Lia Thomas: Trans swimmer didn't have unfair advantage, data shows I was just happy to be here and race and compete the best I could., 'Lia did everything right': Trans swimmer Lia Thomas winning NCAA title should spark legitimate debate, not hate | Opinion, 'I'm not a man': Transgender swimmer Lia Thomas says she belongs on the women's team, is eyeing 2024 Olympics. They simply argue inclusion is more important than a level playing field, according to the New York Timess write-up of the race. We have trained up to 20 hours a week, swimming miles, running and lifting weights. She won the womens 500-yard freestyle in Atlanta. level, and she supports Thomass participation in collegiate swimming, she told me, given that Thomas has undergone two years of testosterone suppression. Still, a number of observers remained troubled by the idea of a traditionally white, patriarchal institution defining, and policing, the supposed boundaries of womanhood. She read the personal stories of trans women online, and was paired with a trans mentor through a group at Penn. Trans swimmer Lia Thomas wins women's 500-yard NCAA title - New York Post Harpers study suggested that women who had undergone hormone-replacement therapy appeared to have no significant advantage over cisgender long-distance runners. Im not saying testosterone is the only thing that matters, Harper said. Fact Check-Memes claiming transgender women Rachel Levine and Lia "It was electric," Henig said to ESPN. Most of us started the same time Lia did, as pre-teens. Sign up for our daily newsletter to receive the best stories from The New Yorker. Lia Thomas, the transgender swimmer at the University of Pennsylvania, won the NCAA championships in the 500-yard race on Thursday. How do youI mean, it makes me, like, it makes me so emotional, even just thinking about it. He added, There was a person on my team at the beginning of my experience who did not want me there. Lia Thomas Says She Didn't Transition to Gain Competitive Advantage The issue of transgender women competing in college swimming contests is dividing the sporting world, with some pundits saying transgender athletes competing against cisgender women is unfair and damaging competitiveness in the sport due to "biological advantages." Joanna Harper was at the meeting when it happened; she disagreed with the decision, and found the process dispiriting. By accepting all cookies, you agree to our use of cookies to deliver and maintain our services and site, improve the quality of Reddit, personalize Reddit content and advertising, and measure the effectiveness of advertising. Trans athletes are speaking out against bills to ban them from sports. Valuing inclusion and non-discrimination, first and foremostI think thats really whats important, Schuyler Bailar, who became the first openly trans swimmer to compete in N.C.A.A.s Division 1, told me. Trans women who completed one year of hormone therapy could compete in the category of their gender identity, provided their testosterone levels remained below a certain threshold, which was set above the usual range for cisgender women but below the average for cisgender men. To a lawyer, precedent is everything. Thomas set no pool, meet or American records during the meet. Thomas swam on the Penn men's swimming team for three seasons before joining the women's team after a gap year when the Ivy League canceled the 2020-21 season for all sports because of the COVID . Login Register. The best insights from the ultimate insiders, 2023 NYP Holdings, Inc. All Rights Reserved, Maybelline under fire again for using bearded model in lipstick ad after Dylan Mulvaney flap, Michigan hair salon refuses transgender customers, says to seek services at local pet groomer, Fed-up parent slams dysfunctional Browning School, claims hes being bilked for $60K after spending $1.5M in tuition, Senate Dems remove Pentagons ban on covering child gender transitions from Defense bill, Thomas finished first in her 100-yard race in 50.55 seconds. Rutschman has cooled off in June, but he's still leading the AL in walks while slashing .269/.380/.416 with 10 homers in 74 games. We fully support Lia Thomas in her decision to affirm her gender identity and to transition from a man to a woman. Championships, which began on Wednesday, but to hear some people, the broken records are a foregone conclusion. After the five-hundred-yard freestyle, in which she set a pool record with a time of four minutes and 37.32 secondsmore than ten seconds behind Ledeckys N.C.A.A. If one believes that we should distinguish between lite and youth sports, where does the line fall? Hogshead-Makar has argued against laws that would ban transgender kids from all participation in sports, but her other positions, and the ways she talks about themshe insists on referring to biological genders, for instanceput her deeply at odds with those in favor of broader trans inclusion. She is also the first transgender athlete to win an NCAA D-I title, CNN reports. Part of what makes the "first" stories so compelling is the resilience, determination and love for the sport exhibited by these athletes and their motivation to break down barriers, despite the naysayers. Many are just too afraid to say it. This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. In sports involving jumping and pure strength, the gap is even greater. The tension ramping up to Thursday night was a mixture of anticipation, emotion from the protestors inside and outside the pool and uncertainty of how Thomas would perform. Mary Schwalm/AP How an Ivy League. Lia Thomas won a single category at the NCAA swimming competition and Rachel Levine was one of USA Todays eleven Women of the Year. That standard inevitably prompted criticism. The Supreme Court unanimously decided in Brown v. Board of Education that separate is not equal, and segregation violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. At stake here is the integrity of womens sports, the parents