So, stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Biological male who decides he’s a woman, gets permission to compete in women’s athletics, and then proceeds to use his natural physical advantages to dominate all the biological females.
Okay, don’t stop me.
Otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to tell you about a man named Tia Thompson. Thompson, 32, is a transgender volleyball player from Hawaii, who, after competing as a male in all USA Volleyball events up until this year, obtained permission from USA Volleyball to compete as a female.
Shockingly, Thompson has become a massive force in the female division, and has a legit chance at qualifying for the Olympics.
Thompson told NBC4, “It’s a touchy subject because volleyball is a main sport here. Because of my religious background with my dad’s side and my mom’s side, we didn’t speak of it, but we knew. As soon as I turned 18 and I moved out, I started transitioning and started taking hormones.”
That hormone therapy, among other things, made it possible for Thompson to obtain eligibility to compete as a woman:
USAV requires transgender women to undergo hormone replacement therapy consistently for at least one year — with proper documentation — and they also have to change their identification, like passports and birth certificates, to female. Before, some organizations, including the Olympics, would require trans athletes to have sex reassignment surgery.
“It took me three years to finally get approved with all the transitioning and all the hormone therapy and submitting all my paperwork to the gender committee,” Thompson told NBC4.
Also, according to NBC4, “There has been some push back from the community. Players and parents we spoke to who did not want to be on camera say it’s not fair for teams with biological women because it creates an unrealistic level of competition.”
Not that anyone at USA Volleyball cares.
Follow Dylan Gwinn on Twitter: @themightygwinn
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