Eyes wide in disbelief, her mood fluctuating between defiance and defeat, the mother simply asks, “How do I explain to my daughter that yes, you can get up at 5 am every day for ten years and work really hard, but then there is no chance, what can you win?
A woman, too afraid to give her name, describes to me the moment last week when her daughter lost a varsity athletics competition, and with tears in her eyes said to her mother, “You know, Mom, maybe I’m done with swimming.”
If this were a regular recreational race, the likes of which take place every week in municipal swimming pools around the world in front of parents squirming uncomfortably in plastic seats, we might not think about it anymore. But there was nothing banal about this device.
The contestant who stormed to victory, shattering the hopes of every other girl in the pool that day, was 22-year-old transgender athlete Leah Thomas.
Leah, the first openly transgender athlete to win America’s major college sports trophy, beat Olympian Emma Veyant by a second and a half in the 500-yard freestyle at the Women’s National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Championships in Atlanta.
Leah Thomas, 22, pictured left, the first openly transgender athlete to win America’s major varsity trophy, beat Olympian Emma Veyant by a second and a half in the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s 500-yard freestyle. (NCAA) Atlanta Women’s Championship
Images of the 6’1″ swimmer outshining her rivals on the winner’s podium shone around the world, sparking passionate debate.
How can it be fair that someone who has experienced male puberty and has vast physical advantages over the biological women she competed against should win at their expense? The response was swift and at times violent.
Caitlyn Jenner, an Olympic gold medalist and decathlete who set a world record in the 1976 Olympics as Bruce Jenner, argued before the 2015 transition that it was “common sense” that the 20-year-old Weyant should be declared the winner.
“I don’t think biological boys should compete in women’s sports. We have to protect women’s sport,” she added. “That’s the main thing.”
Similarly, Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis refused to acknowledge Leah’s victory, declaring Emma Veyant the true winner.
However, third- and fourth-place swimmers Erica Sullivan and Brooke Ford have publicly voiced their support for Leah Thomas and trans athletes in the past.
But nowhere is the debate more intense than on the campuses of America’s elite Ivy League universities, where downtrodden members wonder what the point of all these years of study is.
Of course, the young swimmer whose mother spoke to me this week noticed that her self-confidence has plummeted and she is on the verge of quitting her favorite sport.
But if you think that you can speak openly about these fears, you are deeply mistaken.
Transgender ideologues have so intimidated NCAA elite swimmers and their parents that they dare not openly challenge the situation.
Instead, they wrote an anonymous letter to the NCAA to avoid being identified and risk branding their daughters as “transphobic”.
Several of them have boldly turned to the Mail this week.
“I wish I could tell you my name,” the parent of another 21-year-old swimmer tells me. “I want to speak out, but at the request of my daughter, I must remain anonymous because she does not want any consequences at the university.
“Swimming is something she devotes almost every minute of her waking life to. The sacrifices she made were huge – training before and after school, in the evenings. Cancellation of summer holidays. She thought you could go the extra mile and match it up to someone else’s best and feel inspired by the result because it was honest and fair.”
She adds that it is “devastating” and “humiliating” for their children to remain silent about injustice.
“At first they were so bold, so ready to speak. . . and then they felt they had lost their voice because it was repeated that their position didn’t matter. They were beaten again and again until they had nowhere to go. It was frightening.”
She adds: “The impact on their confidence is terrible. There is no doubt that this is violence.
Nowhere is the debate more intense than on the campuses of America’s elite Ivy League universities, where dejected members wonder what the point of all these years of study is (pictured Leah Thomas as William)
Leah’s critics emphasize that they are not transphobic.
“None of us are transphobic,” says the mother of another 21-year-old swimmer. “Almost all of us have a loved one who identifies as a member of the trans community, and none of us wish anyone harm.
“But that doesn’t mean we have to accept what hurts a huge percentage of the population – and by that I mean changing the language, definition, meaning and material reality of being a woman.
“You can support someone to live the life they want without being bullied into believing they can change their gender or change the structure of society.”
So who is Leah Thomas, until recently a little-known amateur athlete, and now one of the most controversial figures in sports?
Born William in 1999, Leah was the younger of two children of Carrie and Bob Thomas. Her brother, Wes, is also a swimmer and they grew up in Austin, Texas.
Little is known about her early life, but she said she began to question her gender identity towards the end of high school.
In 2017, she entered the University of Pennsylvania, where she studies economics, and a year later she told her family about being transgender. However, during the first three years of her collegiate career, she competed as a man and only placed 400th in men’s swimming.
In 2020, she joined the women’s team and now competes under NCAA rules that require her to complete a year of taking testosterone suppressors, a process that began when she began transitioning during the pandemic.
Trans athletes aren’t limited to swimming, of course: Laurel Hubbard, a New Zealand weightlifter, is a trans woman; Ceci Telfer was the first open trans athlete to win an NCAA title in track and field events; handball player Hannah Maunsey also changed from male to female.
However, despite all ideological arguments about identity and gender, any former male athlete who has made the transition after puberty will scientifically benefit from a larger cardiovascular system, greater muscle mass, higher mechanical strength of tendons, and more dense bones.
They also tend to be stronger and taller, with longer arm spans. As swimmers, their large legs and arms are beneficial. In many time trials, men are 10–12% faster than women.
It’s not just women who are concerned about the ever-changing competitive sport landscape. Fathers and their rival sons share the same sense of outrage.
The father of the 20-year-old Ivy League swimmer also expressed his solidarity with women.
“My son, the vast majority of the boys on his team, and every parent I’ve spoken to think the move to swim with women is just unfair. Guys faster, stronger.
“This is a crime against women in many ways. We had a biological male who won the women’s tournament.”
How can it be fair that someone who has experienced male puberty and has vast physical advantages over the biological women she competed against should win at their expense? The reaction was quick and sometimes harsh, says Barbara McMahon.
Adding to the parents’ anguish was the NCAA’s position, which, they insisted in their letter, completely dismissed their concerns. For those parents who complained that Leah’s presence on the troop was unfair to biological women, they say they were told, “Trans women are women – no exceptions.”
Similarly, their concerns about female discomfort from male nudity in the locker room were dismissed – Leah is believed to still have male genitalia.
“As public outrage grew, a propaganda machine was deployed that Russia could envy,” the letter says.
“If the girls had problems, they were told to seek advice.
“Coercive and emotionally blackmailing” instructions were circulated at Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania, the parents said in a letter. “Everyone was silenced while institutions spared no expense for t-shirts, banners and public statements in support of Leah.”
It went on to say: “Sports associations are cautiously asking the question, ‘How do we balance fairness and inclusiveness?’ And they are asking scientists to tell them the exact level to which the male body must be damaged in order to compete fairly with women. These questions are misogynistic, degrading and inhuman to women. . . The male body cannot become the female body. A woman is not a destitute man. . . Women do serious psychological damage when they are told that they do not deserve fair competition.”
The mother I spoke to at the beginning of this article knows this all too well.
“The girls worked up the courage to ask people to change it, and they were told, ‘No, you’re wrong and your vote is unwanted.’ It really made them think about whether they can make a difference and how valid their experience is,” she says.
“We tell young women, in particular, that “you don’t matter to us anymore. You don’t have to be treated fairly. Your voice is not as important as a man’s.”
Volitional deafness of bureaucracy; silence on the debate: it all leads to something deeply disturbing.
And if it can happen in the US – a country of democracy – it can happen anywhere.