Transgender Swimmer Lia Thomas Asks CAS To Overturn Race Ban Rules As Discrimination – News18

LAUSANNE, Switzerland: Transgender swimmer Lia Thomas has requested a Swiss sports activities court docket to overturn guidelines imposed by World Aquatics that cease her competing in elite girls’s races and she or he says are discrimination.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport stated on Friday it registered Thomas’ request however no date for a listening to was determined. Confidentiality round a case begun in September was lifted after it was reported in British media.

“Ms Thomas seeks an order from the CAS declaring that the (World Aquatics rules) are unlawful, invalid, and of no force and effect,” stated the court docket primarily based within the Olympic house metropolis of Lausanne, Switzerland.

World Aquatics agreed on guidelines in June 2022 that banned transgender girls who’ve been by male puberty from competing in girls’s races. It additionally created an “open” class for which transgender athletes can be eligible.

Other Olympic sports activities our bodies together with observe and subject and biking have since adopted comparable guidelines which supporters say acknowledge bodily benefits from male puberty that athletes retain long run after transitioning.

Swimming’s guidelines have been agreed months after Thomas, then a scholar on the University of Pennsylvania, received a nationwide faculty title within the 500-yard freestyle. Thomas’ ends in girls’s races exceeded her earlier ends in males’s races.

Though the NCAA championships have been held outdoors the World Aquatics system, Thomas stated she hoped someday to compete in U.S. Olympic trials.

“Ms Thomas accepts that fair competition is a legitimate sporting objective and that some regulation of transgender women in swimming is appropriate,” the Swiss court docket stated.

“However, Ms Thomas submits that the (rules) are invalid and unlawful as they discriminate against her,” CAS stated, citing “the Olympic Charter, the World Aquatics Constitution, and Swiss law including the European Convention on Human Rights and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.”

Thomas argued “such discrimination cannot be justified as necessary, reasonable, or proportionate to achieve a legitimate sporting objective,” the court docket stated.

CAS instances are usually heard by three judges — chosen every by the rival events and the court docket itself — who may but decline jurisdiction.

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AP Paris Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games

(This story has not been edited by News18 employees and is revealed from a syndicated information company feed – Associated Press)