HIS human rights??
Lia Thomas, the swimmer who became the first transgender winner of an American collegiate title, has had
hercase against new World Aquatics rules dismissed by the Court Of Arbitration of Sport.World Aquatics banned transgender swimmers from the elite female category if they had undergone any part of male puberty following Thomas’s NCAA win in 2022, an intervention which ended Thomas’s hopes of ever competing in women’s swimming events at the Olympics.
As is only right.
Thomas responded by lodging a legal challenge with Cas in September of last year, arguing that the rules were “invalid and unlawful” because they were discriminatory and contrary to the Olympic Charter and European Convention of Human Rights. Cas, however, has dismissed the case after concluding that the rules applied only to World Aquatics elite events or world records, and otherwise had “no impact” on athletes.
Let’s hope this is the last we ever hear from that horrible man.
Could be that he’s thumbing through the Bible at this very moment, looking for a passage that can be interpreted as saying that people are the sex they say they are. Worth a go, I suppose; when all else fails.
You can at least say he’s probably the individual who has done the most to advance the anti-trans movement’s cause, so he’s got that going for him.
I have nothing to say. Just about five million thumbs up. (Yes, my home is difficult to navigate.)
What about Rhys McKinnon (later “Rachel McKinnon”, later still “Veronica Ivy”)?
There are lots of candidates. I always say “one of the ___” when making that sort of claim. Safer.
He could just use one of the many Bible codes; you can find almost everything in the bible if you’re willing to cross out enough words to do that.
Good news, though with a slight caveat that the case appears to have been dismissed based on the ‘wrong’ technicality. That is that Lia Williams does not qualify as an elite international athlete rather than does not qualify as a biological woman.
Still a win’s a win.
Plus there’s a certain cosmic justice to the fact that he doesn’t qualify as an elite international athlete, because of course he isn’t and never has been an elite athlete. He won by cheating, not by being an elite athlete.
Sigh. When will they get it right? No, male swimmers were banned from the female division. Trans women are barred because they are male. By contrast, there’s nothing wrong with trans men competing in the female division, because they’re female. (Up until they take testosterone, anyway.) It’s the maleness, not the I-want-people-to-pretend-I-am-the-other-sex-ness.
I really wish this caveat had not been granted. On the one hand, it may be taken as tacit encouragement for the practice of taking puberty suppressors early in life, to the detriment of a great many children; for another, it misses the point of the male ban entirely. All male competitors are barred from entering a female division in sport, specifically because they are male, even if the specific individual is not a threat to win. Weak men are barred from women’s powerlifting, slow men are barred from women’s sprints, unfit males are barred from female marathons, and so on.
The reasoning is the same as is used in other divisions, such as age divisions. If there is a 50+ division, everyone too young is barred even if they are a couch potato guaranteed to come last in 50s and over run. If there is a 17 and under run, those aged 18 and older are barred from entering even if they are unfit. Hell, even if they are paralysed.
This is because the ban is not based on an individual’s threat to take a podium spot, it is based on the statistical association of athleticism with the male sex as an aggregate. The entire sex has its thumb on the scales so to speak; cheating remains cheating even when the cheater fails to win.
@Athel Cornish-Bowden #4:
McKinnon is big in the Terf world rogues gallery, but even my mom knows who Lia Thomas is. Name recognition counts for a lot when building a proper villain.