Swimmer Lia Thomas becomes first transgender athlete to win an NCAA D-I title

[Dial H For Hero]

This discussion thread was locked by EarlG (a host of the General Discussion forum).

https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/17/sport/lia-thomas-ncaa-swimming/index.html

(CNN)University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas became the first transgender athlete to win an NCAA Division I title after finishing first in the women's 500-yard freestyle event Thursday evening.

Thomas pulled away in the final 150 yards to win in 4:33.24.

Thomas, who previously swam for the men's team at Penn, has come to personify the ongoing debate on trans women's participation in sports and the balance between inclusion and fair play.

"I try to ignore (negative comments) as much as I can. I try to focus on my swimming and what I need to do to get ready for my races and block out everything else," Thomas told ESPN after the race.

(Excerpt)

[LisaL]

8. There is no category for transgender athletes.

NT

[BGBD]

2. Oh look...a cudgel to beat over the heads of Democrats

In a midterm year

[Celerity]

53. +10000000000000000

[BlackSkimmer]

3. Martina Navratilova spoke about this.

And she has a damn good point.

[Dr. Strange]

4. About Lia Thomas specifically?

[LisaL]

11. Yep.

NT

[LisaL]

12. Has that ever happened?

And how can it? In swimming, males' time are much better than females' time.

[Demovictory9]

37. bowling is a strength sport... strength is related to weight of ball, how fast it can be thrown

[FoxNewsSucks]

14. Agreed

Bigotry is without a doubt wrong, but basic physiology is not bigotry.

[vercetti2021]

6. Doesn't help our cause

Legit it doesn't. Makes us seem like we don't care about womens sports and it further drives home to people to be transphobic. I'd love to see transgender sports though. Have our own unique thing.

[IngridsLittleAngel]

9. It's not our job to hide in a corner...

It's the job of bigots to quit being bigots.

[IngridsLittleAngel]

10. Nor is bigotry

[canetoad]

19. In a world

Where sport attracted no salary, no prizes, no endorsements and so on, you comment could possibly be fair.

However the world we actually have is one where women historically and currently are systematically discriminated against in earnings and recognition.

Thomas' time in this event, I believe, was a new world record. Will it ever be broken or is that an impossible task for an XX person? Another earning opportunity lost to women who are just sick of putting up with it their whole lives.

[Zeitghost]

13. When every NCAA swimming podium is filled with XY chromosomes

Will we have achieved equality?

Silly cultural norms like bathrooms and dress and pronouns where physical differences do not matter should be based on gender. Athletic competitions should be based on sex, if it is not, we will have done a great disservice to cisgendered women.

[North Shore Chicago]

30. This!

[Oneironaut]

69. Lia Thomas is a woman.

I agree with you, but, it’s hard to when you call Lia Thomas a man.

[AZProgressive]

15. Congratulations

[ismnotwasm]

17. Good for her!

Congratulations!

[vercetti2021]

23. So we don't matter

Got it.

[alphafemale]

25. If transgender athletes actually had a physical advantage this would be the norm

A transgender athlete win is not a common occurrence so people really need to calm down about it and stop with the bigotry.

Did Renee Williams go on to dominate the sport of women's tennis?

No?

Well there we go.

[IngridsLittleAngel]

26. Truthfully, some people don't care whether she wins or loses.

The real issue is Lia Thomas is guilty of breathing while trans.

[alphafemale]

27. There was a trans weight lifter in the Olympics this past year

She did not make it to the medal finals

So much for unfair advantage

[IngridsLittleAngel]

28. As far as I know

We have had one case of a trans athlete having post-transition success. That weight lifter did not make it to the finals. Renee Richards had a brief and mediocre career post-surgery. So, one case... That's one too many for some here. Which is why some people want to target and punish an entire segment of the population.

[North Shore Chicago]

31. x 1000

Fallon Fox basically beat the crap out of the female opponents, have seen video. Really sickening.

[IngridsLittleAngel]

35. You know what's sickening - besides transphobia?

Last edited Fri Mar 18, 2022, 05:25 AM - Edit history (1)

MMA. In general. How about banning that? But, naw.. More fun to blame trans people.

[IngridsLittleAngel]

33. What about this post?

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100215969127

Good to see transphobia is still alive and well here.

[FreepFryer]

32. Wedge issue to break our commitment to civil rights. Don't fall for this phobic shit. (Nt)

[IngridsLittleAngel]

34. Fall for it?

They live for it.

