The atmosphere when the trans swimmer took a controversial victory at the U.S. College Championships last week was uncomfortable at best, and I’m amazed the sport authorities didn’t take action sooner to prevent it.
It was apparent for several years that the rules regarding transgender participation in sports were unfair to biological women and promised to create the kind of mess we saw in the Atlanta pool.
When Leah Thomas competed as a man two years ago before her transition, she was an average varsity swimmer outside of the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s top 500 list.
Leah Thomas has dominated women’s swimming competition since transitioning from the male.
She won the women’s 500-yard freestyle on Thursday in Atlanta, but seemed to be holding back and was met with near-silence on the podium as she rose from 554th in the men’s to first in the women’s category.
Leah has been taking testosterone-suppressing drugs for the required past 12 months, as required by NCAA rules, but no dose can negate the physical benefits of male puberty.
She has greater upper body strength and significantly more muscle mass than a woman of the same weight and height. She has greater lung capacity, better VO2 absorption, varying bone densities, is almost 6ft 4in and her arms and legs act like paddles.
She is a man competing with women, and this is extremely unfair. Take, for example, the 500-yard freestyle, which is just one of her three competitions in the NCAA championships.
She beat one athlete and took a place in the Pennsylvania team. She held off a second from the semi-final and another from the final. The fourth-place swimmer was not given a podium spot, and runner-up Emma Veyant, the first real woman in the race, lost to become the NCAA champion.
Lia also had to beat three Olympic silver medalists from Tokyo to win as she was an unremarkable male athlete two years ago. These are five athletes who lost places and medals due to Leah’s participation in one competition.
I saw this happen when the International Olympic Committee changed the rules to allow trans women to compete in the women’s category if they went through a very limited period of testosterone suppression.
I organized and signed a letter with 60 of my friends, all world champions or Olympic medalists, urging the IOC to revise the guidelines. We simply asked them to listen to the science behind male puberty and its irreversible benefits.
They didn’t. In fact, last year they dropped testosterone suppression as a requirement and favored transgender athletes over fair sport for women, thereby discriminating against half the world’s population.
Sharron Davis insists that the International Olympic Committee (President Thomas Bach, above) has waived responsibility for how trans athletes can compete.
The task of the IOC is to protect all athletes, including women. Instead, they shrugged off responsibility and left individual governing bodies to do all the work. It was cowardly and it helped create this situation.
Unfortunately, the IOC has consistently shied away from its responsibility to protect the integrity of the sport, as was the case with 15-year-old Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva, who failed a doping test at the Beijing Winter Games.
UK Sport commissioned a lengthy report which was published last year. He concluded that you cannot allow trans women to compete in the women’s category without jeopardizing fairness, and that athletes and coaches were intimidated into not speaking out.
The only truly fair solution is to create a protected biological women’s category, as well as an open, welcoming and inclusive category in which transgender women and transmen can compete. I don’t want trans athletes to be excluded. I’ve never had.
I would like Leah to be able to compete freely in the category that matches her biological sex, and I want her to feel welcome while doing so, rather than touching the wall to shut up. I have always wanted women to play fair sports – they should have an equal chance of success in a sport where physiology is vital to performance. The body does sports, not the senses.
Thomas stands on the podium after winning the 500-yard freestyle as fellow medalists (left to right) Emma Veyant, Erica Sullivan and Brooke Ford pose for a photo.
This should apply to all forms of competition, not just the elite. Otherwise, you risk removing young girls from their own sport at a time when it is necessary for both their physical and mental health. We are already fighting to get young girls into sports. Moreover, in contact sports, this situation can lead to a serious accident.
However, I am optimistic we are turning the corner, both in and out of swimming. US Senator Tommy Tuberville recently introduced an amendment bill in the Senate to protect women’s and girls’ sports.
The women’s group last week filed a civil lawsuit against the University of Pennsylvania for allowing Thomas to compete on his team for violating Section 9, which was introduced to end gender discrimination in sports.
The World Swimming Coaches Association is developing a new policy to protect the integrity of biological women in sports. US swimming has a system in place that puts the burden of proof on athletes to demonstrate they have mitigated the benefits of male puberty, even though the NCAA championships decided not to adopt it last week.
FINA, the governing body for swimming, is also introducing a new set of rules that they say will go further than US swimming. But why did it take so long to understand what we always knew that men are faster and stronger than women because of their biological sex, which cannot be changed?
The progress made is encouraging. It makes me think that it was worth speaking on behalf of women on this issue for so long. I have strong feelings because I competed in an era when female swimmers competed against rivals from the old East Germany who were subjected to a terrible doping program during puberty.
This week, Yale Bulldogs swimmer Isaac Hoenig wears an inscription on his arm in support of Thomas.
Sharron Davis believes more needs to be done to ensure fair competition for female athletes.
In both the 1976 Olympics and the 1980 Olympics, East German women won 11 out of 13 events and 90 percent of the medals. In 1980, in Moscow, I was beaten by Petra Schneider, who later confessed to using steroids and asked that her national record in the 400m medley be cancelled.
It has been a familiar story throughout my career. Constantly losing to opponents who you know are cheating was incredibly frustrating and discouraging.
Other British athletes have been stripped of their medals altogether and we simply don’t know their names because of this injustice. I was certain that this would not happen to another generation of young women.
We all knew what was happening then, but no one had the right to talk about it. My father, Terry, was marginalized as an international coach because he was one of the few people in swimming who dared to publicly question the sudden success of East German women.
All the athletes I talk to think this situation is wrong, but they are too scared to speak their mind. Like every coach and official. My parents come up to me on the street and thank me for my statement. No parent wants their children to be denied the right to a fair sport.
Those who understand sports know that this is wrong. They are afraid to speak openly because of the insults they will receive. Swimmers in the US have been told they will lose their scholarships if they criticize what is happening. Coaches and officials are afraid of losing their jobs if they state their position.
Protesters held signs against Thomas when she spoke as a woman.
We are supposed to have freedom of speech in the West, but we are not allowed to talk about biological reality, which means we couldn’t find a better solution.
Trans activists are very loud, often intimidating. They can be extremely offensive and have even threatened my children. It is also disturbing that this violence is predominantly male and incredibly misogynistic. This is the worst thing I have ever known. Most hide behind social media.
I’ve learned to ignore it, but it’s not easy. I am always careful what I say. I stick to the facts and use peer-reviewed scientific evidence. I never offend anyone and do not approach any provocations. But I refuse to back down because this is an important issue for the next generation of young women. Women love my own daughter, Grace, who was an athlete. I will always wish that someone yelled louder about my generation in the 1970s and 80s.
I have no complaints about Leah Thomas. I wish her good luck in her real life. She must be safe to do so. It does not violate the NCAA rules in their current form.
It’s a shame they didn’t adopt US sailing policy, but perhaps the world needed to see how ridiculous it would always be. Rules must change in all sports before more female athletes suffer because of them. Leah must participate in a race where the crowd will not silence her success.