Lia Thomas’ fight to compete

Per The Guardian, Thomas has not competed since new rules introduced by World Aquatics in 2022 prohibited anyone who has undergone “any part of male puberty” from the female category. Before the new rules, transgender women had been allowed to compete so long as their testosterone levels were lowered. But World Aquatics claims Thomas, and other swimmers like her, have retained significant physical advantages from “undergoing male puberty”.

Thomas has engaged the law firm Tyr and is taking the case to the court of arbitration for sport in Switzerland. The case could become a benchmark for other transgender swimmers.

Lia Thomas’ athletic and gender journey

Per the New Yorker, Thomas began swimming when she was five years old. Her talent was evident as she grew up, becoming one of the top swimmers in Texas. Her brother made it onto the men’s team at the University of Pennsylvania and she followed in his footsteps.

But despite her success in the water, something didn’t feel right. In an interview with Sports Illustrated, she said she began reading stories about transgender women online and was paired with a trans mentor through a group at Penn. After seeing her life in their stories, she realised she was not, in fact, a man.

It was the summer in 2018 that Thomas first realised she was transgender. In a rare interview with swimming news organisation SwimSwam, the athlete said she knew she was going to have to make a lot of decisions around her transition, and she also faced a tough journey deciding what to do with her career.

“I didn’t know what I would be able to do, if I would be able to keep swimming,” she revealed. “And so, I decided to swim out the 2018-2019 year as a man, without coming out, and that caused a lot of distress to me.”

Thomas said she was not in a good space, especially mentally: “It was a lot of unease, basically just feeling trapped in my body. It didn’t align. I decided it was time to come out and start my transition.”

In May 2019, she began hormone replacement therapy and told her Penn swim team later that year what she had been going through.

Lia Thomas hopes to be a role model for trans youth

At the start of her transgender journey, Thomas admitted that she did not compete much in swimming because she was “uncomfortable”, per Swim Swam. She explained that “being in the early stages of transition, it was a very awkward experience of basically being a woman competing in a men’s meet”.

Thomas added that, when she gets into the pool, she is not thinking of winning or breaking records, but just doing her best. “I just want to show trans kids and younger trans athletes that they’re not alone,” she said in her Sports Illustrated interview. She explained that nobody should have to choose between who they are and the sport they love.

Although her times were initially slower, she kept training and eventually began gaining ground. Her faster times didn’t sit well with some of her teammates though, and in early 2022, a group of University of Pennsylvania swimming parents sent a letter complaining that Thomas should not be allowed to compete in women’s competitions.

That UPenn complaint letter and further backlash

The letter was shown to the Daily Mail, and Thomas and her life story became global news. The story gained even more traction after famous open-water swimmer Diana Nyad wrote a column for The Washington Post, saying “the science, the biology … must drive the argument”.

The decision to allow Thomas to compete as a woman in swim meets was also met with multiple stories claiming how other swimmers were “upset and crying”. There was even a report about a USA Swimming official resigning because of Thomas’s inclusion in women’s races.

Per New York Post, Paula Scanlan, a former UPenn swimming teammate, testified at the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government in defence of women’s sports last year. She described how she and teammates felt uncomfortable having to change in front of Thomas before and after swim practice.

Despite the backlash, Thomas has pushed ahead. In her interview with Sports Illustrated, Thomas described being trans as “an amazing and beautiful experience”. She said that, throughout her swimming career, she realised she was only fully engaged when she became her real self.

Thomas added that she is grateful to those who had supported her throughout her journey: “After coming out and being my authentic self, I could really start to see a future.”