pennsylvania, seemingly overnight Thomas switched to the women’s team and jumped hundreds of places in the rankings, beating three Olympic medalists and securing first place in several races at the NCAA Championships in 2022.
As a former elite athlete, I can tell you: that’s not tough training. No amount of physical preparation can drive that kind of leap in the rankings in just one short year. And presumably the training didn’t even change: Thomas had the same coach, the same regimen, and remained at the same university. A 400+ place improvement in one season? Usually, such a jump could be attributed to doping. This time, it was male advantage — which is equally unfair and ought to be banned.
Recognising the fact that male advantage cannot be eliminated, World Aquatics last year created an “open” category to accommodate transgender swimmers. This is further evidence, if any were needed, that no one is banning athletes from competing. That wasn’t good enough for Thomas, however, who saw fit to sue World Aquatics because of its rule prohibiting males from competing in the women’s category.
Yet the decision-makers at World Aquatics live in material reality, and recognise that swimmers such as Thomas have significant physical advantages in strength, speed, and lung capacity versus their female counterparts. That a mediocre male swimmer believes he can challenge the World Aquatics standing rule, when he is free to compete in the open category, is evidence of how far gender ideology has warped our collective thinking. Some of us have endured being called transphobes (and worse) for stating what is perfectly obvious, because truth and bigotry are now treated as near neighbours.
Now, the Court of Arbitration’s ruling has provided a glimmer of hope, a suggestion that we are still somewhat tethered to reality. It indicates that we know, deep down, that trans women aren’t women — that they have all the male physical advantages of being taller, stronger, faster, with a bigger heart and bigger lungs. Trans women are men, and they are free to compete against men.
This small victory follows another in April, when the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) — the governing body for club and intramural sports at the college level — ruled that the women’s category would be protected, and kept for female athletes only. The men’s category would be open to all.
The battle is not won, though. We still need this common sense to be embraced by the National Collegiate and Athletics Association (NCAA) and the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC), which thus far have been reluctant to crack down on males in female categories. What these organisation fail to understand is that letting males compete in women’s sports is misogyny under the guise of inclusion.
What’s more, it’s worth noting that the Olympic Trials take place next week in Indianapolis. Thomas hasn’t made the USA team yet, and the hubris to challenge the standing rule before this small matter is confirmed is the same hubris required to believe that as a male he gets to compete — and win — against women.
You can call it hubris, or narcissism, or misogyny. I just call it cheating.
Jennifer Sey is founder and CEO of XX-XY Athletics, a 7-time member of the women’s national artistic gymnastics team, and the 1986 US Women’s All-Around National Champion.
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SubscribeThe headline is misleading.
Lia Thomas is not banned from the Olympics. He is fully entitled to try to qualify for the US men’s team, which is his correct category. He’s just not good enough.
The decision by the NAIA is welcome but unfortunately they are the lesser of the college athletic associations. Their members being mainly junior colleges. The NCAA governs competition between the big schools and conferences.
Furthermore, while I personally don’t believe Thomas should be allowed to compete in the women’s category, the CAS ruling was a technical decision that concluded Thomas was not eligible to challenge the rules because Thomas’ membership of US swimming had lapsed.
The article gives the impression the ruling was on the merits of the case. It wasn’t.
I expect better from Unherd. If I wanted slanted reporting on this topic, I’d be reading the Guardian
“I expect better from Unherd.” <– Why? If the topic involves transgender people the journalism is always of like sterling quality . . .
. . . After Soros crashed it, that sterling.
The fact remains, however, that Will / Lia Thomas can swim faster than a woman, just because he is bigger, stronger and biologically male. He is an egregious cheat.
No liar, she has no masculine advantage. Let’s see you propose size classes, if you think that is a big deal.
“He is an egregious cheat.” <– You are a factless, bigoted, egregious liar about her — that is clear.
Just look at the size of that guy compared to the other two contestants…
How can you say that he has no advantage?
Because she has no advantage compared to any other woman of her size.
Then of course there is that actual data on Thomas’ times I link to as opposed to the author Sey’s deceits.
He’s a bloke.
No, and never has been.
Wrong. The female swimmers in the locker room saw his jewels in living color.
Irrelevant, it is not now nor has ever been the sex of a person that makes them a man or a woman.
and presumably it is not the skin colour of a person that makes them black or white. They just need to identify as black or white in your view. Self ID reigns supreme.
Didn’t Rachel Dolezal claim to be “Trans Black”?
So what? There is no such thing as any recognizable “black” or “white” neural anatomy.
There is recognizably male and female neural anatomy.
Imbecile, what you call “self ID” is over 99.99% accurate in describing if someone is a woman or a man — and — the only question is does HRT lowering blood testosterone levels in an athlete to cisgender female levels for the 2 years mooted by the IOC, make it fair to cisgender women for that athlete to compete in women’s categories.
What is recorded in Olympic history and going by the example of intersex athletes like Caster Semenya and physiologic measurements of net performance is that is does.
You for no reason — except perhaps your own projection of your own pathology — presume “self ID” equals “lying”. It is not measured to be so, and you refuse to deal with reality as it is.
You presume a falsehood. There is no such thing as any recognizable “black” or “white” neural anatomy. There is recognizably male and female neural anatomy — and that is persistently associated with the gender identity of a person.
Honestly, what planet are you on?
The same one where although allowed to compete for 18 years, no MtF athlete has ever medaled in the Olympics although you claim they should be over-represented no matter how low their participation rate. If MtF athletes were so little as on par with cisgender females and had the same participation rate, there should be about 77 MtF medalists in women’s categories — instead there are zero.
