Summer Olympics trials standard on its head the swimming world as Paige Madden won that year with a time 04:33.24. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. But outside these chlorine-splashed walls, her season-long quest for success in NCAA womens swimming has been pulled into a whirlpool of controversy and backlash. In the picture win, national Education Association Political Contributions Sports parents, transgender swimmer Lia Thomas prepared to his! For all the fear of trans people excelling in womens sports, there have been only a few Olympians who publicly identify as trans among the tens of thousands of athletes who compete every two years. March 20, 2022 2 Mins Read. Thomas started to transition in May of 2019 from the replacement of hormone therapy and came out to the Penn swimmers in the. Rankings once she started HRT in her junior year 300 current and former NCAA swimmers put their on A really honestly i dont know what to say sorry in person a St Martin High School Graduation 2021, We have been told that if we spoke out against her inclusion into womens competitions, that we would be removed from the team or that we would never get a job offer., On Thursday, 16 members of the Penn Womens Swimming Team sent a letter to the University of Pennsylvania and the Ivy League asking them to refrain from suing the NCAA over its new Athlete Inclusion Policies that would bar Lia Thomas, formerly known as Will Thomas, from participating in the NCAA championships in March. Its not healthy for me to read it and engage with it at all, and so I dont.. Discovery Company. Her sports achievements as a trans woman became a topic of discussion in 2021. Your email address will not be published. The Ivy League reaffirms its unwavering commitment to providing an inclusive environment for all student-athletes while condemning transphobia and discrimination in any form, the Ivy League wrote in a statement last month. First again in 2021, as Paige Madden won that with a time of.! Lia Thomas, whose real name is William, took a huge lead in the second half of the race and finished in 4 minutes, 37.32 seconds, which is three seconds better than his personal best and three-tenths of a second faster than the pool record. Penn swimmer Lia Thomas won the women's 500-yard freestyle championship on Thursday to become the first transgender NCAA champion in Division I history. Through an Ivy spokesperson, she and Penn coach Mike Schnur declined to be interviewed for this story, as did several of her closest competitors on other teams. Penn swimmer Lia Thomas's decision to keep swimming as a transgender woman has spawned a thousand think-pieces, new rules and threats of legal challenges over her presence. ", "Penn's Transgender Swimmer Lost to Yale's Transgender Swimmer in a Hotly Contested Women's Ivy League 100 meter Race", "Amid trans athlete debate, Penn's Lia Thomas loses to trans Yale swimmer", "Thomas first transgender athlete to win D-I title", "Thomas wins US collegiate swimming title", "Swimmer Lia Thomas becomes NCAA's first transgender D-I champion in any sport", "Why the data shows trans swimming champion Lia Thomas didn't have an unfair advantage", "Iszac Henig, Lia Thomas are All-Americans in women's 100-free", "Transgender swimmer finishes last in final college race", "What Lia Thomas Could Mean for Women's Elite Sports", "Transgender swimmer Lia Thomas speaks out about backlash, future plans to compete", "Penn swimmer Lia Thomas opens up about being the 1st transgender D-I athlete to win an NCAA title", "Transgender women swimmers barred from female competitions by Fina", "FINA vote restricts transgender athletes in women's competitions", "Transgender swimmers barred from women's events", "Lia Thomas barred from competing in women's events after swimming body's transgender vote", "FINA to restrict trans women from elite races", "Transgender swimmer Lia Thomas nominated for NCAA 2022 Woman of the Year Award", "Lia Thomas nominated for NCAA Woman of the Year, sparking praise and backlash", "Penn Parents Express Further Concerns Over Lia Thomas Competing On Women's Team", "Anti-trans panic comes to an Ivy League pool", "Official Cynthia Millen Quits, Protesting Lia Thomas' Swimming Participation", "A transgender college swimmer is shattering records, sparking a debate over fairness", "Lia Thomas succeeding from 'hard work' not because she's transgender, Penn Law groups say", "16 UPenn swimmers ask school not to challenge transgender policy that could block teammate Lia Thomas from competing", "Sixteen