By Mariana Navarrete, Arts & Culture Editor
There has been a sudden interest in NCAA Division I Swimming with concern about a transgender woman; a fifth-year senior from the University of Pennsylvania, Lia Thomas. Although many arguers claim to care about women’s sports, there was missing attention for the 27 records broken during the 2022 championships. Those records were not broken by Thomas but by other hard-working women.
Thomas has complied with the NCAA transgender athlete policy, which allows trans women to compete on a women’s team if they have completed at least one year of testosterone suppression treatment. She has been undergoing treatment for the last two and a half years.
The governing body of swimming in the United States, USA Swimming, changed its policy surrounding trans women athletes on Feb. 1, now establishing that they must maintain testosterone levels less than five nmol/L for at least 36 months. A second criterion highlights that there needs to be evidence proving that the athlete’s prior physical development as a male will not give them a competitive advantage.
A month before the NCAA DI Swimming and Diving Championships on Feb. 10, the NCAA announced it was not adopting USA Swimming’s new transgender policy. The old policy stating trans women could compete if they had a testosterone level of ten nmol/L or less was kept; and Thomas adhered to that policy.
It is complex to unlearn what one has assumed about gender throughout their life. Many scholars prove gender is a social construct and “biological sex” is more than what people think.
Associate Professor of Biology at Saint Leo University, Cheryl Kozina, who holds a Ph.D. in Genetics and Molecular Biology discussed how biological sex is not simple.
“Gender identity is different from the sex assigned at birth. Often, both align, but not always.” Kozina said. “Biological sex comes down to what genitals doctors see at birth, and that is what is written on the birth certificate.”
Others say biological sex comes down to what chromosomes you have, but it is not always straightforward. Sometimes, chromosomes do not tell the whole story. While there is a particular gene associated with biological sex, there are conditions where those genes do not determine biological sex.
When gender identity and assigned sex at birth do not align, people look for ways to make it so. A transition to openly present as a woman starts with simple things, like changing one’s pronouns or dressing differently. Some make the decision of transitioning with hormone therapy and even surgery.
“It is hard to figure out what is considered normal because it is not straightforward,” said Kozina. “Who gets to decide that anyways?”
There are not many studies about transgender individuals in athletics. After several years of hormone suppression therapy, body fat increases, while strength and muscle mass decrease. However, the majority of studies about transgender individuals exclude transgender elite athletes.
“Conclusions are trying to be made about transgender people who are not high-performance athletes,” Kozina mentioned.
Some claim Thomas was not a successful male swimmer, but after her transition, she is now winning everything.
Thomas has not dominated this sport. Sure, she is a high-performance athlete that can qualify for Division I Swimming National finals. She won the 500 Freestyle with a time of 4:33.24, more than eight seconds slower than Katie Ledecky’s record. Ledecky is the most dominant female distance swimmer in the world.
Thomas placed fifth in the 200 Freestyle and eighth in the 100 Freestyle. Many media sources highlighting her “dominance” fail to mention this.
The University of Virginia (UVA) won the meet with 551.5 points, and won 11 out of the 18 swimming events. The Cavaliers demonstrated dominance, especially with their world-class swimmers Kate Douglass, Alex Walsh, and Gretchen Walsh sweeping their events and breaking a historic number of records overall.
During the preliminary session on the first day of the meet, protestors who identified themselves as a “save women’s sports” group gathered outside the facility and attended the meet as Lia Thomas competed in her first event, the 500 Freestyle. Protestors went inside Georgia Tech’s McAuley Aquatic Center and screamed at her with hate speech.
Thomas would not have won this meet in six out of the nine years prior, and if fourth-place finisher Brooke Forde from Stanford had swam at her best time (4:31.34), she would have beaten Thomas by two seconds. Thomas’ time was not even in the top 50 of all-time fastest swims in the event.
Despite the people against her participation, some encourage it by de-individualizing the problem and demanding respect and inclusiveness.
Second place finisher in the 500 Freestyle, University of Texas swimmer and silver medalist at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics Erika Sullivan wrote an Op-Ed piece for Newsweek supporting Thomas. A picture showing Sullivan with the third and fourth place finishers (also 2021 Olympians UVA’s Emma Weyant and Forde, respectively) and Thomas on the other side of the podium went viral. It delivered a negative connotation behind the truth of what the picture truly meant.
In her article, Sullivan clarifies she just took a photo with the group because they are her closest friends from the Olympics, not because she wanted to exclude Thomas.
“Like anyone else in this sport, Lia has trained diligently to get to where she is and has followed all of the rules and guidelines put before her,” Sullivan wrote.
Virginia Tech 5th year Reka Gyorgy has released a letter to the NCAA addressing her opinion about the controversial transgender policy. Gyorgy offers a unique perspective on the situation, as she finished 17th in prelims of the 500 Freestyle Mar. 24, one spot out of qualifying for finals.
Gyorgy makes her most pointed criticisms at the end of her letter, saying, “The NCAA knew what was coming this past week. They knew opinions and minds will be divided and chose to do nothing.”
She goes on to highlight how she feels the meet was “more about reporters, media and division,” instead of the historic swims that took place.
Swimming is the most-watched sport during the Olympics; yet, the rest of the time it remains ignored. At the collegiate level, both women’s and men’s swimming do not get close to the attention received compared to other sports. But this year, there was a historic amount of media present.
Braden Keith, co-founder of swimming news organization SwimSwam, was present at the competition.
“Virginia parents showing class when so many have not today, applauding Lia Thomas on the podium. Until we can stop the hate and the vitriol and the transphobia, we can’t have real conversations. Real conversations and real solutions have to start with compassion.” Keith wrote in a tweet but has since deleted it after receiving hate responses. Thomas is the first transgender athlete to win a Division I NCAA title in any sport. The real threat to women’s sports isn’t other women, including trans female athletes. It’s the lack of funding, resources, protection, and strong female leadership. It’s the widespread sexual abuse, harassment, and unequal pay.
Some ways to directly support women’s sports include:
- Watching and attending their games
- Following them on social media
- Telling family and friends about them
- Buying jerseys and/or merchandise
- Asking restaurants to stream women’s games and events
- Encouraging youth participation
- Amplifying writers for women’s sports, among others
Bringing equity to women’s sports means providing a platform, accessibility, and opportunities to disabled, black, indigenous, and low-income women to develop and grow as sportswomen, coaches, broadcasters, and sportswriters.
It also means spreading awareness and support regarding the epidemic of eating disorders and mental illnesses that have hurt women in sports. There are more severe problems around women’s sports in the 21st century than just a transgender swimmer participating at a national meet.
In the end, the NCAA let her compete. She was only following the rules. USA Swimming says they have no problem with Thomas representing them in Paris for the 2024 Olympics as a woman athlete.
Swimming is just a fraction of Thomas’ life. Yet, she has to endure transphobic attitudes and comments in the real world in her day-to-day life outside the pool.
