Former University of Pennsylvania Transgender Swimmer Lia Thomas recently spoke in support of the Trans Athlete community as most Americans have been against trans -cluttering in women’s sports.
Thomas talked about the question on Hitops Trans Youth Forum on Saturday.
“I will continue to fight as much as I am capable of,” Thomas said over Zoom.
“To fight for the matches we have to fight, we have to stay 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 swim team under the name Will Thomas.
But the previous NCAA -eligible policy allowed Trans to compete with and share dressing rooms with women, so Thomas exploited and continued to break more women’s posts.
Thomas was even the focus of mostly positive attention from mainstream-elder media in 2022, where he did sit-down interviews with ESPN, NBC News and “Good Morning America.”
Riley Gaines will send a ‘Taknote’ to Lia Thomas-Her is why
The University of Pennsylvania Swimmer Lia Thomas and Kentucky Swims Riley Gaines respond after tying to the fifth in the 200 Freestyle final at the NCAA swimming and diving championship on March 18, 2022 in Atlanta. (Rich von Biberstein/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
But three years later, President Donald Trump has ordered a national ban on trans athletes in women’s sports, NCAA has changed its policy to prevent biological men from competing on female teams, and data suggests that the vast majority of Americans are against trans -cladding in women’s sports.
But Thomas believes that the policies of Trans Athlet Inclusion should be left to the Trans Athletes themselves.
“It must be the athletes who decide themselves where they feel most confirmed and most comfortable,” she said. “Having routes that are safe and non-discriminatory that give them access to it.”
Thomas’ inclusion of the women’s swim team in Upenn in the 2021-22 season has led to several lawsuits and a break in $ 175 million in federal funding to the University of violations of Title IX.
Riley Gaines is currently leading a lawsuit against NCAA with several other women competing with Thomas in 2021-22, over its former gender identity policy.
How transgenderism in sports changed the election in 2024 and ignited a national counterculture
Penn’s Lia Thomas after swimming the 100 freestyle prelims at the NCAA -Swimming and Diving Championship on March 19, 2022 in Atlanta. (Rich von Biberstein/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
In February, three of Thomas ‘former teammates brought a lawsuit against the university, Ivy League and NCAA, who tried to have all Thomas’ records in the women’s category recalled, while also claiming the university was pushing pro-trans ideology on the team.
The three former women’s swimmers, Grace Estabrook, Margot Kaczorowski and Ellen Holmquist, claim that the institutions, by competing to compete “wounded them and violated the federal law.”
“The Upenn administrators told the women that if anyone struggled to accept Thomas’ participation in Upenn Women’s team, they should seek advice and support from Caps and LBGTQ Center,” the trial claims.
“The administrators also invited the women to a speech entitled ‘Trans 101.’ Thus, the women were led to understand that Upenn’s attitude was that if a woman on the team had some problem with a transidentifying man who was on her team, that woman had a psychological problem and the necessary advice.
Meanwhile after the 2022 university season, Thomas made an attempt to compete in the Olympics as a woman but was denied. The world’s aquatics changed its policy later that year to ban any trans athlete that underwent male puberty from competing in the women’s category.
Thomas lost a court challenge to this rule in 2024.
“I felt so ruined and [felt] Grief over losing this access to my sport, “Thomas said Saturday.” There was no doubt that I would fight for this, that this is also my sport and I will not just give it up. ”
A recent New York Times/Ipsos Survey Found the vast majority of Americans, including a majority of Democrats, do not think transnry athletes should be allowed to compete in women’s sports. Of the 2,128 people who were examined, 79% biological men who identify themselves as women said should not be allowed to participate in women’s sports.
Of the 1,025 people who identified themselves as Democrats or inclined Democrat, 67%said transkon athletes should not be allowed to compete with women.
Lia Thomas competes in the 200 meter freestyle during a NCAA College meeting against Harvard University on January 22, 2022 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. (AP Photo/Josh Reynolds)
ONE National Exit Poll Made by the affected women for America Legislative Action Committee found that 70% of moderate voters saw the issue of “Donald Trump’s resistance to trans -bright boys and men playing girls and women’s sports and by transient boys and men using girls and women’s bathrooms” as important to them. In addition, 6% said it was the most important question of all, while 44% said it was “very important.”
Gaines, who notorious Founded Thomas at the 2022 NCAA championships, has since become a prominent conservative political influencer and believes that Thomas’ inclusion in the women’s category played strongly in the result of the 2024 election.
“I think we should send a tak note to people like Will Thomas, I really do, signed and sealed by me. I want to sign the tak note, I want to write it because I think he handed us the election,” Gaine’s former Pakinomist Digital said.
