UPenn swimmer comes out as trans / switches to women's team after competing on men's team for 3 years and is dominating NCAA

HBHS 220y wrote:

This just in from the Daily Mail: an unnamed U Penn teammate of Lia’s sounds off:

“'Women are now third-class citizens,' the swimmer said, noting Thomas wasn't as good a swimmer when competing against the men but thrived against women…'But just because Lia is biologically a man, she is just naturally better than many females in the 50 and the 100 or anything that she wasn't good at as a man.'“

“The top people at NCAA… are not protecting women's rights,' the Penn swimmer said. 'Imagine if there was this kind of inequality in men's sports? Or someone found out about doping in a men's sport. It would be fixed in a blink of an eye. Everyone would be all over it. But because it's women, they don't care.'”

It’s hard to argue with these points but, can the situation be repaired? RunRagged and others, please help me understand this (no rants, please): If the IOC has determined that M to F athletes can compete based on their gender identities without lowering testosterone (which, in itself, was not nearly enough to level the playing field), how can USA Swimming and USATF institute ANY rules that might keep any trans athletes out of the Olympics? That is, if “all are welcome” in the Olympic Women’s category, how can USA Swimming and USATF impose rules on “elite athletes” that would keep out of US national championships or US Olympic trials competition ANYONE who might qualify for the Olympic Games under IOC rules? There the national associations could clearly be taken to court for discrimination or I-don’t-know-what-else, no?

Isn’t there a basic conflict here that will have to be resolved in favor of the IOC standards, not the national associations’ standards, if the IOC holds to its totally misguided mandate?

Bob Schul fan wrote:

HBHS 220y wrote:

This just in from the Daily Mail: an unnamed U Penn teammate of Lia’s sounds off:

“'Women are now third-class citizens,' the swimmer said, noting Thomas wasn't as good a swimmer when competing against the men but thrived against women…'But just because Lia is biologically a man, she is just naturally better than many females in the 50 and the 100 or anything that she wasn't good at as a man.'“

“The top people at NCAA… are not protecting women's rights,' the Penn swimmer said. 'Imagine if there was this kind of inequality in men's sports? Or someone found out about doping in a men's sport. It would be fixed in a blink of an eye. Everyone would be all over it. But because it's women, they don't care.'”

It’s hard to argue with these points but, can the situation be repaired? RunRagged and others, please help me understand this (no rants, please): If the IOC has determined that M to F athletes can compete based on their gender identities without lowering testosterone (which, in itself, was not nearly enough to level the playing field), how can USA Swimming and USATF institute ANY rules that might keep any trans athletes out of the Olympics? That is, if “all are welcome” in the Olympic Women’s category, how can USA Swimming and USATF impose rules on “elite athletes” that would keep out of US national championships or US Olympic trials competition ANYONE who might qualify for the Olympic Games under IOC rules? There the national associations could clearly be taken to court for discrimination or I-don’t-know-what-else, no?

Isn’t there a basic conflict here that will have to be resolved in favor of the IOC standards, not the national associations’ standards, if the IOC holds to its totally misguided mandate?

Good for her, what these women should do is not compete in the races. The problem is that they have nobody speaking for them. What an optic if the gun went off and the only person to jump in the pool is that dude

RunRagged wrote:

The editor of Swimming World says "it is clear" Thomas is now holding back when racing to avoid the sort of attention garnered after trouncing women by far more massive margins in earlier events.

With Thomas producing splits of 52.14 and 50.98, it is clear that the Penn swimmer held back during the front half of the race and only shifted into a higher gear down the stretch. Thomas’ best for the season is her 1:41.93 outing from early December and it is highly likely that Thomas is sandbagging her races in order to avoid the additional attention she would garner with faster times.

Thomas... previously competed for three years as a member of the Quakers’ men’s program. Thomas was an average male swimmer before transitioning but is now ranked No. 1 in the NCAA in the 200 freestyle and 500 freestyle among female swimmers.

Link:www.swimmingworldmagazine.com/news/lia...

Ross Tucker of Science of Sport also suggested on Twitter today that Thomas is holding back. Tucker posted a graph showing that toward the end of one of the races Thomas won at the Ivy League Championships, Thomas slowed way down - apparently so the margin of victory would be less dramatic.

I haven't watched footage of the ILC yet myself, but apparently a male sports announcer covering one of the races that Thomas was in remarked that Thomas seemed to be hardly kicking.

Slo-Jo wrote:

RunRagged wrote:

Yup, there hasn't been such a remarkable improvement in national rankings since 2019 when another US college senior, CeCe Telfer, went from 390th in the men's NCAA Division II 400 hurdles to Number 1 - and National Champion - in the women's.

Link:www.letsrun.com/wp-content/uploads/201...

When I wrack my "silly lady brain" trying to figure out what athletes like Thomas and Telfer have going for them that other women don't, for some reason the title of the first album by the Sex Pistols' keeps coming to mind.

Link:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Never_Mind_the_B...

The thing is, anyone with common sense can easily see that natural born males that identify as women have an obvious unfair advantage when competing against natural born women in most sports. It is right in front of our eyes, yet the fringe progressives keep pushing this and swearing that the science does not show any notable advantage and anyone who says different is a bigot and deserves to have their opportunities taken away.

I see everything the progressives push now through this lens. They are so obviously wrong about this. When they tell me that their science shows that the covid vaccine is safe, or that Build Back Better won't result in me being taxed to death, I don't believe them. This single issue, where they are clearly wrong and either can't see it or refuse to admit it, destroys their credibility on everything else for me. This is so profoundly unfair, and I feel terrible for the women who trained so hard for these races only to have to swim against a physical male that they have no chance against. That just sucks.