Transgender University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas caused quite the uproar this past weekend in winning the 500-yard freestyle NCAA female swimming championship. Lia is the first openly transgender athlete ever to win an individual NCAA championship in a sport. Silent through all of this controversy have been members of the U.S. Olympic swimming team, particularly the female swimmers. Their refusal to speak up has left many angered and frustrated, including one of Lia’s teammates at the University of Pennsylvania.
In an interview conducted earlier in the year, before the NCAA and the Ivy League swimming championships, a female Penn swimmer spoke on the condition of anonymity, saying she was disappointed that no female Olympian cared enough to defend women’s sports.
“It makes me mad that Olympians, people who are established and don’t have much to lose, aren’t speaking out,” the swimmer told me. “They have world records to lose. How are you not speaking out? How are they just going to let this happen? How can you think that this is OK?”
We discussed several Olympians, two of whom came close to losing records to Lia during the Zippy Invite swim meet earlier this season: Katie Ledecky and Missy Franklin. I asked if both of them should publicly speak out about Lia Thomas. “Yes, they absolutely should,” the Penn swimmer replied.
The swimmer also detailed how Lia’s spot on the team prevented other females from being able to compete.
“When we travel, we are allowed to travel with 26. But our championship team is 18. So, there are 36 girls competing for those 18 spots, and Lia takes a spot,” the Penn swimmer said. “So, a girl that is of Ivy League championship caliber will not get to go because of Lia.”
This is similar to what prevented Virginia Tech swimmer Reka Gyorgy from advancing to the 500-yard freestyle championships. Gyorgy wrote a letter and posted it to her Facebook on Sunday, urging the NCAA to change its policies on transgender athletes.
Lia Thomas was born and lived as a male for nearly two decades. Lia Thomas swam on the men’s swim team for three years before deciding he wanted to be a woman. Competing against women after undergoing puberty as a male is unfair to women and should not be permitted.
The time has come for U.S. Olympians to come to the defense of collegiate women. They must publicly state that no man should be allowed to compete in a sport with women. Otherwise, we are witnessing the beginning of the end of women’s sports. Men and women are in separate divisions to ensure fair competition among athletes. If Olympic athletes aren’t brave enough to admit this, their silence should be considered compliance. Women’s sports should be reserved for those who were born women and lived their entire lives as women. This should not be a controversial statement.