I think that Talia is either very sick, or just wants to create as much upset as she can. Toddler screaming because no one accepts what they believe springs most readily to mind!
After all why not? We are all gods in our own universe now and boy is she defending hers!
Meanwhile, back on the physical plane we all share, men and women grow to maturity in completely different ways. No matter how much it might be true in your world, it is not true in the physical world that you can bend biological sex boundaries by shear force of will.
With regards to true intersex, where the child retains characteristics of both sexes due to the hormones that kick in during pregnancy not working properly, that is a completely different problem and a low trick to use as an argument.
True intersex people have a horrible time trying to find their identity and as a group, make up a tiny proportion of births. They tend not to join with men who have fully developed willies screaming for the right to be girls and stick it to women and female children.
“I think that … and female children.” <– I know I am here to write what is provably factually real, and you are here to repeat lies you love — including that it is no abuse of any children to force some boys to have breasts and periods and to force some girls to have beards and deep voices.
You are still such a child abuser.
You remain unable to refute factually what I write, which I well prove with citations to facts.
Yours is the typical double speak, intellectual dishonesty we always see on the topic of trans women in sport.
We may use the gendered terms ‘men’ and ‘women’ to describe categories of competition, but there isn’t a rational or serious person who thinks it’s due to some retrograde, social construction and having separate changing rooms – it’s about fair competition based on male and female biology.
For example, there may be a female swimmer the same size as Thomas, but when you calculate all of the advantages of male biology and puberty, it is vanishingly unlikely next to impossible to find a female athlete that compares.
So, please don’t act like the men’s and women’s category are about gender. If that was the case we would have done away with them years ago. This is about biology, physiology, and ultimately fairness.
“Yours is the … and ultimately fairness.” <– It is about fairness. Her biological gender is why Lia Thomas medically lowered her testosterone to cisgender female levels, and it is a fact proven by measurement and Olympic history, that having done so for 2 contiguous years and no more time being required, that that HRT destroys all advantage prior testosterone blood levels might have given her — so it is only fair for her to compete in women’s categories.
I can’t really respond to that – as it’s so outrageously and obviously utter rubbish.
There is countless studies and conclusive evidence that testosterone alone isn’t the only factor in male biology that gives males a significant advantage. Not by a long shot. Hell – the article even lists them!
You’ve also, revealingly, completely run away from the key point – it’s not a women’s category in material reality, it’s a male / female one. Lia Thomas may be legally registered as a women, but Thomas will never, ever be a female. It’s written in every cell of Thomas’ body.
Maybe I have a better suggestion, let’s call men’s categories ‘A’ and women’s categories ‘1’ instead, and have it so it’s your sex at birth, and then we can talk about what’s really important and prevent this intellectual dishonesty on your part
“as it’s so outrageously and obviously utter rubbish.” <– Then you could prove it. You cannot.
There are numerous studies showing some small fraction of masculine advantage in some narrow measures is persistent, but it is only net advantage that wins contest, and MtF athletes after no more than 2 years of HRT are at a net disadvantage compared to cisgender athletes.
That is why at the highest levels of competition, MtF athletes do not medal, as they have not in the Olympics in over 20 years they are permitted to compete. They can’t even qualify for the teams.
Wow
To the deliberately ignorant and stupid I’m sure measured reality is constantly amazing.
Regarding ‘Sex’ exactly – do you have your story straight about the birds and the bees? No matter how you ‘identify’, men do not have uterus’. That is a biological materiality that is just the law of creation itself. How you ‘feel’ and identify is a completely different matter. One does not cancel out the other.
Does he have a p+*nis?
I conclude.
If you think you have a counter argument – why not state it rather than resorting to abuse?
I already have, learn to read.
Do not merit the accurate description you call abuse.
There is no abuse in accurate description, and you certainly have no counterargument to make.
He is 6’4” and has a wingspan twice as long as the female swimmers. William went through a male puberty, so he stronger and faster. He could have won all of his races but he only won one. If you watched the female swimmers, they were kicking the water hard. William? He wasn’t kicking at all. He was using only his upper body strength to propel his body through the water. Also, he has a larger heart and larger lungs. That doesn’t go away just because he takes estrogen.
She is 6’4″, and no masculine advantage survives HRT. Her actual times are published at the link I give. She has no net advantage at all. Nothing you have claimed of her is real.
Pure poppycock!
Except it is measured physical and historic reality, and you will cite nothing provably real to the contrary.
It is true no MtF athlete has ever medaled in the Olympics although they have been allowed to mpete there for over 18 years, if they had cisgender female levels of testosterone.
According you your bigotry, they should be over represented no matter what their participation rate is.
The thing is, you are completely wrong. It’s the fact you don’t care which proves you are only a mindless, factless bigot.
There is no advantage to having to shove a larger than typical frame through the water with female typical muscles, and she has no more oxygen carrying capacity to her blood than any woman does — both of those are entirely mediated by testosterone blood levels.
Of course. It’s amazing that there’s even a discussion to be had about this.
To genuinely bigoted, ignorant people like you, sure.
Those who think he has equal standing in woman’s sports are the ignorant ones. I’m assuming you’re female, why not stick up for other women?
There is a suspicion that your second comment is not accurate. That said, yes, there are women (ones who don’t have a Y chromosome that is) who would be perfectly happy to support Thomas in his quest to participate in women’s sport. The old joke about turkeys voting for Christmas springs to mind.
