Penn transgender swimmer Lia Thomas speaks out about backlash, future plans to compete

“I intend to maintain swimming,” Thomas instructed ABC Information’ Juju Chang in an interview that aired Tuesday on “Good Morning America.” “It has been a objective of mine to swim at Olympic trials for a really very long time, and I might like to see that by way of.”

Thomas, of Austin, Texas, gained gold within the 500-yard freestyle on the NCAA championships in March, turning into the primary feminine swimmer in Penn’s historical past to win a person nationwide title, in keeping with the college.

After competing for 3 years on Penn’s males’s swimming group, Thomas additionally made historical past in that race as the primary transgender athlete to win an NCAA division title in any sport.

Lia Thomas of Penn Quakers wins Ivy League swim championship

“It was a objective of mine to be at that meet and do in addition to I might,” mentioned Thomas, who competed in three races on the championships. “So to have the ability to fulfill that non-public objective and be at that meet in addition to the kind of achievement of competing as my genuine self was simply such a tremendous expertise, to have these items that I have been working in the direction of for thus lengthy all come collectively.”

Assigned male at delivery, Thomas mentioned she fell in love with swimming at age 4, however as she grew older she mentioned she felt more and more disconnected to her physique, explaining, “I did not really feel like I used to be a boy.”

“After I was a younger child, my mother at all times would describe me as a really comfortable child,” mentioned Thomas. “After which kind of in center college and highschool, as I, like, went by way of puberty, that shifted just a little bit, with gender dysphoria from being trans, however I did not have, I did not but know or have the language to explain that.”

‘I’m a lady’: Transgender UPenn swimmer Lia Thomas shares story in Sports activities Illustrated interview

After highschool, Thomas earned a spot on the boys’s swimming group at Penn, her dream college.

However by her sophomore 12 months in school, Thomas mentioned her gender dysphoria plunged her right into a deep despair, and she or he struggled with suicidal ideas.

“I used to be barely going to courses. I might actually barely get off the bed,” she recalled. “I mentioned, ‘I can not reside like this anymore. I need to reside once more. I need to have the ability to do issues I get pleasure from.’”

Thomas mentioned a concern of not with the ability to compete within the sport she liked saved her from transitioning initially.

By 2019 although, on the finish of her sophomore 12 months, Thomas mentioned she started hormone substitute remedy, a “gender-affirming remedy [that] makes use of feminine hormones to create a extra female look,” in keeping with The Cleveland Clinic.

“The psychological and emotional adjustments truly occurred in a short time,” mentioned Thomas. “I used to be feeling so much higher mentally. I used to be much less depressed.”

She continued, “And I misplaced muscle mass and I turned so much weaker and so much, so much slower within the water.”

Thomas started swimming on Penn’s ladies’s swimming group firstly of her senior 12 months, following NCAA pointers that athletes should full one 12 months of hormone substitute remedy to alter gender classes.

The scrutiny over Thomas grew the extra she achieved success within the pool.

In response to critics who say Thomas transitioned with a view to win extra swimming medals, she reiterated that isn’t the case.

“Trans individuals do not transition for athletics,” she mentioned. “We transition to be comfortable and genuine and our true selves. Transitioning to get a bonus is just not one thing that ever elements into our selections.”

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In January, the NCAA up to date its transgender athlete eligibility pointers to say that every sport’s nationwide governing physique might make their very own guidelines. Beforehand, the NCAA had a uniform hormone remedy requirement throughout all sports activities, in keeping with ESPN. USA Swimming, the game’s nationwide governing physique, has used a assessment panel to make particular person determinations on a case-by-case foundation since 2018.

The NCAA then introduced it could wait till subsequent season to implement the brand new pointers, which cleared the best way for Thomas to compete as a feminine on the 2022 NCAA championships.

In February, only one month after the NCAA’s announcement, 16 of her Penn teammates and a few of their mother and father signed an nameless letter arguing she posed a menace to ladies’s sports activities. The letter said that whereas the signers supported Thomas’ proper to transition, they thought it was unfair that she compete in opposition to cisgender ladies.

“You’ll be able to’t go midway and be, like, ‘I help trans ladies and trans individuals, however solely to a sure level,’” Thomas mentioned in response to her teammates’ letters. “The place when you help trans ladies as ladies they’ve met all of the NCAA necessities, then I do not know when you can actually say one thing like that.”

She continued, “Trans ladies aren’t a menace to ladies’s sports activities.”

Whereas the science on transgender athletes is new and evolving, some medical specialists say the impact of upper testosterone throughout male puberty might by no means be totally erased.

Dr. Michael Joyner of the Mayo Clinic instructed ABC Information that with hormone remedy, there are bodily facets of males which will stay amongst trans ladies. For a swimmer like Lia Thomas, these bodily facets could also be “activated” because of the sport.

“There’s going to be some loss to skeletal muscle mass, there’s going to be some improve in physique fats — these could be the 2 most blatant issues,” Joyner mentioned. “However issues like hand measurement, lung measurement, toes measurement — that is not going to alter a lot. And naturally, as a result of as , swimming, it is such an intense sport and other people prepare so laborious, that she goes to proceed to have a big train stimulus to these skeletal muscle groups.”

Regardless of current proof of what occurs to a trans individual’s physique after hormone remedy, Thomas mentioned she views herself within the context of different feminine athletes, all of whom differ in measurement, power and skill.

“I am not a medical skilled, however there’s lots of variation amongst cis feminine athletes,” she mentioned. “There are cis ladies who’re very tall and really muscular and have extra testosterone than one other cis lady, and may that then additionally disqualify them?”

The controversy surrounding Thomas’ collegiate swimming profession coincided with greater than a dozen states, together with Oklahoma, Arizona and Florida, instituting bans to forestall trans college students from collaborating in sports activities that align with their gender identification.

Analysis from the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention discovered that trans youth typically report feeling remoted and excluded in tutorial environments. That discrimination places them at elevated threat for poor psychological well being, suicide, substance abuse, violence and different well being dangers.

Thomas mentioned she doesn’t see it as a suitable possibility to forestall transgender individuals from competing in sports activities, or to restrict them to competing solely in opposition to one another or themselves, like in a separate swimming lane, for instance.

“Along with not permitting the total athletic expertise, that is extremely othering to trans individuals who already face immense discrimination in different elements of our lives,” she mentioned. “To then once more have this discrimination in sports activities and be, like, ‘Oh, OK, you’ll be able to swim, however solely over there, like in that lane.’ It’s totally othering.”

Talking of her personal expertise of ready longer to transition as a result of she wished to compete in swimming, Thomas added, “I do not suppose trans individuals ought to should make that call. It’s one thing that precipitated me lots of private stress and I do not need different trans individuals to should face that alternative.”

Thomas graduated from Penn in Could and has mentioned she plans to attend regulation college, along with persevering with to compete in hopes of reaching the 2024 U.S. Olympic Group Trials.

The spotlight of her school commencement, in keeping with Thomas, was listening to her title referred to as as Lia Thomas.

“After I truly obtained to stroll throughout the stage and listen to them say my title and stroll throughout, it was very cool,” she mentioned, describing her emotion in that second as “pure pleasure.”