The success of transgender swimmer Lia Thomas creates a stir – Liberation

Four women standing on a podium, wet hair and nautical suits on their backs, with a satisfied eye, pose with a trophy in their hands. On the highest step, a woman, alone, Lia Thomas, twenty-two, smiles shyly. His gold medal hangs around his neck. On her left, three swimmers, her competitors who arrived a fraction of a second after her, hug each other proudly. It’s Thursday, March 17, and swimmer Lia Thomas wins the final of the 500 yards – 457 meters – women’s freestyle at the Ivy League University Championship in Atlanta.

The cliché could have been harmless. However, he has toured the world, parading on social networks like wildfire, causing sighs and controversy. Conservatives frown: Lia Thomas is a transgender woman. The first to glean a university title.

Four years ago, the Pennsylvania college student was still swimming in the men’s lanes. In the summer of 2019, Lia Thomas begins her transition. For twelve months, she discreetly undergoes hormonal treatment to suppress testosterone required by the american university association, the NCAA. Since the resumption of post-covid competition, Lia Thomas has been competing in the “woman” category.

Inclusivity vs Biology

During qualifying for the final phase of the university championship late last year, Hungarian swimmer Reka Gyorgy, of Virginia Tech University, openly opposed – for the first time among her competitors – Lia’s participation. Thomas in the women’s playoffs. Finishing in 17th position for sixteen places – therefore deprived of qualification –, she declared on leaving the pool: “I would like to criticize the NCAA rules that allow her to compete with us, who are biologically female.

In January, sixteen teammates of Lia Thomas came out of their reserve, but anonymously this time, supporting the Hungarian Gyorgy. Shortly after, Nancy Hogshead-Makar, the 1984 Olympic swimming gold medalist and director of Champion Women, an advocacy organization for women’s sport, also commented:Biologically, Lia holds an unfair advantage over the competition in the women’s category, as evidenced by her ranking, which jumped from 462 as a male to pole position as a female.In a column published this Wednesday, the Washington Post ask a question: «Since when is genetics right?“, recalling then that the genetic heritage of everyone is “a lotterywhich permanently distinguishes us from each other.

The University of Pennsylvania and the Ivy League continued to support their student in early January, claiming to be “inclusive” and of “condemn transphobia“. Insults rain down, on social networks or in the corridors of the university of Lia Thomas. No matter, they in no way prevent him from stringing together good aquatic performances. After her university title on March 17, she said she did not want to think about current controversies: “I try to focus on my swimming, what I need to do to get ready for my races and I try to block out everything else.»

Changing Rules

But since his victory, the case has become political. Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who last year banned transgender women from school athletic competitions, slammed a communicated accusing the swimmer ofundermine the integrity of the championship». «My determination: that men are not in competition with women“, he added, before continuing in his momentum: “We need to stop allowing organizations like the NCAA to defraud the public. And that’s exactly what they do.“He then refused to recognize the success of Lia Thomas, applauding his runner-up for her performance.

In the sports movement, the case of Lia Thomas is also causing a stir. Sebastien Coe, president of World Athletics, the international umbrella organization for athletics federations, said nearby Times last week that the presence of transgender athletes could distort the competition. “Gender cannot trump biology”he says, calling on sports federations to regulate the participation of transgender sportswomen.

The NCAA preferred not to take sides, leaving it to the sports federations to set rules concerning transgender people. The controversy growing, the American Swimming Federation, Swimming USA, changed its rules on February 1st. Two new directives have been adopted. Each transgender sportswoman will have to prove, in front of a jury formed for the occasion, that her previous physical development as a man “does not give it a competitive advantage over its rivals“. Then, the testosterone concentration of transgender swimmers must be less than 5 nanomoles per liter, instead of 10 previously, and this for at least three years, against one year previously. The level of testosterone can indeed be lowered by taking antagonist hormones. This new protocol, not having been adopted by all the universities, does not yet concern Lia Thomas.

At an international level, the International Olympic Committee renounced last November – and this after two years of consultations – to set a precise testosterone concentration threshold. He prefers to delegate to each international sports federation the task of determining who it will qualify for the Olympic events. We could thus, for example, see transgender athletes compete in archery but not in the long jump, depending on what everyone has decided.