Will Thomas was a mediocre athlete on the University of Pennsylvania swimming team. It ranked 462nd in the Ivy League, the college league in the northeastern United States. He left the pools during the 2020-2021 season to undergo a testosterone suppression treatment. Now she is Lia Thomas and also the number 1 in the women’s category in this same league. Her teammates, respectful of her decision to move from one sex to the next, demand that she be excluded from the competition because she jumps out of the drawer with an unquestionable physical advantage.
He has the strength, stature and lung capacity of a man, his teammates have put on the table, just to see the apparent ease with which Thomas has broken the ceiling of the 220-meter freestyle in the college league.
The issue of transgender is one of the unresolved puzzles of international and national sports federations. The criteria of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) states, in the absence of a new order, that testosterone levels, which are crucial in the development of muscle mass, should be below 10 nanomoles per liter of blood. Adjusted to this rule, New Zealand’s Laurel Hubbard competed in the Tokyo 2020 weightlifting events, with the resounding complaint of some of her rivals, but in truth she failed to beat any of the qualifiers.
The problem is that every sport is a different case. Professional swimming training, for example, provides a very specific physical development that cannot be attenuated later with a lowering of blood testosterone levels. Following the controversy sparked by the Thomas case, US Swimming has gone beyond the IOC and set this limit per liter of blood at five nanomoles. The swimmers who have so far shared training with Thomas have applauded the move and called for it to be extended to the rest of the leagues, but most of all, they have insisted that her partner be excluded to protect “biological women”.