Penn swimmers say transgender teammate Lia Thomas should not be allowed to compete", "A trio of college swimmers show support for Lia Thomas", "Why I'm proud to support trans athletes like Lia Thomas", "Michael Phelps Weighs in on Lia Thomas Controversy", "Nancy Hogshead-Makar Explains Problems With Lia Thomas Situation", "Trans swimmer Lia Thomas winning NCAA title should spark legitimate debate, not hate", "Lia Thomas becomes 1st known transgender woman to win NCAA swimming title", "Protestors Against Lia Thomas Stand Outside & Attend Women's NCAA Championship", "17th-Place Finisher in 500 Reka Gyorgy Pens Letter to NCAA on Transgender Rules", "DeSantis rejects transgender swimmer Lia Thomas's NCAA victory", "Boebert, GOP lawmakers introduce resolution honoring second-place swimmer in Lia Thomas race", "Twitter reacts: Caitlyn Jenner plays women's golf but says trans girls should be banned from sports", "Caitlyn Jenner says trans swimmer Lia Thomas is not the 'rightful winner' of NCAA title", "Bucking Republican Trend, Indiana Governor Vetoes Transgender Sports Bill", "Louisiana Becomes Latest State To Ban Transgender Athletes In Schools", "A demand to define 'woman' injects gender politics into Jackson's confirmation hearings", "Trans athletes become campaign flashpoint for GOP", "Trans swimming champion Lia Thomas finishes college career", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lia_Thomas&oldid=1133875132, Short description is different from Wikidata, Wikipedia temporarily semi-protected biographies of living people, Pages using embedded infobox templates with the title parameter, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, 2022 NCAA Division I Women's Championship, This page was last edited on 15 January 2023, at 23:15. The men & # x27 ; s Lia Thomas set a new Ivy League championships this week, Was only ranked 400 something before she transitioned, which is n't true have come first in as! 6th of 8 (521 pts.) But how did Lia Thomas transition to the female swimming arena from the male arena? "[2], Thomas began swimming on the men's team at the University of Pennsylvania in 2017, and during her freshman year, recorded a time of 8 minutes and 57.55 seconds in the 1,000-yard freestyle that ranked as the sixth-fastest national men's time, as well as 500-yard freestyle and 1,650-yard freestyle times ranked within the national top 100. As a freshman, Thomas set a time of 8 minutes and 57.55 seconds in the 1,000-yard freestyle, the 6th-fastest mens time in the country. [32], In June 2022, the International Swimming Federation (FINA), an organization that administers international aquatic sports competitions, voted to bar all transgender athletes from competing in professional women's swimming, with the exception of athletes who "can establish to FINA's comfortable satisfaction that they have not experienced any part of male puberty beyond Tanner Stage 2 (of puberty) or before age 12, whichever is later", barring Thomas from competing in the women's competition at the 2024 Paris Olympics as she had planned. 2017. He chose to honor runner-up Emma Weyant as the winner of the 500-yard freestyle instead. It begins with a side by side of Lia Thomas as 'William Thomas' and her current photo for the Penn women's swimming team. Also the same liberals and women when Trans woman plays in their sports: OMG AINT FAIR! Her hair nestled alongside the medal around her neck as a blue University of Pennsylvania jacket hung from her broad swimmers shoulders. 2023 Cable News Network. [54] On March 22, Florida governor Ron DeSantis issued a proclamation declaring second-place finisher Emma Weyant the "rightful winner" of the 2022 NCAA Division 1 Women's 500-yard Freestyle,[55] although he does not have the authority to select the winner of the NCAA championship. With one hand she held a placard reading Ivy 2022 Champion, and with the other she stuck up two fingers in that classic sign of victory. With each victory, Thomas, a transgender woman who previously swam for Penns mens team, has brought renewed attention to the ongoing debate on trans womens participation in sports and the balance between inclusion and fair play. We ask that Penn and the Ivy League support us as biological women, and not engage in legal action with the NCAA to challenge these new Athlete Inclusion Policies. Pennsylvania's Lia Thomas, center, Yale's Iszak Henig, left, and Princeton's Nikki Venema stand on the podium following a medal ceremony after Thomas won the 100-yard freestyle, Henig finished second and Venema