University of Pennsylvania transgender swimmer Lia Thomas may be barred from the NCAA championships after USA Swimming updated new rules.
In January, the NCAA decided to overhaul its policy for transgender athletes on the heels of the controversy swirling around Thomas. NCAA President Mark Emmert announced that the inclusion of transgender athletes would be governed by the international standards set by the sport in which the athlete competes.
Thomas, a biological male who has taken record wins in the 100-yard and 200-yard freestyle races and has easily beaten all natural-born opponents after joining the university’s women’s swim team this season, has become the focus of criticism throughout the season. But Thomas has also come in for a raft of criticism.
According to USA Swimming, with that change in place, Thomas may no longer be eligible for the championships.
Lia Thomas, a transgender woman, dives into the water to swim in the 200 yard Medley Relay for the University of Pennsylvania at an Ivy League swim meet against Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on January 22, 2022. (Photo by JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP via Getty Images)
Changing its rule from one year, USA Swimming ruled this week that transgender athletes must have recorded low testosterone levels for 36 months. Thomas only started “transitioning” in May of 2019.
The organization added that its policy “relies on science and medical evidence-based methods to provide a level-playing field for elite cisgender women, and to mitigate the advantages associated with male puberty and physiology.”
“The elite athlete policy will be implemented by a decision-making panel comprised of three independent medical experts,” the organization added.
The criteria is to be:
- Evidence that the prior physical development of the athlete as a male, as mitigated by any medical intervention, does not give the athlete a competitive advantage over the athlete’s cisgender female competitors.
- Evidence that the concentration of testosterone in the athlete’s serum has been less than 5 nmol/L (as measured by liquid chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry) continuously for a period of at least thirty-six (36) months before the date of application.
Medical experts at Mount Sinai Hospital state that testosterone levels are “Male: 300 to 1,000 nanograms per deciliter (ng/dL) or 10 to 35 nanomoles per liter (nmol/L)” and “Female: 15 to 70 ng/dL or 0.5 to 2.4 nmol/L.”
Still, not everyone is on board with the new rules. Many feel that having transgender athletes at all is unfair.
Lia Thomas, a transgender woman (C), gathers with her teammates before she swims for the University of Pennsylvania at an Ivy League swim meet against Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on January 22, 2022. (Photo by JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP via Getty Images)
One powerful voice speaking out against Lia Thomas was Rice Swimming coach Seth Huston, who has been head coach of Rich for 19 seasons, who said that it was “black and white” that transgender “women” are a threat to real women.
“The NCAA once again has proven that it is not leading. It is not really even following,” Huston said last month. “The NCAA governance has become a bystander waiting for other organizations to make tough decisions. They hoped NIL would continue to be suppressed, and now they are scrambling to make it fit their construct. Now they sit on the sidelines with Transgender issues.”
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Facebook at: facebook.com/Warner.Todd.Huston
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