The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Switzerland this week rejected former NCAA swimmer Lia Thomas’ challenge to World Aquatics’ transgender-exclusionary competition rules, ruling that she did not have legal standing to bring her lawsuit.
Thomas filed her case in 2023, responding to a rules change by World Aquatics (WA) that barred trans women and intersex athletes who had undergone “male puberty” from competing in “female” swimming categories, instead forcing them into a new “open” category (which remained vacant during last year’s Swimming World Cup).
In her lawsuit, Thomas argued that WA’s rules were “invalid and unlawful,” and violated the Olympic Charter. But in their ruling this week, the panel of CAS judges did not rule on those claims, and instead dismissed Thomas’ complaint because she did not prove she was personally affected by the restrictions.
As the CAS ruling noted, Thomas was not registered with USA Swimming between her college graduation in 2022 and January 2024, and following her official registration earlier this year, she had not applied to compete in any “Elite Events” that would make her eligible to compete in a WA event. Although Thomas’ lawyers argued that WA’s rules changes precluded her from applying to swim in such events in the first place, the panel nevertheless found that Thomas did not have grounds to claim discrimination because she was not presently eligible to compete in “Elite Events.”
“In the Panel’s view, unless and until an athlete is registered for a WA Competition by a member federation,” WA’s policies “have no impact on that athlete, and they are simply not triggered,” the CAS panel ruled. Those requirements only come into effect “whenever an athlete is entitled to compete in a WA Competition,” the panel added — that is, upon registering for a competition or submitting a new world record. The ruling also opined that WA’s rules restricting intersex athletes’ participation were not facially discriminatory either.
In a statement shared via the trans sports advocacy group Athlete Ally, Thomas and her legal team at Tyr LLP — a firm that also represents track star and intersex woman Caster Semenya in her ongoing discrimination case at the European Court of Human Rights — called the CAS ruling “deeply disappointing.”
