Lia Thomas: Inclusion or Intrusion?

I think Katie Ledecky should go ahead and state her views. Regarded by many people as the finest female swimmer of all time (she currently holds numerous world records and won seven gold medals and three silver medals at the London, Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo Olympics), some of her marks may soon be challenged by a person with X and Y chromosomes and a prostate gland. This person, born male in Austin, Texas in 1999, suffers from what doctors call gender dysphoria. He began a process 2½ years ago of becoming a so-called woman, taking testosterone-suppression drugs to render him less male and estrogen to render him more female. Somewhere along the way, Will Thomas turned into Lia Thomas. Whether he remains “intact,” I don’t even want to know.

This would be of minimal import except for one matter. He (although truly sympathetic to young Mr. Thomas, I refuse to employ female pronouns) swam for three seasons on the men’s team at the University of Pennsylvania. His final season of eligibility, he determined, would be on the distaff side. As it goes on, American college swimming is embroiled in discord.

Thomas was a competent male swimmer as a freshman, sophomore and junior, finishing second in some freestyle races. Permit me to offer some context: Ivy League swimming is, not to put too fine a point on it, far below the best. The top swimmers can be found at schools like Texas, Stanford, California, Indiana, Emory and Florida.

Since making his “transition,” how has Thomas done? The first opportunity came in a three-way meet with Cornell and Princeton on November 20, 2021 in which the strapping 6′ 3″ man set school and conference records. He drew more attention after his performance at the Zippy Invitational in Akron between December 3 and 5. Thomas won the 200 meters in a time of 1:41:93 (17th fastest ever and not far behind Missy Franklin’s U.S. record) and the 500 meters (4:34:06, exactly 10 seconds behind Ledecky’s U.S. record). His 15:59:71 in the 1,650 meters was a whopping 38 seconds ahead of the second-place swimmer, teammate Anna Sofia Kalandadze. A swimmer with those marks at the 2020 NCAA Championships would have won two silvers and a bronze.

Thomas’s advocates, and they are many, point out that his times are slower than when he was on the Penn men’s team—proof that the estrogen and testosterone blockers are having their effect. A minimal effect, I say, given that he lived 20 years as a male and retains the advantages of narrow hips, broad shoulders, a big heart, more lung capacity and so on. I would also venture to suggest that he does not have to try very hard to win races now since the competition is weaker. He can coast and still win. Indeed, some of those same trans advocates were hoping he would do well but not too well. Their agenda and his is to say there nothing at all improper about him changing his gender identity and going out to kick the asses of real female swimmers. I would love to know how Kalandadze and the other girls at Akron felt about swimming against Thomas.

To hear the Penn administration and sports information department tell it, all is well in Philly. Everybody is “progressive” and happy to have Thomas on the team. They call him “Lia” and cheer heartily.

Don’t believe it. Some of Thomas’s teammates grumble and give weepy off-the-record interviews stating their displeasure. The demonstrations of support are a sham, they reveal. One young woman, obviously, lost her place on the team to make way for Thomas. They—and swimmers from other schools—know they are shooting for second place when he is in the water. A boycott or some other form of protest was discussed, but it came to nothing due to their fear of retaliation.

Several parents of Thomas’s teammates petitioned the university, stating emphatically that their daughters were being robbed. The response was milquetoast palaver about “inclusivity,” “a welcoming environment” and protection of Thomas’s civil rights; they sure did not want him to suffer a microaggression. Female student-athletes upset about it were urged to visit the campus mental health center! Mike Schnur, who has been the Quakers’ head coach for 17 years, is gung-ho in support of Thomas’s presence on the women’s team and his showing thus far.

Thomas has already qualified in two events for the national championships in Atlanta in March, and I fully expect him to compete at the U.S. Olympic trials in 2024 (those Games are set for Paris). He offers the vaguest acknowledgement of the controversy he has created. Yes, he has met all the NCAA protocols for a transgender athlete, but are those sufficient? He insists they are. “Being trans has not affected my ability to do this sport, and being able to continue is very rewarding,” he said. “Now I am swimming as my authentic self.”

We are living in a credulous age in which eyes are willfully kept shut and much is left unspoken. I find it ironic that Title IX, which women fought so hard to implement and strengthen, is now being used against them. Project forward a decade or so and consider what the landscape for women’s sports may be—more and more of these pseudo-females competing against and walloping the real ones. I refer not just to the Kalandadzes but to the Ledeckys and the Franklins. In fact, Thomas is not the first man (oops, “transgender woman”) to enter women’s collegiate swimming. It has also happened at Oberlin and Southern Illinois. In a recent three-way meet between Penn, Yale and Dartmouth, Thomas suffered a rare defeat—to a person calling herself Iszac Henig. Henig is in the middle of a female-to-male transition, having loaded up on testosterone and undergone “top surgery.”

This is madness, and it is only getting worse. The International Olympic Committee recently revised its guidelines to say that no presumption should be made that trans women have advantages over real women. Its current rule about estrogen and testosterone blockers may be eliminated altogether, such that a man need only call himself female and he’s good to go.

One person unafraid of the vituperation of the BGTQL community is Cynthia Millen, an official with USA Swimming for 30 years. She has resigned in protest, saying she would not allow Thomas to compete in a meet in which she officiated. “If Lia came on my deck as a referee, I would pull the coach aside and say, ‘Lia can swim, but Lia can only swim an exhibition or a time trial. Lia cannot compete against those women because that’s not fair,’” Millen said in an interview later. “I don’t mean to be critical of Lia. Whatever’s going on, Lia’s a child of God, a precious person. But bodies swim against bodies. That’s a male body swimming against females. And that male body can never change. That male body will always be a male body.”

I have a friend with two granddaughters, both of whom are excellent track and cross-country runners. They are soon to enter college, and you can be assured they (and their grandmom) are watching this issue closely. The integrity of women’s athletics is at stake.

#liathomas #transgender #womensathletics #collegeswimming #universityofpennsylvania #ivyleague #KatieLedecky

Anna Sofia Kalandadze, who finished 38 seconds behind Thomas in Akron race.