Lia Thomas, the transgender who causes debate in the United States

Will Thomas, now Lia Thomas, a transgender swimmer who completed her transition in 2020 and, at 22, is competing this season in the NCAA women’s category (college competitions) representing Pennsylvania. According to the rules of the National University Sports Association, you can compete in the female category if you have completed a testosterone suspension treatment for 12 months.

But Thomas’ successes and marks (he won a competition with a 38-second lead and is close to the college records of Katie Ledecky and Missy Franklin) is opening a raw debate in American swimming and throughout the country. Several parents have sent letters to the college, the NCAA, and the intercollegiate sports conference requesting that transgender participation be banned from women’s competitions. Judge Cynthia Millen, with over 30 years working for USA Swimming, has resigned due to personal convictions: “It is a masculine body against the feminine ones. And that male body can never change. “

But whoever has sent a critical letter to the system, not to the athlete, is Nancy hogshead, now a lawyer and formerly a successful swimmer, winner of four Olympic medals in Los Angeles 1984. In her writing, she notes that As an Olympic champion and civil rights attorney, I can assure you that there is nothing fair about transgender woman Lia Thomas competing for the University of Pennsylvania in NCAA swimming. Even worse, its dominance of the “women’s sports” category is doing nothing to generate greater empathy for inclusive practices across society for the trans community”.

To support his point of view, Hogshead pulls statistics under one premise: “Trans women must compete with biological women as long as they can show that they have lost their edge of male puberty linked to sex before competing in the women’s category. Lia Thomas cannot make that demonstration. “

Hogshead notes that the difference between men’s and women’s times is 11%. And he gives examples: “Phelps was just 0.8% ahead of teammate Ian Crocker at Athens 2004, but 12.6% over Petria Thomas, the women’s champion. Lia Thomas is not 11% slower than before, it was only 2.6% in the 200 yards and 5.76% in the 500. It is not fair, “he said.

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“Thomas has shown us that the rules are not fair”

The former Olympic champion, who gives the examples of the East German Valkyries that the system already knew were doped, believes that the regulations must be adapted by creating a new category and not distorting the existing ones of men and women. Allowing transgender women to change the meaning of the female category makes as much sense as allowing 180-pound athletes to enter the 120-pound weight category, because larger athletes were subject to harassment and intimidation.“Said Hogshead, who closed his writing thus:” Lia Thomas has shown us all that the current rules are not fair and forcing her to enter the category of women only generates resentment. However, that doesn’t mean that transgender athletes should be excluded from the many benefits of sport. It is this that must be adapted in a creative way that is not detrimental to the female category ”.

In the last Tokyo Games, weightlifter Lauren Hubbard was the first trans to compete in the female category, although she was eliminated in the first round. The deputy general director of the International Olympic Committee, Pere Miró, commented to AS that “on the one hand we want to include, which is one of our values. Everyone must have their place, but on the other hand there must be a fair play, that is, that the competition is fair and there is an equality of competing with the same conditions. It’s complicated. We have commissions for a long time studying this ”.

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