For three long seasons, Pennsylvania University student William Thomas toiled at the back of the pack in men’s collegiate swimming. To say he was an also-ran would be an insult to also-runs. After ranking a woeful 462nd in men’s swimming, he re-invented himself as “Lia” Thomas, a transgender “woman.”
A season in which Thomas reduced women’s swimming competition to rubble is over, but nearly 40 former women’s college swimmers are collectively demanding the NCAA stop the charade of male transgender migrants ruining the integrity of women’s sports.
In their letter to the NCAA, retired University of Arizona swimmers – former Olympians among them – wrote to express their deep concerns about the state of women’s swimming following Thomas’s dominating season. In part, the letter states, "It’s hard to express the anguish the women’s swim community has experienced this past week watching the 2022 NCAA Swim & Dive Championships."
It was there at the national meet that Thomas deprived a female of the national championship in the 500-yard freestyle.
Marshi Smith, who won the national championship in the 100-yard backstroke in 2005, told Fox News:
Since the adoption of Title nine, young mothers like myself … and most of the women from the University of Arizona on our list have small children, for the first time ever we feel like our daughters may not have the same opportunities for success that we did. It's something that has motivated us to speak out publicly.
Smith said she and the other former swimmers are speaking out because "individually we felt like we didn't have a voice. We weren't being asked our opinions or possible solutions to what was going on. We are asking the NCAA, do we have a voice?"
The group of ex-swimmers has not yet received a response from the NCAA. However, its president, Mark Emmert, did respond to a private letter Smith had previously sent.
In his response to Smith, Emmert wrote, "the Board of Governors firmly and unequivocally supports the opportunity for transgender student-athletes to compete in college sports."
Emmert also said "the NCAA’s current policy is anchored in the evolving science on this issue and in the sport-specific policies of the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee’s national governing bodies."
There may be evolving political correctness (by organizations afraid of LGBT pressure), but male and female chromosomes do not change. The letter demonstrated a lack of understanding of biological science and the fact that there are two immutable genders.
Smith dismissed Emmert’s weak response. "A policy anchored in evolving science is not a good enough explanation to women athletes as to why a biological man competing in female sports is fair," she said. Her fellow ex-swimmers are "very suspicious of the science that the NCAA is using to determine the metrics that allow a biological male to compete directly with females." No wonder, there is no biological science to support the NCAA’s position.
Additionally, Smith said: "The experience and wisdom of these women is really unmatched. We have determined that the best course of action right now would be to err on the side of fairness across the board and that means that women are not asked to forfeit our titles, records, scholarships at this point.”
The 40 letter signees are courageous in standing against the NCAA’s prevailing tide. However, the group that oversees collegiate sports has never had the guts to oppose LGBT priorities, and that isn’t likely that will change. In fact, the anacronyms NCAA and LGBT could just as well be combined to form NCAALBGT.
