Who knows?. Because taken to its logical conclusion, biology is unfair, but that doesnt give you the right to exclude better athletes from competition isnt a great argument for including Thomas in the womens division. the Dartmouth Big Green at Sheerr Pool on the campus of the University of It may be that Thomas retains a significant metabolic and physiological advantage over cisgender women. It takes great commitment and courage for a student-athlete choosing to transition during their competitive career because of the scrutiny they may receive. There was something absurd in the spectacle of conservative politicians who have never shown any interest in supporting womens sports, which are chronically underfunded and underexposed, moralizing about the sanctity of collegiate womens swimming. with inclusive policies dating back to 2018. He has a right to an opinion and I respect his viewpoint on it and we can disagree. In diving, the size of your biceps will make little difference in how high you can get on the board or how well you score. As much as we debate her performance, in truth, she struggles to compare with many 500 yard records over the past years. McAuley Aquatic Center in Atlanta Georgia. A postgraduate in In the summer of 2018, after her freshman season, she realized that she was a woman, not a man. For a long time, Hogshead-Makars most notable causes had been equitable funding for womens programs and the sexual abuse of women in sports. Over the course of the last 24 hours, my understanding of the rules to compete for my team have changed dramatically. That said, Oberlin has been a very welcoming place to transition, Draper said, from teammates to classmates to coaches. Sportswire via Getty Images). After passing all of the NCAA's rules for trans competitors, Thomas shattered records this season for the Ivy League school's women's team. Biologically, Lia holds an unfair advantage over competition in the womens category, as evidenced by her rankings that have bounced from #462 as a male to #1 as a female, they wrote, in an earlier letter. That same year, with counsel from Harper and many others, the I.O.C. rankings when she competed against men versus her rankings against women. Richa I am increasing my naturally low levels of testosterone to a higher amount, yes, but if I compete in the male gender and have an approved medical plan, is my treatment as important to monitor? Did a scientist put millions of lives at riskand was he right to do it? Yet ponder them long enough and you eventually realize that only one of them supports the case its proponents are trying to make. Will the Ozempic Era Change How We Think About Being Fat and Being Thin? This week, Draper is speaking with CBS Sunday Morning correspondent Lee Cowan as well as with a trans athlete whos a contributor to Outsports, Karleigh Webb, the host of The Trans Sporter Room podcast. Even her time in Thursday's 500 victory was nine seconds behind Katie Ledecky's 2017 record. ", Lia Thomas wins 500Y freestyle final (0:48), Thomas first transgender athlete to win D-I title, Recapping an eventful 2023 MCWS and a way-too-early look ahead to next year, Geauxmaha: LSU a fitting champion following the greatest MCWS ever, 2023 MCWS rewind: LSU wins first title since 2009, Source: SDSU plans to remain in Mountain West, AD: Harvard women's hockey not pushing hazing, IRS: Some nonprofit NIL groups may not qualify, Laws inspired by Nassar abuse signed in Michigan, D-I proposal would shrink portal window by half, NCAA updates gambling punishment for athletes, Tennessee State to be 1st HBCU with ice hockey, How a Jell-O shot challenge became the second-biggest event in Omaha, Omaha's Mardi Gras: LSU fans have made the MCWS their second home. "Lia is such a kind person," Bailar said. allowed a path for people like her to join the womens team, but it was not quick or easy. The organization said the new policy was effective immediately, but also indicated it would go into effect with the 2022 winter championships in March. While competing among men, Thomas. And it's even better to consider if Katie Ledecky came out as trans masc, and wanted to compete in men's events. "The fact that she's able to show up here, despite protesters outside, people shouting and booing her, I think it's a testament to her resiliency. The sociologists Katrina Karkazis and Rebecca M. Jordan-Young, who co-wrote Testosterone: An Unauthorized Biography, have disputed the idea that testosterone is the miracle molecule of athleticism, noting that different sports require different skills, and that athleticism is a catch-all term for a variety of abilities and characteristics. Hogshead-Makar says that she is in favor of inclusion where the so-called legacy advantage of testosterone-driven puberty can be overcomein marathons, perhaps, given that testosterone suppression can substantially reduce aerobic capacity and hemoglobin levels, or in sports like pistol shooting. She felt happy, she said, to compete, finally, as her authentic self., Few people paid attention when, in a meet against Princeton and Cornell, in November, she put up the seasons best times in the two-hundred-yard and five-hundred-yard freestyle races, and set Penn records. Katie Ledecky vs Ariarne Titmus. This was an admittedly small sample size: Harper was one of the eight subjects, and the study only considered long-distance running; it didnt necessarily bear on performance in others sports. Amidst the controversy, Lia Thomas has set quite a few swimming records in the NCAA championship. DeSantis signed a proclamation Tuesday declaring