The former transgender swimmer of the University of Pennsylvania, Lia Thomas, recently spoke in support of the Trans athletes community, since most Americans have opposed trans inclusion in women’s sports.
Thomas talked about the theme in the Young Mileps forum on Saturday.
“I’m going to keep fighting as much as I can,” Thomas said about Zoom.
“To fight the battles we need to fight, we have to stay together and support each other.”
The recent comments of Thomas occur three years after the athlete was allowed to swim in the women’s category for UPENN in the Ivy 2022 League championships and the NCAA championships. Thomas previously competed for the University’s male swimming team under the name of Will Thomas.
But the previous gender eligibility policy of the NCAA allowed Trans athletes to compete and share the costumes with women, so Thomas took advantage and then broke multiple women’s records.
Thomas was even the focus of the most positive attention of the main media inherited in 2022, making interviews with ESPN, NBC News and “Good Morning America”.
Riley Gaines wants to send a ‘thanks note’ to Lia Thomas, here is why
The swimmer of the University of Pennsylvania, Lia Thomas, and the swimmer of Kentucky, Riley Gaines, react after drawing in fifth place in the 200 free style in the NCAA swimming and diving championships on March 18, 2022, in Atlanta. (Rich von Biberstein/Icon Sportswire through Getty Images)
But three years later, President Donald Trump ordered a national prohibition of trans athletes in women’s sports, NCAA has modified their policy to prevent biological men from competing in women’s teams, and data suggest that the vast majority of Americans oppose trans inclusion in women’s sports.
But Thomas believes that the policies of the inclusion of trans athletes must be left to trans athletes themselves.
“It has to be the athletes who decide for themselves where they feel more affirmed and more comfortable,” he said. “Have safe and non -discriminatory routes, which allow them to access that.”
The inclusion of Thomas in the Women’s Swimming team in UPENN in the 2021-22 season has caused multiple demands and a pause in $ 175 million in federal funds for the university for violations of the title IX.
Riley Gaines currently leads a lawsuit against NCAA, along with several other women who competed with Thomas in 2021-22, for their previous gender identity policy.
How the transgender in sports changed the 2024 elections and lit a national counterculture
Lia Thomas de Penn after swimming the 100 free style preliminary in the NCAA swimming and diving championships on March 19, 2022 in Atlanta. (Rich von Biberstein/Icon Sportswire through Getty Images)
In February, three of Thomas’s former teammates filed a lawsuit against the University, the Ivy League and the NCAA, who sought to have all Thomas’s records in the revocated female category, while alleged that the University promoted the Pro-Trans ideology in the team.
The three former female swimmers, Grace Estabrook, Margot Kaczorowski and Ellen Holmquist, claim that by allowing Thomas to compete, the institutions “wounded them and violated the federal law.”
“UPENN administrators told women that if someone was struggling to accept Thomas’s participation in the UpenN Women’s team, they must seek advice and support from CAPS and the LBGTQ center,” he alleges the demand.
“The administrators also invited women to a talk entitled, ‘Trans 101.’ Therefore, women were led to understand that Upenn’s position was that if a woman in the team had a problem with a trans identification man in her team, that woman had a psychological problem and needed advice. “
Meanwhile, after the university season of 2022, Thomas tried to compete in the Olympic Games as a woman, but was denied. World Aquatics modified its policy later that year to prohibit any trans athlete that has gone through male puberty compete in the women’s category.
Thomas lost a judicial challenge to that rule in 2024.
“I felt so devastated and [felt] Duel for losing this access to my sport, “Thomas said on Saturday.” There was no doubt in my mind that I was going to fight this, that this is my sport too, and I will not only give up. ”
A recent one New York Times/Ipsos Survey He discovered that the vast majority of Americans, including most Democrats, do not believe that transgender athletes are allowed to compete in women’s sports. Of the 2,128 people surveyed, 79% said that biological men who identify as women should not be allowed to participate in women’s sports.
Of the 1,025 people who identified themselves as Democrats or inclined Democrats, 67% said that transgender athletes should not be able to compete with women.
Lia Thomas competes in the 200 -meter freestyle during a university meeting from the NCAA against Harvard University on January 22, 2022 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. (AP Photo/Josh Reynolds)
TO national output survey Made by the Legislative Women’s Action Committee for Women for America, it found that 70% of moderate voters saw the issue of “Donald Trump’s opposition to transgender children and men who interpret sports of girls and women and women and transgender men and men who use girls and women’s baths” as is important for them. In addition, 6% said it was the most important issue of all, while 44% said it was “very important.”
Gaines, who infamously tied Thomas in the NCAA Championship of 2022, has become an outstanding conservative politician and believes that the inclusion of Thomas in the category of women played largely in the result of the 2024 elections.
“I think we should send a thank you note to people like Will Thomas, I really do, signed and sealed by me. I will sign the thank you note, I will write it, because I think it gave us the elections,” Gaines told Pak Gazette Digital.