There are certain physical laws about which there is no dispute. For example, the acceleration due to gravity at sea-level is approximately 9.8 m/s². The basis for separate sports for women, or, for that matter, by age group, is to provide fair competition for different demographics based on physical characteristics. It’s got nothing to do with feelings or bigotry. It’s about biological reality. As human beings we live in a real world with real physical limitations. If I jump out of an airplane without a parachute and flap my arms, I will fall and die. I may want to be a bird. But wanting doesn’t make me a bird, and wanting to be treated as a woman doesn’t mean I am one. That’s not bigotry. It’s truth.
“There are certain … bigotry. It’s truth.” <– Biological reality is that the gender of a person exists physically between the ears and develops in the person in utero, it’s effects begin to be apparent between ages 3 to 5 typically, and it produces in a person the impulse to perceive from among those around them as they grow up, who is also of their gender and the desire to emulate them in growing up.
“If I jump out of an airplane without a parachute and flap my arms, I will fall and die. I may want to be a bird. But wanting doesn’t make me a bird” <– Which has nothing to do with it.
“and wanting to be treated as a woman doesn’t mean I am one” <– Having a female gender and being an adult means you are a woman. Most women will have such wants, go figure.
It is as much bigotry to claim someone’s sex dictates their nature and life, as it is to claim their skin color does. It is in fact only the brain which is the person, as acknowledged now in law in the concept of brain death.
Maybe you should acknowledge all of biological reality, not only the parts you approve of.
Not sure there is any evidence of ‘gender identity’ existing at all and there can never be any evidence of it developing in utero. Sex is a biological fact. Gender is a concept. Free speech means you can play with your concepts as much as you like but please don’t enforce your inner life onto anyone else. Sex is real. Get use to it
Gender is real, you should get used to that.
https://taliaperkinssspace.quora.com/People-are-born-transgender-they-are-not-mentally-ill-it-is-no-paraphilia-it-is-a-physical-birth-defect-no-more-a-men
You have no evidence whatsoever to the detraction of what I just linked to.
Of the two physical sets of tissue in a person, the brain is the person, the sex is not.
So, in order to support your argument, you’re referrencing something you wrote yourself? Why am I not surprised.
Have you heard of Ian McGilchrist? We all have sides to our brains……we also carry our biological reality in every cell of our body.
Do you fully understand the human developmental pathway?
The headline is not 100% accurate, but headlines never are. The gist of it is true. The ruling upholds the Olympic ban on “Lia” Thomas, and that is a victory for women’s sports. He will not be swimming in the Paris Olympics.
But it’s also true that the ruling was not on the merits, and that Lia Thomas might not be swimming in those Olympics even if the CAS had struck down the CAS rule. So, misleading? I guess so.
As I understand it, the CAS ruled that “Lia” Thomas had not been harmed personally by the WA’s actions and so lacked standing to sue. Had he entered an elite swimming competition and been denied, he would have standing to sue.
That lack of standing was, coincidentally, the same basis for the 9-0 decision by the US supreme court in the abortion drug case announced today. They held that the doctors and others had not been harmed by the FDA’s rules, so couldn’t sue.
When a court rules that the complaining party does not have standing that usually means the court would like to rule against that party on the merits but doesn’t want to wade into treacherous waters to do so. So they stay on safe ground and still achieve the same result.
I suspect that’s what happened in both the CAS and US supreme court cases. If so, the CAS will uphold the WA rule against biological males entering women’s swimming races in any future case. Just like the US supreme court will uphold the FDA’s rule allowing women to obtain the abortion drug.
In other words, these courts didn’t rule on the merits, but in some ways, they did.
My biggest criticism of Unherd are the headlines.
I understand all of this, the fact remains that the article , not just the headline, is misleading.
‘ Thomas challenged the current rule, which prohibits anyone who has undergone “any part of male puberty” from competing in World Aquatics meets, demanding that it be overturned in order to allow males who identify as females to compete in women’s sports. CAS said no.’
That’s like saying I was refused entry to a nightclub, without mentioning the fact I couldn’t afford to be pay the £10 entry fee.
I understand it’s the first thing that any court will consider, i.e. can we even hear this case, do they have standing etc, but the article paints the decision out to be something it wasn’t.
You’re right, this journalism does imply that the CAS supported WA’s rule on the merits and that is false. Jennifer Sey is the 20-year Levi’s executive who resigned after she wouldn’t tone down her stance on school closures during the pandemic. She says she turned a $1 million severance so she could continue to “speak out”, but it’s a little unclear exactly what happened there. She salts her journalism with too much advocacy for my taste, and I’m not sure I disagree with Levi’s decision to push her to add less salt, if indeed that’s what happened.
On the other hand, while Jennifer Sey does mislead, I think it’s forgivable in this case. I do think CAS would have been willing to entertain “Lia” Thomas’s standing theory if the judge had agreed with his position on the merits. It seems like he is still going to try out for the American women’s swimming team for the Olympics next week, and that seems to me to give him standing. In his statement on the CAS decision he too paints it more as a loss on the merits than on a technicality.
So I think Jennifer Sey may have got it wrong but still got it right.
Well explained… thanks
Absolutely correct.
And who on earth would downvote this?
Any sane person knowing the actual facts of the matter. Sey is here to tell lies she loves.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/lia-thomas-trans-swimmer-ron-desantis-b2091218.html
That is what is actually real, as opposed to Sey’s rant.
