Lia Thomas Swimming Controversy

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About

Lia Thomas Swimming Controversy refers to a transgender woman named Lia Thomas who competed for the University of Pennsylvania in the 2022 women's NCAA swimming championship. She won first place in March 2022 despite controversy over her being biologically male. The event became a viral discussion and debate online among the trans athlete argument, circulating platforms like Twitter where users either praised her or condemned the association for allowing her to compete against athletes biologically born female.

Background

Lia Catherine Thomas is a transgender woman in sports, specifically competitive swimming.^[1] She was born in Austin, Texas in 1998 and started swimming at the age of 5. She was a storied swimming champion in her hometown within the men's athletic division. She went to the University of Pennsylvania for swimming in 2017, originally competing on the men's team. In her sophomore year, 2019, she finished second in the men’s 500, 1,000 and 1,650 freestyle at the Ivy League championships.^[2]

In May 2019 at the end of her sophomore year, she started transitioning using hormone replacement therapy. She came out to her team as transgender in fall 2019. During the 2019-2020 season, she competed for the men's team during her transition. By the end of her junior year. she took a gap year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and during that year, she had fully transitioned, coming back in her senior year in 2021 to compete on the women's team instead.

Developments

At the end of 2021 during her first season on the women's swimming team, she set a record-breaking time at the NCAA Invitational.^[3] A month later, in January 2022, USA Swimming released a set of stricter guidelines that required elite trans woman athletes to have three years of hormone replacement therapy and to prove to a panel of medical experts that they do not have a competitive advantage over cisgender women.^[3] However, the new guidelines were not to take place effective immediately, with the NCAA releasing a statement^[4] regarding the policy's implementation to be dealt out slowly over three years rather than in the midst of the current season.

This decision from the NCAA was the most direct cause of controversy surrounding Thomas, who, on January 8th, 2022, won the 200-yard and 500-yard freestyle and finished in fifth place in the 100-yard freestyle during the school’s tri-meet with Yale and Dartmouth.^[5] The event sparked controversy and was covered by both liberal and conservative-leaning media outlets, like Fox News. It was also spoken on by American Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps, who was asked about it by CNN.^[6] When questioned, he said, "I don't know.. it's -- it's -- it's -- it's hard. It's a really … honestly … I don't know what to say. It's very complicated" (shown below).

Thomas was also spoken on by notable athletic and transgender figure Caitlyn Jenner, who was quoted by Fox News saying, "This woke world we're living in right now is not working. I feel sorry for the other athletes that are out there." It was tweeted^[7] by Fox News on January 19th, 2022, earning roughly 1,000 likes in two months (shown below).

On March 17th, 2022, Thomas won the women's 500-yard NCAA championship title, being the first transgender athlete to win a championship title.^[8] This led to an increased discussion regarding her participation in women's sports.

A common reaction to Thomas' first place victory regarded deeming the second-place winner, Emma Weyant from the University of Virginia, as "first place," given her being biologically female. For instance, on March 17th, Twitter^[9] user JennaEllisEsq posted a quote retweet stating, "Congrats to the actual first place winner, Emma Weyant," receiving roughly 7,400 likes over the course of one day (shown below).