The NCAA has altered its policy for transgender athletes, but the change does little and still does not address the central problem — the clear, demonstrable, and unfair advantage that men have over female athletes.
Much like the International Olympic Committee, the NCAA punted on its policy change. In fact, the NCAA simply copied the IOC’s homework, adopting the same sport-by-sport, case-by-case framework that dodges the central matter at hand. Instead of drawing a clear line and forcing men to compete against men and not women, the NCAA just made everything murkier and will inevitably use this to rubber-stamp most cases in which men seek to compete against women.
Lia Thomas, a man who previously swam for the University of Pennsylvania’s men’s team before joining the women’s team this year, is the catalyst for these “reforms,” and he is surely aware of it. But an allegation from an anonymous Penn swim teammate goes far beyond that. This swimmer told OutKick that she believes Thomas threw a recent race on purpose and coasted through a recent competition in order to make his competing against women seem less unfair.
According to this swimmer, Thomas is friends with Yale’s Iszac Henig, a biological woman who is “socially transitioning” into being a man but is not taking hormones. The anonymous swimmer alleges that Thomas threw the 100-meter freestyle race and mailed it in for other races in order to flip the script on his blowout wins against female competitors.
Thomas’s times were certainly below his best. He finished the 100-meter race three seconds slower than he had in November. He won the 200-meter freestyle race by just two seconds, finishing seven seconds below his best time. In the 500-meter freestyle, he finished 20 seconds off of his best time.
It could have just been a bad day, but the swimmer alleges it was clear that Thomas was coasting rather than struggling. And Thomas is no doubt self-aware, boasting about being the “Jackie Robinson” of transgender athletes, according to a Washington Examiner exclusive interview with a teammate.
Either way, Thomas’s biological advantages have already been put on full display. The NCAA knows this and should have made it clear that men should only be competing against men in all sports, no exceptions. Whether the NCAA is scared of the wrath of transgender activists or believes in the same anti-science worldview as they do, this is a failure that will resonate throughout women’s sports, far beyond Ivy League swim teams.
