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Before Lia Thomas’ infamous draw with Riley Gaines at the 2022 NCAA championships, the women’s swimmers in the Ivy League and their families witnessed the influence that the former University of Pennsylvania Swimmer had on the sport – close by.
In a TRI meeting in regular season against Yale and Dartmouth on January 8, 2022, Thomas won 200 freestyle and 500 freestyle.
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Lia Thomas of the University of Pennsylvania competes in a freestyle event against Yale and Dartmouth at Sheerr pool on Penn’s campus on January 8, 2022 in Philadelphia. (Hunter Martin/Getty Images)
It was the first time Kim Jones, the mother of the former Yale -Kvindes swimmer Raime Jones, so Thomas Swim in person.
“Oh my gosh, I can’t, I mean he was huge. It felt like a joke,” Kim Jones told Pakinomist Digital. “It took everything I had inside, not to cry … you think someone will stop this rubbish, and then see it unfold, it felt like Twilight Zone.”
Jones and her daughter both knew that Thomas would be at the meeting that went into it. But then, to see it playing out in real time, triggers an emotional reaction from the whole family.
“My daughter, she was super disturbed. She had spent days preparing to meet a man,” Jones said. “My daughter was 6 feet tall and broad -shouldered, very athletic, and he just dwared her completely, both in the width of his shoulders and at his height.”
“Nobody thought it was right, but no one could stop it. You just felt you were watching a raging train and I remember I was walking out of the plant and just breaking down tears.”
But for Kim Jones, it was neither the end to see Thomas beat his daughter at that meeting or the beginning, of the emotional toll that the situation was taking on her and her family.
“The girls had already been drawn into compulsory meetings over the Ivy League and really been bullied and silenced,” Jones said. “They had been drawn to meetings and told, ‘don’t talk to the media. This is not your fight. Let the men who are responsible for NCAA decide what to do. Your school and your league have already decided their attitude, you signed up for this.’ There was a lot of gas lights.
“They even said ‘It was your job to keep your families quiet.'”
Pakinomist Digital has reached Yale, Upenn and Ivy League for comment.
Jones remembered an alleged pointless phone call with a representative from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), where she tried to invoke her case, but was allegedly told that if she “did not agree with” Thomas competing against women, she could “always write a letter.” Pakinomist Digital has reached ACLU for comment.
“And I remember I was hanging and thinking,” you have no idea what I could do, “she said.
So Jones began a mission to create consequences.
She started by writing anonymous up-eds about the situation while encouraging other Ivy League parents to do the same. But she was not satisfied.
“I knew an organization should exist,” Jones said.
This option came weeks after Thomas’ controversial NCAA championship appearance, where the trans -athlete won the women’s 500 freestyle and tied with Gaines in 200 freestyle.
Then Gaines himself helped connect Jones with another person with the same idea, former University of Arizona Women’s Swammer Marshi Smith. Smith had seen the controversy with Thomas playing far. But it still hit close to home like a former woman’s swimmer herself.
The former Upenn -Swimmer reflects on being teammates with Lia Thomas in the middle of Trump Admin -s victory over the university
Smith, a former six-time Allamerican, was the 2005 NCAA champion in 100 backstroke. But Smith, who remembers the pressure and stressed by preparing for that championship in 2005, believes it pale in comparison to the experience of preparing to meet a man.
“I can’t imagine having to go on the deck, knowing that every media camera in the world is outside, the whole meeting is shooting because they know you’re ready to run a man,” Smith told Pakinomist Digital. “We train with men all season, we have the same trainer, I am very aware of the differences between male and female swimmers, so knowing that and going on the deck would have been so defeated at that time.”
Smith’s experience of competing against men randomly and practice pressed her to aggressively question fairness that Thomas was allowed to compete competitively in college.
“Never once in my mind would I ever seriously consider or judge myself in comparison to any of my male teammates,” Smith said. “The first time I ever imagined the scenario was with Lia Thomas in NCAA.”
So together, Jones and Smith connected the common goal of activism. Smith had already rented a stand at the year’s NCAA -year conference that took place in Smith’s hometown of Las Vegas. Her original plan was just to hand out flyers and hope for a conversation with some visitors athletic instructors.
“[Kim] said, ‘We’ll do much more than that,’ Smith said.
The two former women’s athletes undertook a three-day conference entitled “The Birth of Icons.”
It was the initial event for the independent advice of women’s sports and included panel interviews with women’s athletes, legal experts, medical experts and women’s tennis legislative Martina Navratilova.
“I don’t know how we pulled it off,” Jones said. “I think everything just fell into place.”
The group continued to finance the legal costs of Gaines vs. The NCAA Case, which it announced in March 2024. Suit, led by Gaines, includes a plaintiff list of other women’s NCAA athletes affected by Thomas’s participation and has since expanded to include other plaintiffs affected by men in women’s sports.
Icons also finances individual litigation against the Upenn of three of Thomas’ former teammates and a case against Mountain West and San Jose State University about complaints involving trans volleyball player Blaire Fleming.