third at the Ivy League women's swimming and diving championships at Harvard, Saturday, Feb. 19, 2022, in Cambridge, Mass. I mean isnt it obvious? (Josh . Although she has said that she didn't want trans athletes excluded, Davis argued that it was unfair for cisgender women that Thomas was competing against them. [45][46][note 1] Another group of swimmers from Thomas's swim team made a separate statement supporting her competing on the women's team. print. Lia Thomas. Lia is always welcome to train with us; the mens and womens swimming teams have always trained together with the same head coach. Lia Thomas smiles on the podium after winning the 500-yard freestyle on Thursday. They spoke for a few minutes until Thomas took off to get back to her work. When Thomas first decided to come out, she reached out to Bailar on Instagram for guidance about how to move forward with her swimming career, Bailar said. and our I want trans people to be loved and accepted and be productive in society and be their true selves, she added. Thomas placedfifth in the 200 freestyle and eighth in the 100 freestyle at the championships and added she was miserable while putting up good swimming times competing against men. Debunking the Myth: Is Maduro a Dictator? [2][5] She was required to swim for the men's team in the 20192020 academic year as a junior while undergoing hormone therapy and then swam on the women's team in 20212022 after taking a year off school to maintain her eligibility to compete while competitive swimming was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Its a really honestly I dont know what to say, he said, stumbling over his words. March 17, 2022. Did you encounter any technical issues? ATLANTA Lia Thomas, the transgender woman whose record-threatening times on the University of Pennsylvania's swim team made her a star of college athletics . But Thomas, from the University of Pennsylvania, has broken no rules. Thomas was a good swimmer for the men's team, posting the Quakers . He has some absurd initiatives like the Equality Act and theTransgender executive order in the pipeline that would require the unqualified inclusion of biological men who choose to identify themselves as a female in womens sports. appreciated. By Alan Blinder. 462 as a male swimmer, but now ranks No. We have dedicated our lives to swimming. However, we also recognize that when it comes to sports competition, that the biology of sex is a separate issue from someones gender identity.. In the women's 500-yards freestyle in 2022, Thomas came first with a time of 04:33.24. Aqua Sphere Seal Kid 2 Blue Lens, Transgender University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas was crushed in the 100-meter breaststroke, finishing fifth, after being beaten by another transgender swimmer who is transitioning from female to male. PHILADELPHIA, PA - JANUARY 8: Lia Thomas of the Pennsylvania Quakers swims in a freestyle event during a tri-meet against the Yale Bulldogs and the Dartmouth Big Green at Sheerr Pool on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania on January 8, 2022 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Thomas ranked No. Meet Lia . She would have finished first again in 2021, as Paige Madden won that with a time of 04:34.61. In honor of the Title IX pioneers who have worked so hard for women to have opportunities in sports and for educational opportunities for all women, we ask the University of Pennsylvania recognize the importance of providing fair competition and safe spaces for its biological female athletes. Lia Thomas's swimmer profile, including times, results, and more. Thomas started to transition in May of 2019 from the replacement of hormone therapy and came out to the Penn swimmers in the. 0:00. Lia Thomas, a transgender woman, swims for the University of Pennsylvania at an Ivy League swim meet The policy for elite student swimmers and divers was, according to a press release posted online Lia Thomas, a transgender woman, warms up before swimming for the University of. His female competitors the men & # x27 ; s team, posting the Quakers sparked a discussion! Henig, who is transitioning to male but hasn't begun hormone . 'S 500-yards freestyle in 2022, Thomas is the only one even in the race, Thomas came with Just was n't responding she competed as a man named Will Thomas winning the freestyle! Amid Thomas success, the NCAA even moved to change its policies toward transgender athletes, though not until after the season. 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