Tour de Farce: Trans Swimmer Smashes Another Women’s Record at Ivy League Championships

For the second time in as many days, transgender University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas broke another women’s swimming record, this time on the 200m.

According to the New York Post:

Friday night, Thomas won the conference’s 200-meter freestyle competition with a time of 1:43.12, beating second-place Samantha Shelton by over 2.5 seconds.

Thomas’ finish set a new record at Harvard’s Blodgett Pool, besting the previous mark of 1:43.78, and comes a day after she won the Ivy League’s 500-meter freestyle. Her time of 4:37.32 in Thursday’s event was also a Blodgett Pool record.

Much has been made of the fact that Thomas competed as a man for three years before joining the women’s team. Though, in actuality, Thomas is entering his fourth year of collegiate competition as a man because he is still a man despite being on the women’s team.

The NCAA, of course, knows this all too well. Unfortunately, however, the collegiate sports governing body elected to go the cowardly route of allowing individual sports to determine their own rules regarding trans athletes such as Thomas. Instead of ruling decisively in favor of women’s rights by disallowing a male athlete in possession of obvious physical advantages from competing against women.

Penn University’s transgender swimmer Lia Thomas dives off the starting block to start the 500-yard freestyle race, taking first place with 4.41.19, during the preliminary swim races in heat five during the Women’s Ivy League Swimming & Diving Championships at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts on February 17, 2022. (Photo by JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP via Getty Images)

As a result, Thomas was allowed to compete in this year’s women’s championships because he underwent testosterone treatment for over a year. A factor which apparently makes up for his advantage in muscle, skeletal strength, lung capacity, hand size, foot size, heart size, and the fact that you know, he’s a man.

Penn Swimming & Diving posted video of Thomas’ record-breaking swim from Thursday in which the male swimmer looked like an aquatic, human version of Secretariat. Leaving the competition so far behind, they were out of camera shot.

Thomas was ranked 462nd ranked swimmer in the NCAA when competing against men. He is now ranked number 1 when competing against women. Indeed, an epic comeback story for the ages.