This past month one woman in particular has been taking over the swimming community with her record breaking swims and that woman is Lia Thomas. Lia Thomas is a transgender athlete who swims for the University of Pennsylvania. She started her transition around 2019, but she is 22 years old now meaning she went through puberty as a male. I don’t mean this to be in any way transphobic, but should she really be allowed to compete with biological girls? 

Biological males are naturally more muscular. This means their times will most likely always be faster than girls. Thomas grew up as a male and started her swimming career as one. She was ranked 462nd in mens only two years ago and now she is ranked first in womens today. 

She has undergone two years of hormone treatment. The NCAA rule is athletes have to have at least 36 months worth of hormone treatment done before competing in the category they wish to compete in. While Lia has not reached 36 months yet, she will soon. I really don’t think it is fair to have someone who was biologically a male and has not even reached the proper amount of hormone treatment yet be swimming against girls. She is absolutely smashing women’s records, and her team is not very happy about it. 

Some of her teammates wrote a letter about their opinion on letting her compete. They think it is unfair to let Lia compete in the women’s division. NCAA and USA Swimming should make rules clearer from now on so athletes are not swimming in the wrong division or being singled out.