Controversial transgender swimmer Lia Thomas vows to fight trans athlete bans amid national shift on issue
Former University of Pennsylvania transgender swimmer Lia Thomas recently spoke up in support of the trans athlete community as most Americans have become opposed to trans inclusion in women's sports.
Thomas spoke up about the issue at the HiTOPS trans youth forum on Saturday.
"I am going to keep fighting as much as I am able to," Thomas said over Zoom.
"In order to fight the battles we need to fight, we have to stick together and support each other."
Thomas' recent comments come three years after the athlete was allowed to swim in the women's category for UPenn at the 2022 Ivy League championships and NCAA championships. Thomas previously competed for the university's men's swimming team under the name Will Thomas.
But the previous NCAA gender eligibility policy allowed trans athletes to compete with and share locker rooms with women, so Thomas took advantage and went on to break multiple women's records.
Thomas was even the focus of mostly-positive attention from the mainstream legacy media in 2022, doing sit-down interviews with ESPN, NBC News and "Good Morning America."
But three years later, President Donald Trump has ordered a national ban on trans athletes in women's sports, the NCAA has amended its policy to keep biological males from competing on women's teams, and data suggests the vast majority of Americans oppose trans inclusion in women's sports.
But Thomas believes the policies of trans athlete inclusion should be left up to the trans athletes themselves.
"It has to be the athletes deciding for themselves where they feel most affirmed and most comfortable," she said. "Having routes that are safe and non-discriminatory, that allow them access to that."
Thomas' inclusion on the women's swimming team at UPenn in the 2021-22 season has prompted multiple lawsuits and a pause in $175 million in federal funding to the university for Title IX violations.
Riley Gaines currently leads a lawsuit against the NCAA, alongside several other women who competed with Thomas in 2021-22, over its previous gender identity policy.
In February, three of Thomas' former teammates filed a lawsuit against the university, the Ivy League and the NCAA, seeking to have all of Thomas' records in the women's category revoked, while also alleging the university pushed pro-trans ideology on the team.
The three former women's swimmers, Grace Estabrook, Margot Kaczorowski and Ellen Holmquist, claim that by allowing Thomas to compete, the institutions "injured them and violated federal law."
"The UPenn administrators told the women that if anyone was struggling with accepting Thomas's participation on the UPenn Women's team, they should seek counseling and support from CAPS and the LBGTQ center," the lawsuit alleges.
"The administrators also invited the women to a talk titled, 'Trans 101.' Thus, the women were led to understand that UPenn's position was that if a woman on the team had any problem with a trans-identifying male being on her team, that woman had a psychological problem and needed counseling."
Meanwhile, after the 2022 college season, Thomas made an attempt to compete in the Olympics as a woman, but was denied. World Aquatics amended its policy later that year to prohibit any trans athlete who went through male puberty from competing in the women's category.
Thomas lost a court challenge to that rule in 2024.
"I felt so devastated and [felt] grief over losing this access to my sport," Thomas said Saturday. "There was no doubt in my mind that I was going to fight this, that this is my sport too, and I'm not just gonna give it up."
A recent New York Times/Ipsos survey found the vast majority of Americans, including a majority of Democrats, don't think transgender athletes should be permitted to compete in women's sports. Of the 2,128 people polled, 79% said biological males who identify as women should not be allowed to participate in women's sports.
Of the 1,025 people who identified as Democrats or leaning Democrat, 67% said transgender athletes should not be allowed to compete with women.
A national exit poll conducted by the Concerned Women for America legislative action committee found that 70% of moderate voters saw the issue of "Donald Trump's opposition to transgender boys and men playing girls' and women's sports and of transgender boys and men using girls' and women's bathrooms" as important to them. Additionally, 6% said it was the most important issue of all, while 44% said it was "very important."
Gaines, who infamously tied Thomas at the 2022 NCAA championships, has since become a prominent conservative political influencer and believes Thomas' inclusion in the women's category played heavily into the outcome of the 2024 election.
"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 believe he handed us the election," Gaines previously told Fox News Digital.
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