letter, which was also sent to Penn and the Ivy League, declared. The fastest time that year was from Katie Ladecky from Stanford University, who finished at 04:24.06, nearly 10 seconds faster than Thomas in the most recent season. Transgender swimmer Lia Thomas finishes 5th in NCAA women's 200-yard Cheryl Cooky is a professor at Purdue University and holds a joint-appointment in American studies and womens, gender and sexuality studies. Other competitors took the other titles. Is it ethical to require medical interventions of healthy people who wish to compete in womens sports? By denying trans kids that opportunity, especially because theyre in a vulnerable state when they come out, theyre trying to erase trans kids from existence., There are lite organizations that are working in a concerted way to be inclusiveeven, potentially, at the cost of competitive fairness. Lia's ranking amongst all-time fastest swims via USA Swimming [Source: 10] 4:33.24 would not have won in this meet for six out of the nine years prior. Thomas competed on Pennsylvanias mens team for three years before transitioning and moving to the womens team, setting multiple programme records. What happens next when it comes to policy for transgender athletes in collegiate sports is an open question. According to the NCAA, these assumptions are not well founded. She saw her own feelings reflected in their stories, she recently told Sports Illustrated. Some published photos of Thomas from before her transition and referred to her using the name she had gone by then. What she did was really hard and she handled it really well.". A view of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on June 5. A few weeks later, someof her teammates sent a letter to the school and Ivy League stating she should not be allowed to compete. Thanks for contacting us. required athletes to legally change their gender and undergo genital surgery, as if a mislabelled passport and the presence of a penis gave them a leg up on the competition. Lia Thomas was ranked #462 as a male and is now a Division I champion in women's swimming. Lia Thomas has been dominating the women's college swimming this season. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser. For anyone who cares about the advancement of sports, and women's sports in particular, her win should be celebrated. She came fifth in the 200 yard race, with 1m 43.40s, and eighth in the 100 yard race with 48.40s. On Thursday, he finished the 500-yard freestyle two seconds ahead of every other swimmer, two of whom were Olympians. Penn swimmer Lia Thomas is NCAA's first D-1 champion - Yahoo Sports Hogshead-Makar has suggested that, in some sports, trans women should occupy their own classification, apart from women, and proposed to me that Thomas be allowed to swim in a separately demarcated lane, next to the eight set aside for cisgender women, and have her own podium. They both finished their qualifying heats in second place. They were immediately supportive, she said, and they stood by her when she decided to join the womens team. But the tension on the Penn team grew more public. The NCAA was resistant to adopt USA Swimming's policy, which was among the most restrictive, requiring testosterone suppression for 36 months. This week, a man won a womens swimming championship title. The New Yorker may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. Every time theres a successful trans woman athlete, the sky will fall tomorrow and its the end of womens sports as we know it, she said. The NCAA has adopted a sport-by-sport approach for transgender athletes, bringing the organization in line with the U.S. and International Olympic Committees. Thomas's presence in women's college swimming competitions has ignited debate, and in previous races some people have even refused to clap her after she won, instead waiting for the runner up to finish before cheering. And that sent some minds spinning. And Harper knows that some people are going to stoke panic and fear no matter what. 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A Look At the Numbers and Times: No Denying Advantages of Lia Thomas Trans women are allowed to participate without any hormone therapy, as long as they have lived in that gender identity for two years, and trans men are allowed to participate, even after taking testosterone, provided they apply for and receive a therapeutic use exemption. It may also be that she is swimming faster relative to her competitors than before in part because she is in a better place nowno longer battling gender dysphoria, able to swim, as she put it, as her authentic self, comfortable pulling on a swimsuit and feeling her body for what it is, slipping through the water. The backlash was swift, leading to the then-president of the federation, Carlos Cordeiro, issuing a public apology. A U.S.A. If the N.C.A.A. first transgender woman to win an NCAA swimming competition, Trans swimmer Lia Thomas winning NCAA title should spark legitimate debate, not hate | Opinion, Transgender swimmer Lia Thomas says she belongs on the women's team, is eyeing 2024 Olympics, Sign up for our trending newsletter to get the latest news of the day, Your California Privacy Rights/Privacy Policy. In general, lite male athletes have considerable physical advantages over lite female athletes. Penn swimmer Lia Thomas finished eighth in the 100-yard freestyle final Saturday at the NCAA championships, wrapping up her collegiate career. Last September, the National Womens Hockey League dropped the word womens from its name and rebranded as the Premier Hockey Federation. There were more tears from teammates on the pool deck, but these ones were from joy. On January 19, the NCAA Board of Governors issued its new transgender policy, permitting USA Swimming to determine its own criteria for transgender participation; on Tuesday, USA Swimming released its newAthlete Inclusion, Competitive Equity and Eligibility Policy. Both swimmers wrote "Let