Megan Udinski, FISM News
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The University of Pennsylvania has nominated transgender swimmer Lia Thomas for the NCAA ‘Woman of the Year’ award.
The NCAA nomination page explains,“Established in 1991, the award recognizes female student-athletes who have exhausted their eligibility and distinguished themselves in their community, in athletics, and in academics throughout their college careers.”
Lia Thomas’s participation in female sports has sparked controversy as Thomas identifies as a transgender woman. Many feel men who have transitioned to and identify as female have an unfair advantage due to inherent differences in the makeup of males and females and should not be allowed to participate in female sports.
In an interview with Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) on her podcast “Unmuted with Marsha,” University of Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines commented, “The majority of us female athletes, or females in general, really are not okay with this, and they’re not okay with the trajectory of this and how this is going and how it could end up in a few years.” Gaines tied for fifth place with Lia Thomas at the NCAA swimming championships.
Gaines was referring to the NCAA’s unwillingness to protect the competitiveness of female sports by refusing to change the rules.
The disparity between male and female potential is obvious. Thomas won the 500-yard freestyle event at the NCAA championship meet, beating Emma Weyant who is an Olympic silver-medalist. However, when Thomas was competing on the male team, he did not experience nearly the same success.
A letter written to the university and signed by 16 of Thomas’s teammates reads, “Biologically, Lia holds an unfair advantage over competition in the women’s category, as evidenced by her rankings that have bounced from #462 as a male to #1 as a female.”
While the Left is continuing to claim their advocacy for women in the form of rioting after the SCOTUS decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, decisions like this one from the University of Penn to nominate a biological male for woman of the year demonstrates a contradictory understanding of women’s rights.
Former presidential candidate and congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard shared in an interview with Newsmax the vulgar comments Thomas was making in the locker room leaving many teammates to feel harassed.
Denying the biological differences between men and women not only threatens women's rights, it threatens our safety. Not only are we shutting women out of competitive sports, we are also shaming girls into silence in the face of abuse and harassment. pic.twitter.com/dJHgCboH3m
— Tulsi Gabbard 🌺 (@TulsiGabbard) July 10, 2022
The University of Pennsylvania also nominated Iuliia Bryzgalova, a tennis player, for the award.