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Discord and blush for a trans swimmer

Javier Asprón

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On December 5, the campus of the University of Akron, in Ohio, experienced the irruption of Lia Thomas, turned into a sudden star after sweeping in three events of the Zippy Invitational: 200, 500 and 1,650 free yards. Thomas, a senior swimmer at the University of Pennsylvania, achieved the best mark of the year in the first two and dazzled in the last, taking a whopping 38 seconds out of second-place finisher, her teammate Anna Kalandadze. Despite the exhibition, there was no euphoria in the stands or excessive praise, but a hum that has accompanied Thomas since in 2019 he decided to start the process to change sex.

Until then, and for the first twenty years

of her life, Lia had been Will Thomas, a stocky young man of more than 1.90 meters who had a devotion to the pool. Thomas competed on the Pennsylvania men’s team for his first three years in college without great results. As the pandemic began and the entire college season was canceled, he decided it was time to take the plunge. Since then he has undergone hormonal treatment to lower his testosterone levels. Once the year is over, as required by the NCAA (National Association of University Sports), you have a clear path to compete.

Lia Thomas
Lia Thomas – PennU

The controversy has evolved strongly, as Thomas has gone from being a nobody in men’s swimming to jeopardizing the university records of some of the American sports icons, such as Katie Ledecky The Missy Franklin. His detractors seem to have put the limit there. Nancy Hogshead-Makar, double Olympic champion in Los Angeles 1984, has become the spokesperson for the large group opposed to the presence of Thomas in women’s competitions. The ex-swimmer wrote a long letter in the ‘Daily Mail’ exposing data that would justify her refusal: “As a rule, women’s times are 11% slower than men’s. That’s the approximate difference in world, Olympic, or college records. The smaller the distance traveled, the greater the gap. Phelps had only a 0.8% advantage over his great rival at the Athens Games, Ian Crocker. But she had a 12.62% advantage over the women’s gold medalist, Australian Petria Thomas. Lia, however, is only 2.6% slower than she was before the transition in the 200 freestyle and 5.76% in the 500 free. It’s just not fair. “

Hogshead-Makar blames the situation on NCAA standards, and compares the situation for trans athletes with the one she experienced with female swimmers from the former East Germany. “I was on the national team in the years when East German swimmers dominated women’s competitions. We all knew they were cheating on anabolic steroids. If I won Olympic medals it was because the 1984 Games were boycotted. For me it was a relief. Those medals changed the trajectory of my life. In all those years competing against doped women they were only slightly better than me, but none of them competed against men. Also, if I had tested positive for testosterone once I would have been suspended for four years. If I had given twice, I would have been suspended for life. That’s because the World Anti-Doping Agency knows that its effects last much longer after use. “

Complaints on your own team

Hogshead-Makar’s letter was accompanied by a barrage of endorsements by former top-level athletes, such as Martina Navratilova, Chris Evert, Daley Thompson or the also Olympic medalist in swimming Sharron Davies. Beyond that, Cynthia MillenA referee for the American Swimming Federation for the past thirty years, she made her resignation public in protest at the decision to allow Thomas to swim with women: “It is a male body swimming against female bodies. I cannot participate in a sport that allows that. Complaints from a group of parents at the University of Pennsylvania about what they consider “a direct threat to female athletes in all sports” have also emerged. One of Thomas’s classmates also reported, anonymously, the swimmers’ complaints to Mike Cord, the team coach. ‘I think that, privately, everyone knows it is wrong. But our coach likes to win a lot.

Lia Thomas has assured that she expected the reactions to the contrary, but has defended herself by ensuring that she is on a continuous regimen of estrogen and testosterone blockers, and that she scrupulously complies with the regulations. “I am very proud of my times and my ability to keep swimming and keep competing. I am happy and my coaches, too. That’s what matters to me ”, he explained in a podcast on the specialized portal ‘SwimSwam’. Lia has found the support of the main US platforms in defense of the rights of transgender people.

Thomas is now focused on preparing for the college national championships, which will be held in March next year at Georgia Tech University’s McAuley Aquatic Center. It is the nursery that the Federation pulls to attract the great talents of the country. For Thomas it will be a double challenge: she will have to be ready to shine in the pool and withstand the indisputable social pressure to which she will be subjected.

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