Florida-born Emma Weyant as the winner of the women's 500-yard (457-meter) freestyle at the NCAA women's tournament rather than transgender woman . The Trans Swimmer Who Won Too Much | The New Yorker Whenever you talk about competitive swimming, Katie Ledecky is a name you can never ignore. At the same time, the division of sports into mens and womens categories serves a purposeit allows female athletes to be considered on their own terms; Allyson Felixs speed is not less remarkable because some number of teen-age boys are faster than she is. | One point Draper made clear: he has no beef with his former boss, Swimming World editor-in-chief John Lohn, who published the anti-inclusion op-eds by Blade, Hogshead-Makar, and several of his own, using an Olympic-sized abundance of transphobic terms. Lia Thomas, Transgender Swimmer from Penn, Swims Fastest Times - Reddit Some people worry that restrictions put in place by the I.O.C. After Thomas lost a race to Iszac Henig, a transgender man who has not medically transitioned and swims for Yales womens team, one of Thomass teammates anonymously accused them of colluding on the result. The argument about Lia Thomas, a college student from Texas in her early twenties, is also an argument about whether there are, finally, defining lines, and who gets to set them. required athletes to legally change their gender and undergo genital surgery, as if a mislabelled passport and the presence of a penis gave them a leg up on the competition. It is not yet clear who will serve on that panel, and what criteria they might use. 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. policy. When I spoke to Bailar, he tried to give me some sense of what it might be like to be in Thomass position. However, this simply does not satisfy the majority of people who have called out the unfairness of the situation. announced that it would not change its policies midseason. Swimming rules were adopted. A basketball-playing trans man can just put on a basketball jersey and no one's really going to know. Katie Ledecky, the NCAA record-holder in the 500, is simply more gifted than everyone who swam in the finals last Thursday, including Thomas, who fell nine seconds short of Ledeckys 2017 finish. Her success in the pool drew both praise and criticism. During the race, Thomas was alternately tested by Olympians Brooke Forde (Stanford), Erica Sullivan (Texas) and Weyant. Views from The Posts Editorial Board on current events. There is a chance she could not only win national championships, but compete for all-time NCAA records set by Olympic gold medalists Missy Franklin and Katie Ledecky. Almost immediately, she told Sports Illustrated, she felt better. 1 to the Pirates? In the interview with Sports Illustrated, Thomas was understandably reticent and guarded. At stake here is the integrity of womens sports, the parents letter, which was also sent to Penn and the Ivy League, declared. Its scary to think how quickly they can change the rules when there is attention on the issue, Draper told me in a text conversation the day after the NCAA announcement. Notably, the World Championships in Gwangju became the turning point for this event. Then the pandemic started, and the season was cut short; the next season was cancelled altogether. Thomas was seeded first in three events at the Ivy League Championships, in February. 3.17.2022 6:23 PM. It's honestly not a big deal, he said. Whatever various social purposes womens sports serve, their justification is biology. And that's the thing that you're taught at the very beginning. Lia Thomas broke no records at the NCAA championships but left plenty Athlete Ally released a statement expressing alarm at the new policy, which the trans activist and athlete Chris Mosier described as quickly assembled under pressure from people who dont want to see a great athlete who is transgender succeed. It was clear, Athlete Ally added, that trans athletes would be subjected to invasive, painful and unnecessary medical procedures and burdened with the obligation of proving they have no inherent advantage instead of being viewed as human beings who have no desire to compete unfairly, only to participate in the sport they dedicate their lives to., A few days later, as Sports Illustrated subsequently reported, a former swimming champion and a Title IX lawyer named Nancy Hogshead-Makar organized a virtual meeting attended by more than two hundred and fifty people, including former Olympians, current collegiate swimmers and coaches, parents of Penn swimmers, and members of U.S.A. Swimmings board of directors. Others, though, pushed back against the I.O.C.s change of tone. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. As an adherent Swimming introduced new, more restrictive rules, calling for three years of testosterone suppressionmere months more than the length of time that Thomas has undergone. A few weeks before the championships, USA Swimming announced new standards for transitioning swimmers; transgender athletes would have to show a concentration of testosterone below 5 nmol/L for a continuous period of 36 months and provide "evidence that the prior physical development of the athlete as a maledoes not give the athlete a competitive advantage over the athlete's cisgender female competitors." Oberlin Colleges director of athletics, Natalie Winkelfoos, told me supporting those athletes has been a learning experience. At the 500 yards event, Lia Thomas completed the race in 4:33.24. But as far as other years are considered, Lia Thomas would mostly come in second place. This also