Lia Thomas appeared on Good Morning America Tuesday and said she should be allowed to compete with biological women in sports, saying she does not need “anyone’s permission.”
During the interview, Thomas expressed hopes of competing in the Olympics.
“I don’t need anybody’s permission to be myself,” Thomas said.
Thomas stated a ban from the competition was unwarranted since some women are also bigger than others.
The swimmer said that some biological females have more testosterone, bigger hands and feet, and are taller than their competitors.
WATCH:
https://twitter.com/backtolife_2022/status/1531659138274672642
COMING UP: The exclusive breaks this morning only on GMA: @JujuChangABC talks one-on-one with transgender athlete, Lia Thomas. pic.twitter.com/SkfmihJaQ4
— Good Morning America (@GMA) May 31, 2022
EXCLUSIVE: "Trans people don't transition for athletics. We transition to be happy and authentic and our true selves."
Transgender swimmer Lia Thomas speaks out to @JujuChangABC about backlash and future plans to compete. https://t.co/UFQOgMNBLj pic.twitter.com/FJcmyEChi9
— Good Morning America (@GMA) May 31, 2022
Gateway Pundit noted:
Thomas told Good Morning America that anyone who says she isn’t allowed to compete as a woman is transphobic. She strongly reiterated that they are transphobic even if they support her right to transition but not compete.
“You can’t go halfway and be like ‘I support trans people,’ but only to a certain point.”
Thomas noted that those who support transwomen who have met all the N.C.A.A. requirements could not criticize their participation in women’s sports.
“Trans women are not a threat to women’s sport,” she said.
The trans swimmer also insisted that she did not choose gender transition to perform better in her sport. She said, “Trans people don’t transition for athletics. We transition to be happy and authentic and to be ourselves.”
“Transition to get an advantage is not something that factors into our decisions,” she noted.
The interview follows doctors saying Thomas had an unfair advantage by going through puberty as a male before taking hormones to become female.
While the hormones reduced Thomas’ testosterone levels, experts have said that one to four years of therapy is not likely enough to reverse what happens to the male teenage body during puberty.
From the Daily Mail:
Doctors have confirmed that trans swimmer Lia Thomas does have an unfair advantage over the biological women she swims against even after taking testosterone suppressants.
In an interview with The New York Times on Monday, a Mayo Clinic doctor and an international physiologist who consults on the sports both confirmed Thomas’s advantage is inescapable.
‘There are social aspects to sport, but physiology and biology underpin it. Testosterone is the 800-pound gorilla,’ Michael J. Joyner, the Mayo Clinic doctor, said.
Even though Thomas took testosterone suppressants – which are required by the N.C.A.A. – she still has an unfair advantage over the biological females she swims against.
‘Lia Thomas is the manifestation of the scientific evidence. The reduction in testosterone did not remove her biological advantage,’ Dr. Ross Tucker, a sports physiologist added.
Their comments confirm the fears of Lia’s competitors, who were literally blown out of the water after she started transitioning from male to female when she was 19.
She has since soared to the top of the women’s league tables, whereas she was unheard of as a male athlete.
The swimmer’s teammates at Princeton have anonymously fought to have her excluded from the category.
They are too frightened to speak publicly about the issue for fear of being kicked off he team or lampooned by LGBTQ activism.
Lia, 22, has rarely spoken about the row but in a recent interview with Sports Illustrated, she defended her position saying: ‘I am a woman, just like anybody else on the team. I’ve always viewed myself as just a swimmer.
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