Trans lives don't matter here.

[FreepFryer]

36. The ones pulling that Nazi wedge issue shit aren't actual Democrats.

Trans lives matter, no matter what they say... and fighting back helps remind Democrats of the need to protect our diversity.

[IngridsLittleAngel]

39. Yeah. I've already figured that out

Shitstorm threads like these (and Lia Thomas seems to be the chosen punching bag of 2022) do a fine job of revealing who the true Democrats are here, and who are the ones who seem to like Greg Abbott more than they like Gavin Newsom. Because some of us can clearly see which DUers would gladly serve up the trans community to the Republicans, or just flat-out hate them.

[FreepFryer]

43. It's amazingly revealing that the RNC is among the biggest events for trans sex workers.

Many right wing zealots don’t fundamentally hate trans.

They hate them because they envy and secretly identify with them.

So they target them, sadistically - with the classic projection of playground bullies.

[IngridsLittleAngel]

45. They hate them because they hate everyone who isn't like them

As we see here, sadly, that mentality is not exclusive to the RNC.

[FreepFryer]

46. "I didn't get to wear women's shoes and not get beaten up, you can't either!"

It’s limbic shit

[IngridsLittleAngel]

47. Well, times have changed...

They could wear them now and most people would be cool with it.

Besides, not many people were bothered by Prince wearing heels in the 80s and 90s...

[FreepFryer]

48. That's what triggers them most... they didn't get to do it. Transphobia is deeply selfish.

Everyone has gender differences, even cis people.

But cis people - especially the repressed ones - police gender vigorously.

[IngridsLittleAngel]

50. Any form of bigotry is selfish

But you're right. There seems to be an extra amount of hostility when it comes to the trans community - or even those who identify as "non-binary" or "gender fluid". Like they have to force them to fit into a mold, be a certain way. Hell, look at the fits many of them throw over a girl who isn't into dolls or a boy who isn't into sports.

[FreepFryer]

51. Yep, Because they had those gender feelings too, and felt the repression, and they pay it fwd.

[obamanut2012]

52. EarlG needs to reinforce what he prohibted in that trans rights OP of his

I almost didn't even come into here and read the thread, because I know how transphobic it would be. And it is. Including folks not being truthful about how bad of an MMA fighter Fallon Fox is.

[IngridsLittleAngel]

54. I actually freaked out the moment I heard the news

Why? Because I knew an article would be posted, and the thread would degenerate into transphobic attacks - as seems to happen anytime the words "Lia Thomas" appear here. Some days I wonder if she's hated as much as TFG here.

At the risk of backseat moderating: EarlG's post from last October should've been pinned. And, yes. It's time for it to be reinforced. Because nearly every Lia thread has turned into this. Not to mention, we had someone the other day replying to me that "DNA decides our gender" and "It's not nice to fool Mother Nature".

And the MMA stuff? Just get rid of it. All of it. Barbaric blood sports have no place in a civilized society.

[obamanut2012]

59. Perhaps we can PM EarlG and asked for it to be pinned, at least

[FreepFryer]

55. This. Need support from those whose support is targeted by this phobia campaign.

Hopefully they are aware of the fascist origin of these anti-trans wedge politics and letting our conversations prove it for the discrimination and propaganda it is.

[obamanut2012]

58. It makes me so angry and upset

[FreepFryer]

61. Use it :) we were made for these times. These tactics are laughably weak, and justice will prevail.

“Because justice matters”

[Demovictory9]

38. Trans lives do matter in DU

[IngridsLittleAngel]

42. I have my doubts..

But that happens when it feels like we're pawns to be sacrificed, a debate point, and talked to like we're beneath them when we try to speak up.

[obamanut2012]

49. Yup

[Demovictory9]

64. it's complicated. women can't compete, physically, against someone who went thru puberty as a male

i don't know what the answer is.

[IngridsLittleAngel]

65. I know what the answer isn't

It isn't bigotry. It isn't telling an entire group of people "You're not welcome".

[Demovictory9]

68. true.

[vercetti2021]

70. Do we really?

I've gotten my posts removed much more higher for less than most. I'm extremely outspoken about this topic since it directly involves me. A lot of trans athletes quit because they either know it isn't fair in their eyes or they are terrified to touch sports again. I never will because I'm not in any shape for sports. But I feel over the past few weeks on these issues that Trans people don't matter here. I feel we are another scapegoat for we are written off because we can't win on our rights. So fuck us essentially.

