Yesterday, Karen wrote about transgender swimmer Lia Thomas having his demand to be allowed to compete in the Olympics in the female swimming events shot down by the Court of Arbitration for Sport. It was a loss that the Daily Mail described as a "fatal blow" to his hopes of securing an Olympic medal to add to his collection of other honors that he stole from female athletes. But Thomas is still making noise and sending ripples through the worlds of female sports and "social justice" activism. Particularly in Europe, but increasingly in the United States, more sports organizations are taking these common-sense steps to restore the integrity of women's competitive sports and the original intent of Title IX. Could we be seeing a return to sanity? I won't be getting my hopes up too high for the moment, but there have definitely been some encouraging signs. 

Transgender swimmer Lia Thomas' demand she be allowed to compete against women in the Olympics has been dealt a fatal blow after she lost a crucial lawsuit.

Thomas, 25, had asked the Court of Arbitration for Sport to overturn a ban on biological males competing against women in hopes of racing at the Games.

She first rose to prominence after becoming the first transgender athlete to win a NCAA college title in 2022 and has since been banned from competing against biological women in international events following a change in regulations.

World Aquatics attempted to split the baby by meeting the transgender lobby somewhere short of a full ban. They are still allowing men with a sufficiently low testosterone level to compete against women if they complete their "transition" by the age of 12. The decision from the Court of Arbitration for Sport was fairly basic and kept to that formula. Thomas didn't begin transitioning until well past that age and as such didn't qualify under the modified rules.

Yet, as Riley Gaines has correctly pointed out, that still doesn't address the problem entirely. The theory behind that rule is that if a boy halts his physical development before he completes puberty, he shouldn't have the same inherent advantages over women that men of Thomas' age do. First of all, they selected an arbitrary number as the maximum age. But normally developing boys typically begin puberty anywhere between the ages of 9 and 14. The average is 12, but under these rules, some boys could be three years into the process of puberty and by that point, all bets are off. There will be plenty of testosterone in their system and their growth spurt (significantly greater than the average girl experiences) will be well underway. 

Even if we ignore the maximum age issue, creating a policy such as this remains a terrible idea. What World Aquatics is doing is dangling a carrot in front of any potentially gender-confused children and creating an additional incentive to force themselves into the gender transition pipeline. That process entails rushing them onto puberty blockers and hormones at an even earlier stage of life while creating irreversible harm to their still-developing bodies. Once the child has gone that far, there is no way to fully go back. So what happens if they realize they've made a mistake in a year or two? They won't wind up being able to compete in women's sports but they will be stuck with the results of the medical procedures performed on them. It's the worst of both worlds.

If these sports organizations truly want to demonstrate leadership, they should be encouraging the parents of gender-confused children to take their kids to see a competent, professional mental health therapist for counseling. As the primary medical body in the UK discovered, the vast majority of children who exhibit symptoms of gender dysphoria also experience one or more other mental disorders. Those maladies can be treated on their own using talk therapy and, over time, the gender confusion issue will fade away on its own in most cases. The "solution" World Aquatics settled on will only lead to more children being steered down this path, not fewer. Lia Thomas is not helping matters by trying to portray himself as some sort of transgender "hero" for children to look up to. He has his NCAA medals to hang on his wall, but the show is over. It's time for him to pack up his tent and go home.