By Brittany Bernstein, National Review
Lia Thomas, a record-setting transgender University of Pennsylvania swimmer, addressed the controversy around the participation of a male swimmer on the women’s swim team, saying in a newly published interview, “I’m a woman, just like anybody else on the team.”
Thomas, who competed on Penn’s mens team for three years, has ruffled feathers this season as the swimmer set pool, school, and Ivy League records. Critics have pointed out that Thomas has an unfair biological advantage from years of competing as a man.
One Penn parent told Sports Illustrated that while “Lia is a human being who deserves to be treated with respect and dignity,” that it is “not transphobic to say I disagree with where she’s swimming.”
Thomas told the magazine that argument is disingenuous: “The very simple answer is that I’m not a man.”
“I’m a woman, so I belong on the women’s team. Trans people deserve that same respect every other athlete gets,” Thomas said.
Thomas, who had previously only spoken publicly to swimming-news website SwimSwam, claims swimming is not about winning or setting records: “I get into the water every day and do my best.”
Thomas also denied media reports that Thomas has an attitude, including that the swimmer jokes about how easy it is to win races, that Thomas purposely swam slowly at a meet against Iszac Henig, a trans man who swims on Yale’s women’s team; and that Thomas is the self-proclaimed “Jackie Robinson of trans sports.”
Of 37 swimmers on the team, sources told Sports Illustrated that six to eight of the swimmers are adamant supporters of Thomas while half the team opposes Thomas competing against women and the rest have disengaged from the debate.
Read more at National Review.
He is a joke! All he wants is to be noticed. I have worked at a Insurance firm a few years ago. There was a male imployee who claimed he was a girl and would use the ladies room. All the real woman would use the restroom on the other side of the
building. He got himself noticed and hated by most of the employees. This jerk is causing more hate for real people and should get all the hate returned to him!
Simple test to see which team HE should be on. XY=YOU ARE A GUY…..XX= YOU ARE A FEMALE. Is this too complicated?
He is man, hear him bore. And Jackie Robinson earned the world’s respect, he didn’t foul the air by claiming or demanding it. I want to see Thomas stripped of all records for fraud.
We’ve had MENs leagues for decades. Then WOMEN were finally granted status for a league of their own. Time for TRANS to work for and obtain sponsors and trainers for the trans league. That would be fair.
So, He needs a uterus, ovaries, fallopian tubes, vagina, and monthly menses(if normal) to be an adult female as he clams. Period. Way to many in ED, Phy majors on this planet now with mental derangement syndrome
Anyone who had grade school, high school or college biology or anatomy and physiology knows those facts. Has not changed since the beginning of man or mammal.
Dad always told me to be careful what I wished for…I might just get it…
Ladies, here’s your ‘equality’…
I think this is lunacy. We are either born with male or female parts. Too bad all this sickness wasn’t around when I was in high school, I surely would have identified as a girl, especially during gym and the locker room.
We need to get back to some sanity in this world.
Looks like a man. Can’t help but think women’s sports have been destroyed; women’s sport scholarships etc. Join a coed team, leave XX chromosome teams XX. What you are doing is not fair to biological women.
If he still has his penis he is still a man! If need be we can help him accomplish that.