[FreepFryer]

41. You're entitled to your opinion. As are we all. Have a great day! (Nt)

[Bucky]

56. When we discuss transgender athletes in the abstract, people get upset

But the reality is that it's so rarely happens that an m2f athlete wins a contest, it hardly impacts the overall field of women's sports.

The way people talk, you'd think there were whole teams of female softball and volleyball teams comprised of transgender athletes who are just sweeping the fields of every trophy, ribbon, and scholarship.

[IngridsLittleAngel]

63. The issue isn't sports

The issue is trans people even exist.

[Bucky]

66. Right, but the basic fairness of trans athletes competing in women's sports is the controversy

Viscerally, it's easy to understand how this would bother people. In the abstract, the imagination renders a personal contest between a bulky stereotype versus a typical hard-working female athlete. It feels, in general, like the old Andy Kaufman routine about intergender wrestling. The joke was in him putting our own gender prejudices right up in our faces.

That's why we have to look at the numbers to get the truth. As John Dickinson said at the Philadelphia Convention of 1787, "We must rely on history. Reason will mislead us." We must look at the statistics, because our imaginations will tell us the wrong story. The vast majority of transgender athletes never excel in their field. This is about in proportion to vast majority of born-female athletes never taking a championship. A champion is a rarity and well worth celebrating. Across the thousands of athletic victories in women's sports every year, five or six will belong to someone who, painfully, discovered in their own life that they had a female soul and desire to have a female body to put her own lives in balance. From this point each of them began a slow and heroic path through this world.

The cynical take we hear the most--that trans athletes will overwhelm the field of women's sports, that a bunch of second rate male athletes will simply get their wangs chopped off just to pick up a trophier scholarship--is cruel, harmful, and out of touch with the complex human realities that form the story of each individual who goes through this complex journey.

[Oneironaut]

67. We can't have a good faith discussion anymore about how unfair this is. Conservatives ruined it

They ruined it by being like, “Let’s ensure sports are fair, AND, how about trans women in bathrooms and how they offend Jesus by existing!!1! Hehe!” Therefore, the all trans issues now can’t be separated, and, you now have two unmovable camps - bigoted morons who want to go too far, and people who support trans rights and may know that this is unfair, but, are afraid that making rules is the first step to trans death camps.

Republicans only have themselves to blame for using this so obviously as a bad faith wedge issue. I don’t think this it’s fair, but, I know that adage about giving a mouse a cookie. Republicans have only themselves to blame for forcing a false dichotomy: You either support trans rights and support not having rules in sports leagues, or, you support taking all trans rights away and pretending they don’t exist.

[FreepFryer]

71. Yup, GOP tactic. Not fairness, or qualification, or respect. Like Ken Paxton attacking Dr. Levine.

Texas Attorney General Attacks Nation’s Highest-Ranking Openly Transgender Official

Continuing his transphobia, Ken Paxton intentionally misgendered HHS Assistant Secretary Rachel Levine for being honored as "woman of the year.”

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, waist-deep in ethical controversies, tweeted out his transphobia on Thursday morning by intentionally misgendering the nation’s highest-ranking openly transgender official.

USA Today had named Dr. Rachel Levine one of its Women of the Year on Sunday for her role during the COVID-19 pandemic. Levine, nominated by President Joe Biden, serves as assistant secretary for health at the Department of Health and Human Services and leads a group of 6,000 uniformed public health officers. The trained pediatrician was sworn in as a four-star admiral of the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps in October, becoming just the sixth person to receive the honor in the corps’ history.

Levine is also the first female and openly transgender four-star admiral — a milestone celebrated by civil rights groups, LGBTQ activists and USA Today.

“I think you have to be true to yourself and I think that you have to be who you are,” Levine told the outlet. “You have tremendous worth just for who you are, no matter who you love, no matter who you are, no matter what your gender identity, sexual orientation or anything else, and to be, be true to that. And then everything else will follow.”

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/texas-ag-ken-paxton-misgender-rachel-levine_n_6233a8bfe4b046c938d9307a

Getting us to “other” trans people is the GOP goal - first one wedge, then another, and another, and soon a diverse Democratic coalition is gone. And trans people are different than cis people in uncomfortable ways, which makes it easier to cast their humanity aside.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

72. Good for her.

[EarlG]

73. To the handful of DUers who still haven't figured this out yet

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100215969127