It turns out that Carlos Sayao, the lawyer leading controversial NCAA champion Lia Thomas’ appeal of World Aquatics’ transgender ban, boasts an impressive swimming resume to go along with his legal expertise.
Sayao represented Canada at the 2002 Commonwealth Games in England, won the 400 IM (4:19.66) at the 2003 Canadian Trials, and went on to the 2003 World Championships in Spain. There, he placed 26th in prelims (4:26.27) behind eventual champion Michael Phelps (4:09.09).
Also in 2003, Sayao won the Big Ten title in the 400 IM (3:46.50) as a sophomore at the University of Michigan. He still holds Canadian Dolphin Swim Club 13-14 records in the SCM 400 freestyle (4:05.26), 800 free (8:36.42), 1650 free (16:17.51), 200 backstroke (2:08.64), 200 IM (2:13.01), and 400 IM (4:41.45).
Sayao is gay, but he said he wasn’t ready to come out during his competitive career due to homophobic slurs, jokes, and a “general flaunting of masculinity among fellow students,” he told Metro Morning in 2017.
“It takes a lot of courage to go out on a limb and do your own thing and feel comfortable enough doing that,” Sayao said. “For me, I just wasn’t quite ready at that point. Looking back on it now, I do wish things had been different.”
That missed opportunity to be a role model during his swimming career seems to have inspired Sayao to pursue a post-athletic career fighting for LGBTQ+ rights as an attorney. He represented two-time Olympic champion Caster Semenya in her appeal of World Athletics’ 2019 rules that require her to medically reduce her natural hormone levels in order to compete.
Last July, the European Court of Human Rights agreed that Semenya and other runners with disorders of sexual development (DSD) had been discriminated against, but the decision stopped short of reversing World Athletics’ testosterone regulations — leaving her on the outside looking in for the Paris 2024 Olympics. World Athletics tightened its criteria again last March, forcing athletes to lower their testosterone levels below a threshold of 2.5 nmol/L for at least two years before competing.
Sayao said the Semenya case is the latest in a long history of sex-testing female athletes who are considered “not woman enough.”
Sayao’s Canadian law firm, Tyr — no relation to the swimwear company of the same name — is reportedly taking Thomas’ case in front of Switzerland’s Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Thomas reportedly hired Canadian law firm Tyr — no relation to the swimwear company of the same name — to take her case in front of Switzerland’s Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). On Friday, CAS released a statement confirming that arbitration proceedings began last September. A hearing date has not been set yet. .
In 2022, World Aquatics (then FINA) voted to prevent transgender women who have gone through any part of the male puberty process from competing in elite women’s categories. Sayao argues that those rules are “discriminatory” and cause “profound harm to trans women.”
“Lia has now had the door closed to her in terms of her future ability to practice her sport and compete at the highest level,” Sayao said. “She’s bringing the case for herself and other trans women to ensure that any rules for trans women’s participation in sport are fair, appropriate, and grounded in human rights and science.”
A couple months after winning the 2022 NCAA title in the 500-yard freestyle, Thomas revealed that it has been a goal of hers for a long time to compete at the Olympics. The next month, World Aquatics (then FINA) voted to prevent transgender women from competing in elite women’s categories, instead creating a separate “open” category. However, that category has been a failure so far because there are not many trans swimmers out at the elite level.
Thomas first started transitioning back in 2019, but World Aquatics cited experts who said that suppressing testosterone was not enough to reverse biological advantages from puberty.
In 1968 the women had to take a chromosome test to prove they were female. Why not do it again?
Well, for one it was ineffective.
For two, it was incredibly harmful to women born with genetic anomalies like Turner Syndrome, or women with XY chromosomes but who were testosterone-resistant.
Now imagine the worst countries for human rights you can think of (I’m not going to name any specific ones) and how that would go over.
I mean, I can see on our social media how people comment on female athletes who they just don’t think look feminine enough, wear enough makeup, have alopecia, or are too good at sports. And that’s in the USA. Now imagine if it was exposed that one of these athletes had some chromosomal disorder that the general public is not educated enough… Read more »
I hope that this case helps draw a distinction between Semenya’s predicament and Thomas’s. Sayao should force an argument that requires making a distinction between the two. Semenaya belongs in the Olympics.
All three medalists at the Rio games in the womens track & field 800 have DSD (difference of sex development, specifically 46XY DSD) – Semanya, Niyonsaba, and Wambui. In other words, three biologically XY women with internal testes were the three fastest women in the world.
They have every right to run and be treated as the gender they identify with. But they should not be competing against XY women. We have an XX class for a reason – without it, biological women wouldn’t medal in any swimming or track event. Just like in this event.
transphobes of the swimming world really creep out of the woodwork whenever lia thomas does anything… grow up
The more freely you throw around the word ‘transphobe’, the more it loses its meaning. If you really want nobody to take you seriously, keep using it in situations where transphobia clearly isn’t the main issue.
please read these other comments & comments on any post regarding lia and tell me that transphobia isn’t the main issue
It isn’t.
The U.S. has Australia and the rest of the world after us going to Paris 2024. We do not need this distraction. Go away, Lia. You were never going to beat Ledecky, Grimes, Smith, etc., for a space on the team. You just want to propagate your agenda on the backs of these WOMEN. The U.S. Olympic swimming team is not the occasion for you to work out your psychosexual issues. That said, I wish you well in things beyond the pool.
The sense of entitlement is unreal!
A revelation to have the Olympics as a goal?! Many have that same goal that’s never realized for various reasons whether it’s not qualifying, getting injured, family tragedy, mental health issues, etc. Here’s a solution-Lia be allowed to swim against the biological women with a standard scientific formula adjustment built in to the trans swimmer’s time that accounts for having gone through puberty and accounts for the testosterone levels. If there is to be equity with the biological women who have fought long and hard for women’s equality in sports, someone should be able to create these parameters, otherwise it’s not a fair playing field.
I don’t understand why there would be a separate open category beside the male category. Males don’t need a protected category.
Like, yes, obviously if you make a category that is de facto appealing only to 0.1% of the population, you may have trouble filling it. It’s the same problem that parasport faces in some disability categories where there just are not that many viable competitors. But in this case the solution is obvious– just get rid of the redundant male category. We only need two.
lol have never thought of this, but then ironically, Lia actually has an advantage in the male category. If Lia is allowed to wear a women’s suit. Then what’s stopping Leon Marchand wearing a women’s Fastskin LZR pure intent, see what he does then to that 4 minute barrier.
Swim Swam every time the release a Lia Thomas article:
I was just thinking how nice it was the last one was off the front page.
Just when I think I’m out, they pull me back in…