Ivy League OKs Lia Thomas for Swimming Championships

Lia Thomas
JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP via Getty Images
Neil Munro

The Ivy League will allow a man to race and win prizes in its upcoming women’s swimming championships at Harvard, according to Swimming World news site.

Thomas’s male body is stronger and longer than women swimmers, thus allowing him to drown multiple records earned by women.

The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) recently changed its sex-related rules to give the Ivy League an opportunity to quietly end the sex scandal before its February 16-19 championships. But the Ivy League’s officials are backing Thomas because they support the transgender claim that each person’s sex should be determined by their “gender identity” feelings, not by their male-or-female body.

“The recent rule changes do not impact Lia’s eligibility for this month’s Ivy League Women’s Swimming & Diving Championships as the effective date for this unprecedented midseason NCAA policy change begins with the 2022 NCAA Winter Championships,” an Ivy League spokesperson told Swimming World via email.

The decision was denounced by advocates for women’s sports:

The Ivy League’s progressive pressure to diversify the legal and cultural distinctions between men and women stands in sharp contrast to their vigilant policing of their own commercial interests. In 2013, for example, the New York Times described how Yale University sued a commercial rival for trademark violations of its name:

Terry Yang, founder of Yale Academy — or Y2 Academy, as it will be known as of Aug. 31 — said he never meant to confuse anyone. In fact, he said, he never meant to invoke the name of that famous, leading, prestigious, elite university. Instead, he just combined his last name — Yang — and that of his wife — Lee.

Sure, his company’s logo might have the same blue-and-white color scheme as that of the university, but so do the logos of countless other companies. And besides, blue is his favorite color. “No one has ever been confused between Yale Academy and Yale University,” he said.

That may not matter, explained James D. Weinberger, a partner at the law firm Fross Zelnick Lehrman & Zissu and an expert in trademark law. “A university’s name is its brand,” said Mr. Weinberger, who was not involved in the case. “The law says you’ve got an obligation to go out and police that brand. It’s a matter of consistency.”

However, a growing number of female athletes are looking for ways to protect their all-female sports society from solidarity-smashing male intrusion, amid threats by progressive men to their careers and social status.

The NCAA’s new rules may allow it to exclude — or include — Thomas from its own championships in March, when he is expected to break national records set by women. Swimming World reported:

The new NCAA policy regarding transgender athletes defers to national governing bodies for the purpose of determining eligibility in each sport, and if the NCAA were to immediately follow a strict version of USA Swimming’s new rule, no transgender athlete would be allowed to compete in the women’s category prior to showing that her concentration of testosterone in serum has been less than 5 nmol/L for a continuous period of 36 months. Thomas did not begin transitioning until the late spring of 2019, so that may make her ineligible for NCAAs.

However, there are several possible loopholes that may allow Thomas to compete after all. According to the NCAA’s January 20 release, the organization recommends “flexibility to allow for additional eligibility if a transgender student-athlete loses eligibility based on the policy change provided they meet the newly adopted standards.”

Democrats, including President Joe Biden, are doing nothing to preserve fair and level single-sex sports.

Amid Democrat silence, and with the polls showing massive opposition, former President Donald Trump is seizing the political opportunity. “We will ban men from participating in women’s sports,” he promised on January 29 during a Texas speech that mimicked a campaign rally.

He referred to the Thomas scandal, saying, “So ridiculous. Did you see the man who was on the swimming team at a certain school that I know very well? The [women’s swimming] record held for like 11 years. He beat it by 38 seconds.”

Trump’s statement got loud applause, unsurprisingly, because even pro-transgender advocates admit they have lost the public argument over sex-switching athletes.

Numerous polls show that the public — including liberal women — increasingly rejects the transgender ideology. The new opponents include many liberal-leaning, college-educated women and men who hated Trump and voted for Joe Biden in 2020.

 

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