trans kids play" on their arms for the race. Supreme Court reverses affirmative action, gutting race-conscious University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas became the first transgender athlete to win an NCAA Division I title after finishing first in the women's 500-yard freestyle event Thursday evening. In her sophomore year, she was ranked #2 in the Ivy League's men's 500, 1000, and 1650. Based on simple demographics, one would expect there to be a few thousand trans athletes in the N.C.A.A. What's everyone talking about? But the N.C.A.A. So I took the platform I was hoping to have to say that trans athletes are just like any other athlete. Penn swimmers protest Lia Thomas' eligibility - Yahoo Sports Who is harmed by restrictions, or by the lack of them? Her body, with its solid pectorals and compact, muscled hips, characteristic traits of a male athlete, didnt align with her sense of who she was, she later told the podcast SwimSwam, in one of the two interviews she has given this season. But the questions and the anxiety about how Thomas would perform on a national stage have been resolved. arguing that Thomas should not be allowed to compete in womens competitions. March 17, 2022. She has followed National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and Ivy League regulations since she began her transition in 2019 by starting hormone replacement therapy. If we are to change this, we need to ask some important questions. U.S.A. (Josh Reynolds/AP) Gift Article Sixteen members of the University of Pennsylvania women's swimming team sent a letter to school and Ivy League officials Thursday asking that they not take legal. The International Olympic Committee began allowing trans athletes to compete in 2004. The letter was leaked to the Daily Mail, and conservative outlets gleefully reported on rifts between Thomas and her teammates. She fell in national rankings once she started HRT in her junior year. Yet, Thomas has been at the center of controversy regarding her eligibility to compete in women's events. Others, though, pushed back against the I.O.C.s change of tone. Thomas has qualified to compete in March at the 2022 NCAA swimming and diving championships, where she is set to race in the womens 200-yard, 500-yard and 1,650-yard freestyle. She won the sixteen-hundred-and-fifty-yard freestyle by thirty-eight seconds. Brooke Forde, a Stanford swimmer who swam at the Tokyo Olympics and will compete against Thomas in the five-hundred-yard freestyle at the N.C.A.A. 0:00. To revisit this article, select My Account, thenView saved stories, To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. If Thomas had not physically transitioned, she would almost certainly have broken all those records that people seemed to think she was already breaking. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. 16 March 2022, 04:44am. (Her best five-hundred-yard time before her transition was about seven seconds faster than Ledeckys record.) championships, gave a statement to her father, the Sports Illustrated writer Pat Forde, which he read aloud on a sports podcast. There are always charges of racism in track and field.. Although she has said that she didn't want trans athletes excluded, Davis argued that it was unfair for cisgender women that Thomas was competing against them. I think that more can be accomplished with dialogue than with debate.). Thomas triumphed in a single category, so to claim she now dominates womens swimming is misleading. Opinion | Lia Thomas deserves the same praise that we give any other We have been told that if we spoke out against her inclusion into womens competitions, that we would be removed from the team or that we would never get a job offer. Lia Thomas Wins an N.C.A.A. Swimming Title chose not to clap But the opposition, or at least the uneasiness, concerning Thomass participation did not fall simply along partisan lines. Semenya ultimately refused to take medication that would reduce her hormone levels, describing her decision as a matter of human rights. It would have been nice to have seen a trans woman rugby player there, but I doubt it would have made any difference., Both Penn and the Ivy League signalled their support of Thomas. She looked for the race times of other competitive transgender female runners, and eventually was able to compare the times of eight women before and after transition. Lia Thomas becomes first trans woman to win NCAA swimming championship Patient-advocacy groups mobilized to demand access to a controversial new drug called Relyvrio. The situation for trans athletes was different: many trans people opt to undergo gender-affirming hormone-replacement therapy quite apart from any athletic considerations. She should be embraced in the history of progress that sports represent and recognized as the trailblazer that she is. LET'S TALK ABOUT LIA THOMAS | Schuyler Bailar | PINKMANTARAY The law when it comes to sports, she went on, is we allow sex segregation because of biology. She isnt listed under the records in the NCAA results summary, and ranks 6th among the top point scorers in swimming ( here ). Such questions matter because sports are organized based on the belief of natural differences between men and women, and they are sex-segregated as a result. Out of the pool, though, she was struggling. The focus on testosterone seemed, to many, straightforward: on average, men have testosterone levels around fifteen times that of women, and the competitive advantages of taking testosteroneat least exogenous testosterone, a steroidwere well established. IE 11 is not supported. However, sport is competitive by definition, and Lias wins, records, and honors should not come at our expense, the women who have worked their entire lives to earn a spot on the Penn Womens Swimming Team. Instead, they are rooted in societal and cultural definitions of what constitutes gender or what defines a woman.
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