When reviewing the performance of trans women in sport, I wouldn’t rely on the Independent for a reliable source of scientific information as, when it comes to anything related to transpeople, the Independent, like the dear old Grauniad, isn’t independent! The journalists see reality as a ‘bad thing’ and believe in the magic essence of gender nonsense.
Sey’s article points out that Thomas leapt from being somewhere in the 400 to 500s in the men’s rankings to the top rankings in the women’s. As she points out, if this happened in any other circumstance, the accusation would be doping. However in this instance, doping wasn’t necessary because Thomas is a man, having experienced male puberty and has all the advantages that men have in sport. You only have to look at photographs to see the physical differences between Thomas and the female competitors to see the effects that testosterone has on male bodies. Male puberty means men can run faster, jump higher and further, throw things further, hit things harder. Serena Williams said that she wouldn’t play against a man because she’d lose 6-0, 6-0 in six minutes although she’s one of the greatest, if not the greatest, women’s tennis player. All you need to do is look at records set in any sport by men (XY sex chromosome ‘havers’ and women (XX sex chromosome ‘havers) and you should see that this is fact. However, I’m sure you’ll disagree.
“Sey’s article points out that Thomas leapt from being somewhere in the 400 to 500s in the men’s rankings to the top rankings in the women’s” <– And that is a lie. Thomas is in 400’s among women as well.
No more, no less.
“I wouldn’t rely on the Independent for a reliable source of scientific information as” <– Not that you’ll be able to point out any factual error there.
No net advantage accruing to high testosterone levels survives those levels being lowered for two or more years — you have no evidence supporting your claim to the contrary.
Oh Talia, it’s a matter of record that Thomas moved from the middle rankings in the men’s class to the top flight in the women’s.
Men do have major physical advantages in sport compared to women across the board. The Rugby Football Union called in sports scientists and physicians to review these differences and it was on the basis of this research that they decided against permitting trans women to particpate in the women’s game. The research has been done, not just in Rugby, but in other sports too.
An example for you: Emily Bridges, the cyclist, reduced his testosterone levels during transition and was still beating men with the full complement of testosterone weeks before he was scheduled to participate in his first races in the women’s class. The outcome of these races would be entirely predictable based on his performance. That said, the way he was treated by British Cycling was outrageous and completely unfair, but he should never have been told he would be allowed in the women’s class in the first place. Inclusion is all very well in theory but not when dealing with the real wrold.
In fact, I’d say that all humans do the research every day when we observe our fellow humans and see evidence of men’s physical abilities compared to women’s. We don’t need scientists to tell us what we already know…even you.
“Oh Talia, it’s a matter of record that Thomas moved from the middle rankings in the men’s class to the top flight in the women’s.”
No, it is not.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/lia-thomas-trans-swimmer-ron-desantis-b2091218.html
Absolutely anyone aware of biological reality, and, the history of MtF athletes in women’s sports. They dominate nothing.
Thanks, well said.
This is all about fear. The organizers are afraid of being labeled as transphobic and getting the inevitable barrage of death and rape threats. Trans rights activists will do whatever it takes to destroy lives—the loss of one’s livelihood, the fear for their families, the loss of their reputations , the loss of friends. . Some people fight back, like J.K. Rowling, but she has her money to fall back on. To millions of people, young and old, she is golden. There are other less well known women who are also fighting back, but they have suffered with the loss of jobs, etc. People need to know that bodies are competing, not identities. If a male has gone through puberty, he is almost unbeatable for the women he is competing against. He can lower his testosterone, but that only affects his performance one to three percent. His heart and lungs will not shrink. Men in dresses aren’t women, and everyone knows that. If we all rally for females, males like William Thomas will be defeated. Everyone has to fight back. Save women’s sports.
“This is all about fear.” <– It is only really about your fear, your transphobia.
The only requirement for an athlete who has had a masculine puberty with respect to testosterone blood levels, or levels substantially elevated above cisgender female levels, is that their blood testosterone levels are reduced to feminine typical levels for no more than two years continuously before competing in women’s categories. Requiring that removes all net masculine advantage, no matter the source or duration of the prior high testosterone.
~ Trans rights activists will do whatever it takes to destroy bigots. ~
I fixed it for you. You have no more a legitimate set of opinions about it, and no more facts supporting your opinions, than did those who wanted the “Whites Only” to stay up.
The fact is, while able to compete in the Olympics for over 18 years if they had lowered their testosterone to cisgender female levels or below for two years contiguously before competing, MtF athletes have never won so much as a single medal — and — if they are so little as on par with cisgender female athletes and participate at the same rate, there should be about 77 of them — and — even if they have a far lower participation rate, according to you and Tucker they should be over-represented on the podium.
Instead their actual record of winning is zero, nada, zilch, nothing.
So recorded reality simply refutes you.
And you have no excuse.
I see the usual mindless, factless bigotry is everywhere the Herd does any reporting about people who are transgender.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/lia-thomas-trans-swimmer-ron-desantis-b2091218.html
The real numbers RE Mrs. Lia Thomas are found there above.
No, Lia Thomas has no “unfair advantage”, in particular she has no masculine advantage. I remind you fools she lost to 4 cisgender women in tying for 5th place with Riley Gaines — where is the supposed domination of women’s sports?
The fact is that in the 18 years MtF transgender women whose testosterone was at female usual levels or lower were allowed to participate in the Olympics, none have ever so much as won a single medal, and if MtF transgender people participate at the same rate as cisgender people in the Olympics, there should have been at least 77 medalists who are MtF transgender — if they are so little as on par with cisgender females. If they have any advantage they would be quite prominently over-represented.
Instead there are zero.
