Lia Thomas, the University of Pennsylvania swimmer who became the first transgender athlete to win an NCAA Division I national championship, said in a recent interview that male competitors do not “threaten women’s sports.”
“Trans women competing in women’s sports does not threaten women’s sports as a whole,” Thomas told ESPN and ABC News in an interview published Tuesday. “Trans women are a very small minority of all athletes. The NCAA rules regarding trans women competing in women’s sports have been around for 10-plus years. And we haven’t seen any massive wave of trans women dominating.”
Thomas ruffled feathers last season as the swimmer set pool, school, and Ivy League records. Thomas competed for three years on the men’s team and was ranked 462 as a male swimmer, but shot up to number one after being allowed to join the women’s team last season.
Thomas won the 500 freestyle at the NCAA swimming and diving championships in March, where the swimmer placed fifth in the 200 freestyle and eighth in the 100 freestyle.
Critics pointed out that Thomas had an unfair biological advantage from years of competing as a man.
“The biggest misconception, I think, is the reason I transitioned,” Thomas told ESPN in the newly published interview. “People will say, ‘Oh, she just transitioned so she would have an advantage, so she could win.’ I transitioned to be happy, to be true to myself.”
Thomas described beginning hormone therapy in May 2019 and assuming it would be career-ending.
Penn swim parents sent a December 5 letter to the NCAA asking Thomas be ruled ineligible for women’s competitions.
“At stake here is the integrity of women’s sports,” the parents wrote in the letter to Penn and the Ivy League. “The precedent being set—one in which women do not have a protected and equitable space to compete—is a direct threat to female athletes in every sport. What are the boundaries? How is this in line with the NCAA’s commitment to providing a fair environment for student-athletes?”
Thomas said that keeping transgender athletes from competing on teams that correspond with their gender identity is “othering.”
“If you say, like, you can compete, but you can’t score or you’re in an extra lane nine, that’s very othering towards trans people,” Thomas said. “And it is not offering them the same level of respect and opportunity to play and to compete.”
Thomas went on to argue that “trans women are women.”
“It’s no different than a cis woman taking a spot on a travel team or a scholarship. It’s a part of athletics, where people are competing against each other. It’s not taking away opportunities from cis women, really. Trans women are women, so it’s still a woman who is getting that scholarship or that opportunity.”
Before Thomas joined the women’s team, the NCAA required transgender women to undergo 12 months of hormone therapy to become eligible for competition in the women’s category. Thomas had undergone 30 months of hormone therapy upon beginning the season on the women’s team in November 2021.
The NCAA changed its policy in January to defer to the policies of the national governing bodies for each sport to determine eligibility.
USA Swimming announced a new policy one month later requiring biologically male athletes to undergo 36 months of testosterone suppression and an evaluation of eligibility by a three-person panel.
However, the NCAA did not enforce the policy for the 2022 swimming and diving championships. The NCAA enforced the previous policy and required transgender swimmers in the women’s field to have a testosterone level below 10 nanomoles per liter.