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Josh Reynolds/Associated Press
Leah Thomas, a transgender swimmer at the University of Pennsylvania who won the 500-meter freestyle at the NCAA collegiate swim meet against Harvard University, speaks with her coach on January 22, 2022.
CNN
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According to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, transgender swimmer Leah Thomas was arrested after swimming’s governing body, World Aquatics, passed a resolution restricting transgender athletes from competing in elite women’s swimming competitions. has started legal proceedings against the group.
The athlete is challenging parts of World Aquatics’ gender inclusion policy, which came into effect on June 20, 2022, according to the International Tribunal.
Thomas’ legal focus is that male-to-female transgender athletes can only become girls if they change gender before the age of 12 or reach the second Tanner stage of puberty. It is to overturn the policy of being eligible to compete in a category.
“Ms. Thomas finds that fair competition is a legitimate sporting objective and that certain restrictions on transgender women in swimming are appropriate,” the court said in a Friday news release.
“However, Ms. Thomas believes that the challenge provision discriminates against her in violation of the Olympic Charter, the World Aquatics Constitution, the European Convention on Human Rights and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Violence, and is therefore invalid and illegal. “Discrimination against women,” the release states. “…and such discrimination cannot be justified as being necessary, reasonable or proportionate to achieving a legitimate sporting objective.”
World Aquatics oversees aquatic sports such as swimming, water polo, diving, artistic swimming, open water swimming, and high diving.
CNN has reached out to World Aquatics for comment.
The policy also states that athletes who have previously used testosterone as part of female-to-male gender-affirming hormone therapy are eligible to compete in women’s competition only if their use of testosterone was less than one year total. The treatment was ineffective. Occurs during puberty and serum testosterone levels return to pre-treatment levels.
At the time, the governing body committed to establishing a new working group to develop open category events for athletes who do not meet the criteria for the men’s or women’s categories.
In August, World Aquatics created an open category for transgender athletes for “all genders and gender identities” at the World Cup in Berlin in October.
Swimming’s international governing body said: “This first event focuses on gaining further experience and celebrating diversity for future development.”
CNN has reached out to Thomas for comment through his attorney.
When asked about Thomas’ lawsuit against World Swimming, Dan Diamond, director of policy and programs at Athletes Ally, an advocacy group working to end homophobia and transphobia in sports, told CNN on Friday: He said as follows. “World Swimming’s transgender policies are seriously harming transgender people” Women are particularly vulnerable in society and suffer high rates of violence, abuse and harassment in society and in sport. ”
“A ban is not a fair, appropriate or reasonable balance of rights,” Diamond said. “This is grossly disproportionate and has the effect of excluding virtually all trans women athletes from international swimming competitions.”
The court said no date has yet been set for a hearing on Thomas’ legal challenge.
The debate over transgender women in swimming that led to new gender inclusion policies and open categories began when Thomas, a University of Pennsylvania swimmer who was on the school’s men’s swim team in 2017, eventually joined Penn’s women’s team. It attracted attention when 2020.
At the time of the 2019 transition, the NCAA required transgender athletes to undergo a year of hormone replacement therapy before being allowed to compete.
In February 2022, 16 members of the University of Pennsylvania’s swim team send a letter to the university and the Ivy League saying they do not object to the NCAA’s new transgender athlete participation policy, which would prevent Thomas and other transgender athletes from competing. I asked.
In the letter, they argued that Thomas had an “unfair advantage” and said they supported her transition to be removed from the group, but not necessarily included. .
Despite the backlash, Penn Athletics and the Ivy League maintain their support for the transgender swimmer, with more than 300 current and former swimmers signing an open letter defending her ability to compete.
As a swimmer on the women’s team, Thomas won the women’s 500-yard freestyle in March 2022, becoming the first transgender athlete to win an NCAA Division I title.
Supporters of banning transgender women from women’s sports have argued that transgender women have a physical advantage over cisgender women in sports.
However, mainstream science does not support that conclusion. A 2017 report published in the Journal of Sports Medicine reviewed several related studies and found that there is “no direct or consistent evidence that transgender people have an athletic advantage over their cisgender peers.” Critics say the ban will further increase the discrimination faced by transgender people.
CNN’s Ben Church contributed to this report.
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