As with every other bigot on this topic, Jennifer Sey lies, and the real numbers prove it.
Is that you Will?
Like every other ‘phobe, you are a liar at heart for the sake of the lies you love.
Reality hurts your feelings, good — that’s only karma and the least of it.
Fascinating to year you refer reality in a comment
Tediously typical I am the only one introducing it into the discussion here.
Was Lia previously Will? Struggling to keep ‘up’ here.
There’s no doubt why you are struggling . . .
Will’s brother!
See my comment above. He threw those races on purpose. He was not kicking his legs like the women. Just leisurely swimming along.
You are ridiculous.
Who makes up your “facts”? Nothing you say is true. All you do is scream at people with ultra-bonkers garbage and insults. It’s like you transgenders all come from the same clone factory, because in that regard you’re all the same.
“Who makes up your “facts”?” <– They were recorded at the time of the race heats involved, not made up.
“Nothing you say is true.” <– Except you can never quote or cite any proof as what I have said which is false.
“All you do … all the same.” <– I describe you accurately, you resent that.
That’s al there is to this.
So just wondering … with all your boiling rage and anger, do you go and punch terfs, like your leaders incite you to do?
“So just wondering … with all your boiling rage and anger, do you go and punch terfs, like your leaders incite you to do?”
It is perfectly clear, all you have is the lies you love.
Interestingly, the Independent article you cite is written by a journalist called Io Dodds who, according to his website (https://lfdodds.wordpress.com/about/) “previously wrote under the name Laurence Dodds, prior to coming out as a transgender woman in June 2021.”
Do I hear the sound of an axe grinding?
“Do I hear the sound of an axe grinding?”
What I do not read is any facts from you or anyone here refuting Dodds. So you have the axe, it is made of lies.
Amazing that you conveniently ignore the last sentence in your cited article.
You conveniently ignore that the performance data in the article proves Tucker wrong.
Oh dearie me. It is now Talia vs Dr Ross Tucker.
No it is the facts I cited which prove Tucker wrong.
Washington and Oregon state track championships just in the past few weeks. California state cross-country championships last year. It’s happening in blue states everywhere.
More fundamentally, if what you say is true, FtoM would be equally represented in men’s athletics and winning championships at the highest level. Instead, not surprisingly, there are none. The one FtoM college swimmer from Harvard of course came in dead last.
“Washington and Oregon … in dead last.” <– Not actually the case.
https://www.quora.com/Why-arent-there-any-transgender-FtM-athletes-that-win-1st-place-in-any-sport-events/answer/Alma-Frances-Pellett
Like usual, you don’t have the bravery to know what you don’t want to hear.
I don’t know the actual reason for the decision but the argument that ““any part of male puberty” is relevant is just pathetic. If my 2 Yr old son has gender mutilation treatment then he is still not a female but, according to World Aquatics, he could swim with the women. The categories are men and women not high testosterone and low testosterone.
Disgraceful and illogical cowardice by WA.
Your post is disgraceful, factless bigotry by you. No “masculine” advantage survives HRT, as both the history of the Olympics and Lia Thomas’ actual times prove.
For God’s sake, he can lower is testosterone down to nothing, and he still has the strength and speed of a man who has gone through puberty. A man has a punching strength of 165%. My punching strength is a mere fraction of that. Lower testosterone means his strength is lessened about 1 to 3 percent.
“he still has the strength and speed of a man who has gone through puberty.” <- No, she does not.
“Lower testosterone means his strength is lessened about 1 to 3 percent.” <– A ridiculous lie.
The average strength difference between average male and female is clearly far greater than 3% post puberty. You don’t sound like you have kids or have had any involvement in sport at all
“The average strength difference between average male and female is clearly far greater than 3% post puberty. You don’t sound like you have kids or have had any involvement in sport at all” <– Which is produced and maintained by testosterone and vanishes to female typical levels when testosterone levels are so reduced.
Shockingly deluded. Have you ever seen a photo of Thomas standing at the podium with the other girls?
He is an entire male and has erections in the changing rooms. So tired of this.
I never talked about masculine advantage. It’s presence or absence is irrelevant. The categories are male/men and female/women. So that is what determines the entrants. Lia is male/a man whatever name he gives himself or what drugs he takes.
“I never talked about masculine advantage.” <– So you have nothing to say that is relevant then. I can believe it.
“The categories are … drugs he takes.” <– Lia Thomas is a she and a woman because that is how their gender developed while they were in utero. HRT destroys all masculine advantage, and, her race times and ranking prove she has no advantage over her competitors in women’s categories.
As opposed to Sey’s deceits I have cited the real ones in a link below.
What rubbish! just look at that photo he/she is bigger, stronger, taller. It’s unfair to women athletics you spend your life training only to be beaten by what is effectively cheating.
She is bigger and taller but not stronger. When you start fussing about height/weight categories there may be reason to take you seriously.
He has a p***s and is aroused by females.
The first is apparently a temporary matter, and the second quite true of lesbians and bisexual women.
What’s your point?
The shoulders look like they survived HRT.
And trying to move that breadth through the water with feminine musculature is a disadvantage adding up towards her net disadvantage.
the female pelvis is a different shape ( wider) than the male. Mechanical angle of the femur is different ( which is why ACL injuries is such a problem in female soccer/rugby). Different angles = different mechanical function. Narrower pelvis = more streamlining. its not just about hormones, its about anatomy as well.
