University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas became the first male athlete to win a Division I national championship in a women’s sport by self-declaring his gender identity.
Lia Thomas, a biological male, overtook his female competitors on Thursday to decisively place first in the 500-yard freestyle at the NCAA women’s swimming and diving championships at Georgia Tech.
During the competition, the crowd cheered as each of the swimmers were introduced, but fans were noticeably quiet for both Thomas’ introduction and wins.
Women’s rights campaigners were in attendance, including Kellie-Jay Keen Minshull of Standing for Women. Author and activist Linda Blade, as well as Save Women’s Sports founder Beth Stelzer also made their voices heard, as Stelzer draped a banner with the organization’s slogan over the railing.
In a widely-shared video clip shared by National Review writer Madeline Kearns, Keen Minshull can be heard arguing with a detractor and emphasizing that Thomas is a man.
During a protest which took place outside the Georgia-Tech athletic center where the competition was being held, Keen Minshull told Fox News, “There’s a man, called Will Thomas, who’s changed his name to Lia Thomas, who is competing in women’s swimming.”
She added, “Women aren’t considered full humans. We can’t be – otherwise there wouldn’t be an opportunity for men to compete in women’s sports.”
Netizens on social media were quick to point out that had Thomas not competed, the NCAA championship winners would have been Emma Weyant in first, Erica Sullivan in second, and Brooke Forde in third. All three women represented the United States in the 2020 Olympics.
When Lia Thomas was announced as the first place recipient, the crowd was again quiet.
Weyant, Sullivan, and Forde gathered together on the podium for a cheerful embrace in a photograph that has been shared widely across social media.
On Social media, several prominent female athletes voiced their opposition to Thomas’ participation in the women’s division.
Three-time Olympic swimmer Sharron Davies tweeted, “How in 2022 are we going backwards so fast in women’s rights?” She also condemned those who were not yet speaking out. Davies has expressed her views regarding the significance of biological sex in sport on several occasions prior.
Two-time Olympic runner Mara Yamauchi incredulously pointed out that Thomas had outpaced Olympic silver-medalist Emma Weyant, calling Thomas an “average male who couldn’t even make it into the top 500 student rankings.”
But competing in the Ivy League Championships in February, Thomas broke a total of six women’s records, and had in the past been accused, by an anonymous teammate, of deliberately losing a race in order to downplay his physical advantage.
Four-time Olympic medalist Nancy Hogshead-Makar has spent years addressing the topic, and in a December editorial for Swimming World Magazine, she wrote: “Sport has been set up as binary with males and females, and sport needs to adapt by adding new events and classifications, rather than throwing out the meaning of the ‘girls’ and ‘women’s’ categories. Rather than trying to squeeze transgender athletes into one-of-two categories, male or female, sport needs to adapt.”
Renowned tennis champion and one of the first openly lesbian sportswomen, Martina Navratilova, entered the fray. In an interview with News Nation, she placed the blame on sporting regulatory bodies for refusing to set clear and fair rules, saying, “the rules are not correct,” and suggested an “open category” for athletes as an alternative to men competing in women’s sports.
Swimming World Magazine’s editor-in-chief John Lohn published an opinion piece in response to Thomas’ win titled, ‘NCAA Title For Lia Thomas Is Joke With Biological Women As Punchline; Hardly a Laughing Matter.’
“Between petitions organized by Champion Women and the Women’s Sports Policy Working Group, more than 5,000 signatures were obtained, including almost 300 from Olympians or Olympic coaches,” noted Lohn, who then continued, “Maybe the NCAA Champs should have been delayed until April 1. After all, the Lia Thomas situation, spurred by the NCAA, has long been a joke – although not a laughing matter.”
On February 1, USA Swimming released new guidelines stating that male athletes could only compete in women’s events if they had undergone 3 consecutive years of testosterone-reduction treatment. The rule would have meant that Thomas could not compete, but 10 days later the NCAA walked down their regulations, announcing that they would only require one year of testosterone-reduction, arguing that it was unfair to change their rules mid-season.
“Implementing additional changes at this time could have unfair and potentially detrimental impacts on schools and student-athletes intending to compete in 2022 NCAA women’s swimming championships,” the organization said in a statement.
“It means the world to be here,” Thomas said in an interview with Elizabeth Beisel after the race. When questioned about the public criticism Thomas has received for competing against female athletes, he stated, “I try to ignore it as much as I can. I try to focus on my swimming, what I need to do to get ready for my races. And just try to block out everything else.”
One of Thomas’ teammates recently came forward to complain about being exposed to his genitalia in the locker room, telling The Daily Mail, “It’s definitely awkward because Lia still has male body parts and is still attracted to women,” and explaining that Thomas did not cover himself when undressed in front of the women.
“We were basically told that we could not ostracize Lia by not having her in the locker room and that there’s nothing we can do about it, that we basically have to roll over and accept it, or we cannot use our own locker room,” the anonymous teammate said.
“It’s really upsetting because Lia doesn’t seem to care how it makes anyone else feel,” the swimmer continued. “The school was so focused on making sure Lia was okay, and doing everything they possibly could do for her, that they didn’t even think about the rest of us.”
One woman who swims for Virginia Tech told Savannah Hernandez that one of her teammates began crying after she was bumped out of the finals in order to accommodate Thomas.
“It’s heartbreaking to see someone who went through puberty as a male, and has the body of a male, be able to absolutely blow away the competition. You go into it with the mindset that you don’t have a chance.”
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