means that her current competitors would receive even lower ranks. She completed the race in 4:24.06. But unlike areas such as respectful pronoun use, availability of gender-neutral bathrooms, and recognition of transition on legal documents, sports at the elite level are zero-sum. Sport's trans issue is here to stay. But at last, the debate is What Rank Did Lia Thomas Stand at While Competing in the Men's Swimming Division? . In addition, it always gives us an insight into Lias performance as compared to previous winners. So this presents a challenge. Theyre floundering at school and in the workplace. The Web site where millennial women judge one anothers spending habits. But three years ago, she had what she called an aha moment, when Congress was debating the Equality Act, which would ban both gender and sex discriminationeffectively, as she saw it, erasing the difference between the two concepts. A male body cannot become a female body. Still, the suffering became too much; knowing that she was a woman and competing as a man caused me a lot of distress, she has said. March 17, 2022 After starting hormone-replacement therapy, Lia Thomas felt happy, she said, to compete, finally, as her "authentic self." Photograph by Hunter Martin / Getty Lia Thomas has. We have so many trans people and intersex people that are just constantly discriminated against. As a star swimmer in high school, Bailar had been recruited by Harvards womens team, but had delayed enrollment to deal with an eating disorderone that he came to realize was related to gender dysphoria. Starting with the 2022-23 academic year, transgender student-athletes will need documented levels at the beginning of their season and a second documentation six months after the first. As a swimmer-turned-diver I can speak to the distinction. A new year is around the corner and if 2023 is anything like the past 12 months, there will be. I had never heard of introducing himself with pronouns until I got here. Lia Thomas, Penn swimmer, becomes first known transgender athlete to win Division I national title Thomas finished just nine seconds behind Katie Ledecky's 500-yard freestyle record of 4:24.06 "We're not going to stand by and let women be displaced," said Annabelle Rutledge, the national director for Young Women for America. I know that it sucked for me to compete as a woman and I'm sure it sucked just as much to compete as a man when you identify as a woman. (Early contestants were warned that their reproductive systems might be damaged by long-distance running.) Eric Boehm But Hogshead-Makars argument reflects a broader truth about the situation: Lia Thomas would have attracted little attention if she always lost. (Rich von Biberstein/Icon Sportswire DKB/Rich von Biberstein/Icon Sportswire/Newscom), Thomas, a student-athlete at the University of Pennsylvania, competed on Penn's men's swimming and diving team for three years. Others pointed out that sports never entail an even playing field, given the different resources, genetic and otherwise, that athletes have; naturally occurring testosterone can be considered part of the biodiversity of athletic talent. He is 21, majoring in both computer science and theater, and he is part of the Yeomen swimming and diving team. Meanwhile her 500yard time of 4:34:06 puts her 21st in history and within striking distance of a record set by Katie Ledecky, who is widely regarded as the greatest female swimmer in the sport . Accessibility | The guidelines themselves suggest that she is allowed to participate because she began the transition more than 2 years ago. direction and filmmaking. Last year, she helped create the Womens Sports Policy Working Group, the stated aim of which is to find a middle way with regard to the participation of trans women in womens sports. While competing among men, Thomas posted decent times, but was far from qualifying for the men's NCAA Division I championships. But, in early December, at the Zippy Invitational, in Akron, Ohio, Thomas dropped another second off her time in the five-hundred-yard freestyle, and nearly a second and a half off her time in the two-hundred-yard race. It doesnt matter that Lia Thomas is just one swimmer, Hogshead-Makar told me. Lias times are the evidence that she has not mitigated, Hogshead-Makar said, citing Thomass N.C.A.A. Draper told me hes been very cautious about speaking out about all this, and granting few interviews. But if youre differentiating between male athletes and female athletes, you should use some factor thats sexually dimorphic and is important for athletic performance. But studies like that, by definition, take time. Every time theres a successful trans woman athlete, the sky will fall tomorrow and its the end of womens sports as we know it, she said. The editor in chief of Swimming World Magazine, John Lohn, wrote, "It is a pathetic and misguided state that any argument against Thomas' participation is immediately deemed to be an indication of transphobia." Fat was redistributed around her body, and she felt herself losing aerobic capacity. "It means the world to be here," Thomas said in an interview with Elizabeth Beisel after the race. ATLANTA, GA MARCH 18: University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas on the starting block for the 200 Freestyle final during the NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships on March 18th, 2022 at the McAuley Aquatic Center in Atlanta Georgia. this season for the Ivy League school's women's team. Swimming official resigned in protest of Thomass being allowed to compete in womens meets.