That is some anatomy it is about, but a good 10% of cisgender women have an “androgyne” pelvis shape which is masculine. So what — they are not known to be athletically dominating other cisgender women.
classification of pelvis that you relies on the internal dimensions ( the bit under the pubic arch, and gap between ischial spines) . thats different to the outer dimensions and angles related to the iliac crest. Try looking up Q angle
That classification includes Q angle. As usual, your ‘phobic insistence things can only ever always be the way you like in the face of contrary measurement is a bit amusing.
Until you get to the point of claiming it justifies monstrous child abuse, of course.
Hurraah!
That’s a funny thread 🙂
In a twisted sort of way we probably should be thankful that we’re enduring the scourge of trans-activism. Every cloud has a silver lining as they say.
For instance, we’ve had yet another example, as if we needed any more, that any reasonably cognizant person would be silly to assume that “the people in charge” must, by definition and virtue of their position, know what they’re doing. They probably don’t.
The other more important realization is the extent to which our so-called enlightened society has turned a blind eye to the very real harms caused by mental illness. Decades of attempting to normalize mental illness lest the poor addled and confused among us be “stigmatized”. The insistence of the mental health industry to adopt a “they’re just like anyone else” ideological mantra despite the obvious: They are not. With notable exceptions the degree to which healthcare ‘professionals’ have stood by and watched the normalization of gender dysphoria has got to be the lowest point in mental healthcare since the lobotomy.
Lia Thomas is mentally ill. Whether knowingly a narcissistic opportunist, perhaps emotionally crushed by the inability to succeed in his chosen sport or just hopelessly deluded matters not – the man needs help not indulgence.
‘………..any reasonably cognizant person would be silly to assume that “the people in charge” must, by definition and virtue of their position, know what they’re doing.’
My observation is that ‘people in charge’ (aka politicians, senior bureaucrats, officials etc) ferquently fall into one or more of three categories when they make seemingly silly and bad rules: They’re ignorant; they’re stupid; or they’re evil.
The first can be cured; the second probably not. But the third is where intent meets capacity and it’s the truly dangerous one: these people do in fact know what they’re doing.
Not sure there is any evidence ‘Lia’ really thinks he is a girl – looks to me more like he just wants to win and this is his way of doing that – ie he is just a cheat using gender ideology as camouflage
As far as I’m aware, he hasn’t had any surgical intervention. Apparently, he’d use the women’s changing facilities and walk around flashing the family jewels in front of the women who were expected to use the same facilities. If they complained, they were told they could lose their place on the team and therefore other opportunities later on. He probably has autogynaephilia, something that used to be recognised as a mental health condition, and gets turned on by behaving this way. What have we come to?
“Apparently, he’d use … the same facilities.” <– Apparently some few lied about that, as others there swear it never happened.
Autogynephilia does not even exist, not any more than the refrigerator mom theory of autism is real.
“:What have we come to?” <– People like you uselessly wanting to force boys to have breasts and periods and to force girls to have beards and deep voices.
As well as wanting to win, and take the money and scholarships, he gets the boost to his flawed mental health by the validation of being on the women’s team, and so reinforces his delusions. He also gets to strip off in classic exhibitionist style, and be a voyeur on all those young women. Those hi-tec swimming costumes don’t slip on and off, it takes two people to get them on and this has to happen in the open space of the changing room. Perverts’ paradise.
His name is Will, and he will always be male. If his DNA were to be examined in 200 years, every scientist and medical doctor would know that he was a man. Mammals, and that’s what we are, cannot change their sex. The chromosomes determining that are in virtually every cell of our bodies. I am not caving to the current zeitgeist by calling him Lia.
No, her name literally is Lia, and she has never been male in the paramount physical criteria. Nothing you have said of it has any relevance to the matter.
Interesting that a man (who identifies as a man) is on the US artistic (used to be synchronized) swimming team that qualified for the Paris Olympics. Bill May made the team of 12 but did not make the cut to go to Paris, as only 8 swimmers plus 1 alternate could go.
At 45 years old, Bill May is the coach of an elite artistic swimming team and has competed as an athlete in the past in various tournaments. No previous Olympics have allowed men, but the Paris Olympics will. Men have no advantage, apparently, in the sport.
It seems other men are working their way up the ranks in the US and the world in artistic swimming, but none are near qualifying for the Olympics. Just Bill May is in that elite class.
I mention this because men and women can work out arrangements in sports competitions that are fair if all act in good faith. When people do not act in good faith, like “Lia” Thomas, real fairness disappears in abstract rules that bear no relation to reality.
Biology trumps ideology. Men are men and women are women. It’s that binary. What sex one wants to be, or pretends to be, can’t change that. Calling a spade a rake doesn’t make it a rake. A spade is still a spade, and we should call it that.
I don’t know a lot about artistic swimming, but a quick look on wikipedia says the medal winning teams from Tokyo were mostly in their mid-to-late 20s or early-30s. Which is of course consistent with athletic peak of most humans.
So the fact that a 45 year old man can almost make it to an elite artistic swimming squad is at least suggestive that there may still be a male athletic advantage in artistic swimming. Although with artistic sports its harder to calculate how that athletic advantage – if it exists – translates into scoring and results. Its easy to objectively measure who runs 100 metres the fastest. Its harder when scoring is based on things like precision of movements as interpreted by judges.
That’s a good point. Bill May did still make the team (though not the roster), and it’s unusual in the sport for someone that age to do so. Apparently, he used to be a top competitor in his 20s in the competitions that allowed men, but had retired to coach for a decade before attempting a comeback when some of the top competitions let men in.
