The man on UPenn’s female swim team was nominated by the university for the NCAA “Woman of the Year” award.
Lia Thomas, a biological male named Will at birth, was allowed to compete as a woman on the University of Pennsylvania swim team. National Collegiate Athletic Association rules only required one year of hormone treatments for an athlete to identify as a different sex. After one year of taking hormones, Thomas was crushing competitors on the women’s swim circuit. The rules have since changed.
Will Thomas was relatively unknown when he swam with the men at Penn. After he declared himself a transgender woman and began swimming with the women, he became a household word. His performance in swim meets where he consistently beat biological women by large margins made headlines. National outrage grew as Thomas seemed to be gaming the system for an unfair competitive advantage.
One female teammate of Thomas, who reportedly remained anonymous out of fear of retribution, told podcast host Matt Walsh in Daily Wire’s documentary “What Is a Woman?” that even basic locker room concerns were forbidden subjects.
Thomas still has a penis and and dates females, according to the report, which cited Thomas’ teammates.
“If you even brought up concerns about it,” the female swimmer reportedly told Walsh, “you were ‘transphobic.’”
News of the nomination created controversy among the Twitterati.
“EVERY WOMAN IN THE NCAA MUST BOYCOTT,” declared writer Kimberly Morin in a Twitter post. “They are pushing for MEN to ERASE WOMEN. If you allow it, they will continue and you will reap what you sow and you will AID in the DESTRUCTION of women’s sports.”
Journalist Abigail Shrier: “It isn’t ‘inclusion’ that leads the Ivy League to pull stunts like this,” she remarked in a caption above a Twitter retweet of a TMZ article. “It’s misogyny – and utter contempt for the truth.”
“Academia speaks,” succinctly stated Michael Doran, a senior fellow and director of the Center for Peace and Security in the Middle East at Hudson Institute.
The Ivy League university’s nomination is even more difficult to understand since the governing body of the swimming world amended their policy on transgender swimmers in June. After the rule change was enacted, only swimmers who transitioned before age 12 are eligible to compete in women’s events. That means Thomas is not eligible to compete as a woman swimmer.
“They’re not saying everyone should transition by age 11, that’s ridiculous,” James Pearce, spokesperson for FINA president Husain Al-Musallam, told the Associated Press. “You can’t transition by that age in most countries and hopefully you wouldn’t be encouraged to.”
“Basically, what they’re saying is that it is not feasible for people who have transitioned to compete without having an advantage.”
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