By Riley Overend on SwimSwam
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.
SwimSwam: Lia Thomas’ Legal Team Led By Former Canadian Champion Swimmer
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