On the other hand, the US team has recently not been that strong compared to other countries, not having even qualified for the Olympics in 2016 or 2020 (held in 2021). So maybe that says something.( Russia has dominated the competition in recent decades, having won the last six Olympics. But Russia will not win them this year in Paris due to the disqualification of its athletes because of the war in Ukraine.)
I also did some more research and found that synchronized swimming was initially dominated by men until women took it over in the early 1900s. Women made it into a cross between sport and art, and it was sometimes called water ballet. In one case the swimmers wowed by appearing in swimsuits that made them look almost naked. Popularity soared.
Men have been making a comeback in recent decades, but this year is the first that the Olympics have let them in. Only 2 members of the 8-member squad can compete. It doesn’t look like any men will make it in the team competition in Paris now that Bill May didn’t.
For a variety of reasons, the sport has avoided the transgender controversy even as biological men are allowed to compete (within limits). Maybe that’s because the sport is such that both men and women can compete together on a roughly even playing field (I guess a pool can be a playing field). But I also hope it shows that good faith and a feel for fairness can be more effective than angry litigation.
Its an interesting question.
A quick Google suggests the main athletic attributes for being good at artistic swimming are strength, stamina and flexibility. Almost inevtiably men outperform women in any sport requiring strength and stamina (with a slight caveat around ultra-long distance running events where there is some evidence the performance advantage may equalise or even reverse.)
However, judging artistic swimming relies heavily on artistic impression, which is a subjective form of evaluation. So in terms of actual scoring, its an open question how much mean’s athletic advantages actually count.
Laurel Hubbard, another trans identified man, competed at the 2020 Olympics in weightlifting and was 43 at the time. The fact that he got to the Olympics, having beaten women in international competition to get there, while probably being nearly twice as old as some of the female competitors, says everything you need to know about the unfairness of permitting trans women to participate in women’s sport. It’s also frustrating, that in his quest to win, he pushed women out of qualifying for the Olympics and denied them a chance to compete.
Laurel Hubbard competed in the Olympics alone, she was the only NZ in her category athlete wanting to go . . .
Do you ever bother learning anything before you express an opinion?
Indeed. Its a particularly interesting case because trans activists think it proves their point, but in fact it proves the opposite.
Trans activists like to point to the fact that Hubbard bombed out with 3 no lifts in Tokyo as supposedly evidence that men who identify as women have no athletic advantage and aren’t going to dominate women’s sport “so what’s the problem?” But of course the fact that Hubbard got to the Olympics at all is the problem.
A man who is not remotely good enough to make it to the Olympics in his correct male category transitions to being a women and becomes an Olympic standard athlete. This is only possible because men have an athletic performance advantage over women and that is retained after transitioning. In weightlifting this advantage is especially pronounced – around 30% – because upper body strength is one of the biggest areas of advantage.
The fact that Hubbard didn’t win in Tokyo is, of course, a red herring. He did relegate aspiring women competitors in the Oceania region qualifying competition – qualification for Olympic weightlifting being decided regionally, not by each nation individually – and he has won medals in other competitions. Its the same with Lia Thomas – from 400th-odd best male college swimmer to one of the very best in female competition. This didn’t happen by some special trans magic, it happened because he is male and benefits from athletic advantages over women.
Competitive sport is competitive – the clue is in the title. So in sex-affected sports a woman is always losing out or being relegated somewhere if men are allowed into their category. That might be a medal, a podium spot, a prize, selection for a team, a place in a race, or simply the satisfaction of knowing she went up against her peers in a fair contest and achieved her best.
And of course, there is a growing body of of evidence of men identifying themselves into women’s sports from around the world at all levels and winning medals and rewards. This is only going to get worse.
There are literally thousands of men in the world who can post 100 metres times faster than the Women’s world record of 10.49s. Not just all elite men sprinters but plenty of very good runners at the level below in competitions like NCAA. Plus teenagers and veterans. There are 15 year old boys and over 35s who can run faster than 10.49s. Not to mention fast athletes who gave up on sprinting in favour of other sports.
The NFL wide receiver DK Metcalf ran in a competitive 100 metres a couple of years ago, just to see how he measured up. He had done no special training on starts and sprint stages and his body is top heavy because of the amount of muscle he needs for the NFL. He basically pitched up and ran. He finished last in the race but still posted 10.37s. A full 10th of a second faster than the women’s world record.
Human nature is what it is. If you tell men that they can identify into women’s sports and feel the heady rush of success, then some of them are going to do so.
I was there at the artistic swimming heats in the 2012 Olympics in London. It requires enormous amounts of strength and stamina. Hanging upside down underwater for two minutes at a time, sometimes keeping almost still by tiny movements of the fingers, is pretty well impossible. (We got the tickets by random draw and I would not have been interested till I saw these superb athletes close up.) So men with their larger cardiovascular development and bigger lungs have a built-in advantage. They may be less skilled at the balletic side of course, but male ballet dancers can get past that block too.
That’s interesting, thanks.
Maybe it is a bit like figure skating? Men have more power so can launch into higher jumps with more turns. While women have greater flexibility for the various splits and stuff. Two different aspects of the sport which come together.
‘That a mediocre male swimmer believes he can challenge the World Aquatics standing rule, when he is free to compete in the open category, is evidence of how far gender ideology has warped our collective thinking.’
Very well put!
