Trans Swimmer Lia Thomas: 'Trans Women Are Not A Threat To Women's Sports' [View all]

Transgender athlete Lia Thomas pushed back at her critics during her first sit down interview following her historic NCAA swimming championship win this spring, reiterating that “trans women are not a threat to women’s sports.”

“I intend to keep swimming,” she said in an interview with ABC News’ Good Morning America after making history in March as the first openly transgender athlete to win a NCAA Division I national championship in any sport.

Thomas graduated from the University of Pennsylvania this month after competing for three years on the men’s swim team and then on the women’s team this past season after transitioning. In that final season, after completing a year of hormone replacement therapy as required by the NCAA to change gender categories, she won the women’s 500-yard freestyle event with a season-best time of 4 minutes, 33.24 seconds. She said she now plans to attend law school with a goal of competing in the 2024 U.S. Olympic Team Trials.

“It’s been a goal of mine to swim at Olympic trials for a very long time, and I would love to see that through,” she said.

But her NCAA win was met with controversy with critics saying that she had an unfair, physical advantage against her female cisgender competitors. Some members on her own swim team said they support her as a trans woman but said she posed a threat to women’s sports and shouldn’t compete against cisgender women like them.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/lia-thomas-swimming-responds-to-critics_n_62961b37e4b0933e73784dce
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There is a great variation even among cis women athletes. Brittney Griner or Breanna Stewart =/= Suni Lee or Allyson Felix.