The Republican governor, already embroiled in a fight with Disney over the state’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill, said the NCAA was “perpetuating fraud” and declared University of Virginia freshman and Florida native Emma Veyant “the rightful winner of the race.” Veyant finished about 1.75 seconds behind Thomas, who epitomized the ongoing discourse about trans women’s participation in sports and the balance between inclusion and fair play.
“The NCAA is basically making an effort to destroy women’s athletics,” the Republican governor said at a news conference. “They are trying to undermine the fairness of the competition and crown someone else.”
The NCAA currently requires trans female athletes to complete one year of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) in order to be allowed to compete in women’s sports. Thomas said she began HRT in May 2019 and became transgender in the fall, and the NCAA approved her participation in the women’s field. Tuesday’s announcement came amid a showdown between DeSantis and Disney over a controversial Florida bill that would ban classroom instruction. about sexual orientation and gender identity through the fourth grade. The day after Disney CEO Bob Chapek publicly denounced the bill DeSantis said he would sign, the Florida governor slammed Disney in the supporter’s hall as “a wake-up corporation.”
Unlike past GOP leaders, DeSantis is unmoved by corporate pressure or economic boycott threats over divisive policies. Rather, he’s gained a following across the country, leaning into brawls no matter who’s on the receiving end – a strategy that was fully on display Tuesday when he entered the debate sparked by Thomas’ victory in the women’s 500-yard freestyle. .
“In Florida, we reject these lies and recognize Sarasota’s Emma Veyant as the best female swimmer in the 500 Years Freestyle,” he tweeted.
While gender is a category that broadly refers to physiology, a person’s gender is an innate sense of identity. Factors that influence the determination of a sex listed on a birth certificate can include anatomy, genetics, and hormones, and there is wide natural variation within each of these categories. For this reason, critics say the “biological sex” language used in DeSantis’ proclamation is oversimplified and misleading.
A 2017 Sports Medicine report reviewing several related studies found “no direct or consistent studies” of transgender people having an athletic advantage over their cisgender peers at any point in their transition, and critics say postures, poses like DeSantis will only add to the discrimination faced by trans people, especially trans youth.
However, the debate over the inclusion of transgender athletes, especially women and girls, has become a political hotspot in recent years, especially among conservatives.
This year, Iowa and South Dakota passed legislation barring transgender women and girls from participating in gender-matched sports teams at accredited schools and colleges. And last year, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Mississippi, Montana, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia introduced similar sports bans, infuriating LGBTQ advocates who say conservatives are creating a problem where there is none.