You approve of it being insanely put. Lia Thomas is not male. Her gender developed female while in the womb, the same as Sey’s presumably did.. While the original definition of intersex only meant visibly intersex, Lia Thomas literally has both male and female patterns of development to her anatomy since birth evenif they are not externally visible. No more than 2 years of HRT destroys all masculine advantage, women’s categories are where she should compete, the same as cisgender female Caster Semenya should compete in women’s categories if she lowers her testosterone to cisgender levels.
What a load of tosh!
Then prove it.
Should have let him compete. Then the normies might see the ridiculousness of the whole trans thing.
You would hope so but the evidence to date is that the trans ideologues would view Thomas competing as “stunning and brave”, the ideologically captured would go along with it because not doing so would be to admit their fault, and most of the normies will ignore it because they don’t want to be shouted at.
They didn’t pay any attention when New Zealand fielded that Hubbard bloke as part of their women’s weight lifting squad for the 2020 Olympics. He made even less effort than young Will does to like like a woman but the vasr najority of normies stayed silent.
“Thomas challenged the current rule.[…] CAS said no.”
WHEN are these people going to read the actual facts. The CAS didn’t say ‘no’ to Thomas’ challenge of the rules; they said “No, you don’t have the standing to challenge the rules.”
Big difference.
If someone ‘identifies’ as a horse should they be allowed to run in the Kentucky Derby? Why not? Not because they will lose because real horses run so much faster, but because it is an absurd assault on reality. Likewise, men should not be allowed to compete in women’s sports and women should not be allowed to compete in men’s sports (although few seem to want to) because in reality men and women are biologically different on variables that are central to athletic activities.
Note that men and women have always completed together in the Olympic shooting sports (rifle, pistol, shotgun) because their biological differences do not matter to that competition. But the differences between men and women do matter to most other athletic contests.
Sex is a biological reality that is not changed by surgery or medication. ‘Identification’ is an idea, nothing more. People are free to think what they please (at least in Western cultures) and regardless of their thoughts they should have the same legal rights as everyone else and they should be accorded the same respect that all human beings deserve. However, embracing an idea that is contrary to reality is, by definition, a delusion. A delusion is a symptom of a serious mental disorder (e.g, schizophrenia). In this case, that disorder it is known as Gender Dysphoria. While a person may or may not choose to recognize that they have a mental disorder and, as long as they pose no threat to others, they should be free to choose whether they pursue treatment for that condition. As long as they are an adult, do not hurt anyone else, and pay the cost themselves they should even be allowed to mutilate and drug themselves if they wish. But they should not be allowed to force the rest of the world to conform to their delusions. This includes dictating the speech of others (e.g., preferred pronouns) or forcing others to compete with them in the athletic arena. That is not ‘justice’ (social or actual), it is not requesting to be treated with dignity, it is not avoiding violence or the ‘denial of identity’. To force others to conform to your delusion is authoritarianism. Nothing more. And to insist otherwise is a breathtaking violation of simple logic.
Precisely so.
The battle for women’s sports is far from over. I’m surprised Sey doesn’t mention the Biden administration’s proposed rewrite of Title 9, which has been the law for 50 years. It requires equality in women’s sports at the high school and college levels. The proposal would reinterpret the word “sex” to mean “gender identity” and “sex characteristics,” whatever that means, opening up sports to more delusional individuals like Thomas. It must be stopped.
Unfortunately the meaning of sex discrimination under Title IX has already been amended to include gender identity. It required only a change to the regulations of the Department of Education.
So we are now in the topsy-turvy world where the very legislation which was introduced to protect and promote women’s rights to fair and equal sport now entitles men to take them over if they say they are women.
Thomas’ victories were a tradegy for the women he beat. I simply cannot understand how people cannot see the universal truth of this article. NCAA policy only tracks testosterone levels, largely irrelevant in an athlete who fully developed physically as a male before becoming trans. Sadly, we are also seeing high school girls cheated out of their medals by boys as well. Perhaps the cheating will inspire universal change that will protect female athletes of all ages.
It’s reassuring that sports bodies are seeking, belatedly, to protect the women’s category in elite sport. However, am I being cynical to think that these steps are being taken because elite competition takes place in full view of the public who’d see the unfairness of men being permitted to compete in women’s sports? That the public would wonder what madness had taken hold of the people at the top?
I am also concerned that these sports bodies seem to be ignoring introducing protections at the grass roots level because this is where elite women learn their craft. There are always concerns being raised about girls and young women dropping out of sport. Being expected to compete against boys and youg men going through puberty and having all the benefits that testosterone brings won’t help. Indeed, it’s not just boys and young men who are cause for concern. There were reports in the Telegraph of a middle-aged man being allowed to compete against 12 year old girls in cricket matches by the English Cricket Board. Needless to say, he was responsible for injuring an umpire and a couple of players. Is this the way to encourage girls to particpate when they’re adult? (And, incidentally, am I the only person who’s wondering what on earth is going on in that man’s head that he thinks he’s a pre-pubescent girl?)
Let’s face why this is even an issue politically. After SCOTUS settled the “ gay marriage question panic set it among the left who for years reaped donations to get there. Overnight , transgenders were played as the next movement to create victims to keep those dollars and votes coming. Prior to the ruling this minute population got little play. It’s all about keeping the community’s wallets open to the point of shunning feminists speaking up for woman’s sports.
For men who claim they are female the first test should be are they chemically castrated, forget about testosterone levels being chemically castrated they will automatically meet low testosterone levels. Why this has never been a requirement puzzles me, it should be the main requirement. If it was a lot of male females would disappear. These people are males who dislike females and use competing as female as a payback. See cycling where there are many instances in competition races of trans pushing females off their bikes and laughing as they ride away.