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HOLLYWOOD – Trans swimmer Lia Thomas has resurfaced after largely disappearing from public view.
On Thursday night in Los Angeles, the former UPenn swimmer, born William Thomas, arrived at Serra on Vine wearing a purple dress and stilettos — standing about 6-foot-5 — to accept the “Voice of Inspiration Award” at the 2025 Violet Visionary Awards.
The event, organized by the nonprofit Rainbow Labs, was sponsored in part by Los Angeles sports organizations such as the Dodgers and the LA Football Club.
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Penn Quakers swimmer Lia Thomas finishes eighth in the 100 freestyle at the NCAA Swimming & Diving Championships at Georgia Tech in Atlanta, Georgia on March 19, 2022. (Brett Davis/USA TODAY Sports)
Leading up to Thomas’ speech, a mention of the Dodgers’ sponsorship drew light applause from the crowd, although no one from the team spoke during the program.
LAFC, Dodgers among those supporting Thomas and LGBT activists
After mingling with the audience and performing two drag performances, Lia Thomas took the stage to accept the Voice of Inspiration Award and continued to double down on finding purpose in trans activism.
But before that, a video montage played about Thomas tracing the path from competing on the men’s team as William Thomas to joining the women’s competition in 2022 as Lia Thomas.
Thomas was portrayed as an athlete fighting for acceptance while facing backlash.
“Amazing shout out to everyone at Rainbow Labs for bringing me here and everyone and putting it all together,” Thomas started.
Thomas, 26, received the “Voice of Inspiration Award” at the 2025 Violet Visionary Awards in Los Angeles on Thursday night. (Alejandro Avila/OutKick)
“It makes me very emotional because I remember all too well not too long ago I was 18 and just realized I’m trans.”
Thomas, 26, continued: “And I felt so excited at the prospect of being able to be who I am, but felt so scared to take those steps because I didn’t know other trans people. I didn’t – I barely knew what it meant to be trans.
“Being open and out there felt like this impossible mountain to climb and I didn’t know if I had the strength to do it.”
Thomas credited having trans mentors who helped the swimmer reconcile a trans identity with athletics.
Thomas said: “It’s only because of so many amazing, amazing trans mentors that I was able to find the strength and courage to come out and be myself and finally reconcile my ‘transness’ and my swimmer identity and be able to compete as a now trans woman.”
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Lia Thomas calls Trans Platform ‘My Purpose’
After Thomas entered the competition, female athletes, including OutKick’s Riley Gaines, spoke up to condemn men playing in women’s sports.
During the 2024 campaign trail, then-President-elect Donald Trump proved to be a big supporter of Gaines and other women, raising concerns about competing against men.
Their influence led to Trump’s executive order banning biological males from competing in women’s sports.
The president even paused federal funding to the University of Pennsylvania to allow Thomas to compete with women, though UPenn eventually became the third school to reject the president’s funding terms.
“And I’m so grateful for them — for those people and those mentors — and I’m so glad that organizations like Rainbow Labs exist,” Thomas added, saying people reached out on social media with “messages of violence.”
Thomas, 26, received the “Voice of Inspiration Award” at the 2025 Violet Visionary Awards in Los Angeles on Thursday night. (Alejandro Avila/OutKick)
“If I had had an organization like that as a kid to give me knowledge and language to describe my transness, how important that would have been. Because I was subjected to a lot of harassment. I got a lot of messages about violence against me in my Instagram comments and DMs. I didn’t know what to do.”
Speakers throughout the night evoked LGBT Americans who live under oppression and hailed transgender-identifying people as the event’s heroes.
Nearly 70 percent of Americans oppose transgender athletes competing in women’s sports, and Thomas’ inclusion has also sparked controversy over allowing men to share women’s locker rooms.
Thomas remains undeterred, even after all the controversy, calling a platform as an influential trans figure “my purpose.”
EX-UPENN SWIMMER LIA THOMAS RECEIVES ‘VOICE OF INSPIRATION’ AWARD AT DODGERS-SPONSORED EVENT
Penn transgender swimmer Lia Thomas talks with her coach after winning the 500-meter freestyle during an NCAA college swimming meet with Harvard at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., on Jan. 22, 2022. (AP Photo/Josh Reynolds)
“But I owe so much to those mentors before me that it was kind of clear that I was going to be the next beacon in a line of torches going back hundreds of years for transgender people. That was my purpose. That’s what I was here to do,” Thomas said.
“And then to be able to be the next light for people is an honor I can’t describe. It means more than anything. And I’m so grateful for the opportunity to do that. And so thank you all.”
Since Thomas’ entry into collegiate women’s swimming (presided over by the NCAA), women’s rights activists such as Riley Gaines—having competed against Thomas—have called out the loss of opportunities and awards for women due to the inclusion of trans athletes, which networks such as ESPN have promoted.
Lia Thomas was quiet but won’t go away
As more people spoke out against Thomas and similar cases, such as trans volleyball player Blaire Fleming, Thomas began to lose some of the favor accorded the media.
The tone of the evening reflected an attempt to shift mainstream American culture toward a fuller embrace of LGBT identity and activism.
“We are a community of queer fans, community leaders, supporters and activists from the Los Angeles Football Club. And if you don’t know, we follow sports because we’ve always been here. We’ve been athletes, we’ve been fans, we’ve been lovers of the sport.
“And so our presence with this club reminds not only the club, the community, but the world that we’ve always been here. And so we cheer, full of joy and love for our local community, but we also represent for our queer people, and we’re so proud to be there every step of the way.”
After all the awards had been handed out – one also went to a gender non-conforming trans woman named “Alok” – the event ended with a stripper show.
For an evening devoted to inspiration, the show’s final acts offered a strikingly different message.
