Finally, something about transgender ideology that Lia Thomas and I agree on.
Thomas, the male University of Pennsylvania swimmer who competed as a woman after undergoing transgender transitioning procedures, gave his first major interview after dominating the 500-yard freestyle at the NCAA championships in March to ABC News’ “Good Morning America.”
It’s not recommended viewing, inasmuch as the vast majority of Thomas’ answers were entirely predictable. However, when asked about his female teammates who signed an anonymous letter supporting his right to have his identity as a woman accepted but not to compete as a woman, Thomas managed to make a salient point: You either buy the entire transgender package, so to speak, or you buy none of it.
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Thomas made the remark after ABC News’ Juju Chang asked him in the interview that aired Tuesday about a February 2022 letter signed by 16 of his Penn teammates and some of their parents. In it, they decried the NCAA’s decision to let Thomas compete as a woman in the NCAA championships.
“The women who signed the letter anonymously said they absolutely supported your right to transition but they think it’s unfair for you to compete against cisgendered women,” she said.
“You can’t go halfway and be like, ‘I support trans women and trans people but only to a certain point,’” Thomas replied.
“Where — if you support trans women as women, and they’ve met all the NCAA requirements, I don’t know you can really say something like that.”
He added that “trans women are not a threat to women’s sports.”
EXCLUSIVE: “Trans people don’t transition for athletics. We transition to be happy and authentic and our true selves.”
Transgender swimmer Lia Thomas speaks out to @JujuChangABC about backlash and future plans to compete. https://t.co/UFQOgMNBLj pic.twitter.com/FJcmyEChi9
— Good Morning America (@GMA) May 31, 2022
The only part of that answer that’s incorrect is the last one — that there’s no threat to the integrity of women’s sports from men who have met arbitrary NCAA requirements about transgender athletes. Everything else he said is absolutely perfect. He just doesn’t know it.
Let’s assume you are a signatory to the letter sent anonymously by Thomas’ Penn teammates — or that you agree with their stance. You acknowledge Thomas was conceived with XY chromosomes, born male, lived as a male through puberty and continued that way until college.
However, you believe that he is now a woman and has every right to be addressed as such. However, you also feel there’s a reason for women’s sports and Thomas violates the integrity of those sports.
Indeed, even ABC News agrees with you to some extent, noting that though “the science on transgender athletes is new and evolving, some medical experts say the effect of higher testosterone during male puberty may never be fully erased” by transitioning therapies, including hormone treatments.
“There is going to be some loss to skeletal muscle mass, there is going to be some increase in body fat — those would be the two most obvious things,” said Dr. Michael Joyner of the Mayo Clinic.
“But things like hand size, lung size, feet size — that’s not going to change much. And of course, because as you know, swimming, it’s such an intense sport and people train so hard, that she is going to continue to have a significant exercise stimulus to those skeletal muscles.”
He added that Thomas’ male physical aspects could be “activated” by sports activity.
Should transgender men be able to compete in women’s sports?
The people who signed this letter say there are physical differences between men and women and that these remain even after transitioning. Thomas says “you can’t go halfway” on this and still believe he’s a woman. And he’s correct: Not only do the signatories not believe he’s a woman, a raft of people who followed his performance at the NCAA championships don’t believe it, either.
He may use whatever pronouns he wants, but nature remains undefeated against identity politics.
While I think this is an accidental truth Thomas stumbled upon during the interview, National Review’s Madeleine Kearns has an alternative theory: “You timid people who know full well that trans women are men but are too frightened to say so, Lia Thomas is calling your bluff,” she wrote. “If you care about women, it’s time to drop the act, to stand up and say: I was only trying to be polite but fine, you got me: I don’t actually support this. I think it’s nonsense. Do what you like, call yourself what you like, but as a man, you don’t belong in the women’s team.”
Either way, Thomas’ answer should horrify the left, if just because it exposes the house of sand upon which the dogma of transgenderism is built.
Anyone who has serious questions about Lia Thomas’ dominance at the NCAA championships is, at a basic level, expressing serious questions about his identity. The two are inseparable. Doubters who don’t acknowledge the intrinsic connection simply don’t want to give an impolitic answer.
Either a “he” can become a “she” and we live in a world where all physical and personal characteristics are mutable and malleable (aside from race, of course — that one’s as fixed as an Italian soccer match) or you believe there are certain set natural realities that are unalterable.
Lia Thomas is right: There’s no halfway. He thinks that’s a point in his favor. Who are you going to believe: Thomas, or your lying eyes?
