Transgender swimmer Lia Thomas will not take advantage of a female athlete’s opportunity at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.
Thomas, the biological male who won a women’s national championship in 2022 while swimming for Penn, has officially lost a legal battle against World Aquatics in which Thomas argued that his ban on competing against women was “invalid and unlawful.”
The 25-year-old was banned from swimming in the women’s category in the summer of 2022 when the sport’s governing body banned anyone who had undergone “any part of male puberty” from competing against biological females.
World Aquatics welcomed the court’s decision to uphold the rule keeping Thomas out of the women’s pool, calling it “a major step forward in our efforts to protect women’s sports.”
“World Aquatics is dedicated to fostering an environment that promotes equity, respect, and equal opportunity for athletes of all genders, and we reaffirm this promise,” the organization said, according to The Guardian .
It’s worth noting that World Aquatics has not banned transgender athletes from competition. The organization has introduced an “open” category for transgender swimmers. The new category debuted during last year’s World Cup in Berlin, but the category didn’t receive a single entry.
