Lia Thomas (again)

[Signalbox]

Reports that Lia Thomas has been exposing themselves to female team mates and that they have complained and been ignored on multiple occasions...

"While Lia covers herself with a towel sometimes, there’s a decent amount of nudity, the swimmer said. She and others have had a glimpse at her private parts."

"She stated that team members have raised their concern with the coach, trying to get Thomas ousted from the female locker room, but got nowhere."

"Multiple swimmers have raised it, multiple different times,' the UPenn swimmer said. 'But we were basically told that we could not ostracize Lia by not having her in the locker room and that there's nothing we can do about it, that we basically have to roll over and accept it, or we cannot use our own locker room."

"It's really upsetting because Lia doesn't seem to care how it makes anyone else feel,' the swimmer continued. 'The 35 of us are just supposed to accept being uncomfortable in our own space and locker room for, like, the feelings of one."

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10445679/Lia-Thomas-UPenn-teammate-says-trans-swimmer-doesnt-cover-genitals-locker-room.html#comments

I have just read this chilling statement from that Daily Mail article about the locker room.

“The school released a terse statement last month that it was offering mental health services to student-athletes”

Any woman who objects has apparently got mental health problems. That is certainly an old story.

Well said Sharron, what a clear and articulate interview!

Yes Sharron was excellent.

I remember actually looking up some of Phelps’s winning times when people were using him as “gotcha”. He was beating his competitors by the usual margins in swimming - less than a second.

However, the winners of the women’s equivalent races were 10 seconds slower. 10 seconds! That’s a life time in swimming. I do wish he’d had the balls to point this out, with his “it’s complicated” comments.

@nolongersurprised

I remember actually looking up some of Phelps’s winning times when people were using him as “gotcha”. He was beating his competitors by the usual margins in swimming - less than a second.

However, the winners of the women’s equivalent races were 10 seconds slower. 10 seconds! That’s a life time in swimming. I do wish he’d had the balls to point this out, with his “it’s complicated” comments.

And Phelps HAS had some records beaten!

Disgusting behaviour from ‘Lia’ Thomas. Such an obvious example of male entitlement. The swimmers are actually being very restrained. I would be furious.

From the Washington Post article
"She said in a telephone interview that she sent the letter on the swimmers’ behalf so they could avoid retaliation; in the letter, the swimmers claim they were told “we would be removed from the team or that we would never get a job offer” if they spoke out against Thomas’s inclusion in women’s competition."

What an abusive way for the coaching staff to be treating these female swimmers. Seems like their apparent 'restraint' might be being coerced...

Yes it sounds like coercive behaviour, I agree. Inwardly they must be seething with anger at the injustice.

@ScrollingLeaves

I have just read this chilling statement from that Daily Mail article about the locker room.

“The school released a terse statement last month that it was offering mental health services to student-athletes”

Any woman who objects has apparently got mental health problems. That is certainly an old story.

It really is chilling.

How have we got here, that women objecting to their spaces being invaded, their sport being corrupted, their very sense of reality being meddled with are told they’re imagining it, they’re mad and they need to change?!

You have to be kidding.

No, thank you.

As a longtime MN lurker, I just joined to express how much I admire the fierce discussion here at MN in support of the female UPenn swimmers.

I'm a WaPo subscriber, and am relieved to see the comments under its article, from a decidedly progressive readership (the NYTimes, with similar readership, disallows comments on trans topics).

I've noticed that photos accompanying press coverage of Lia Thomas (with one exception) carefully frame Thomas alone or from an angle, away from female swimmers, so as not to call attention to the enormous difference between Thomas's male body and the bodies of the team's female members. But the press can’t keep up this pretense forever.

The Democrats will pay a political price for supporting female-identified male athletes at the expense of female athletes and their families.

Welcome HelleneS

Who thinks Lia will transfer back to being a man when she has finished college?

@SkiingIsHeaven

Who thinks Lia will transfer back to being a man when she has finished college?

Surely that will never happen...

I am most heartily convinced that will happen

@SkiingIsHeaven

Who thinks Lia will transfer back to being a man when she has finished college?

Surely no TW would ever do that. Surely none ever has.

@HelleneS

As a longtime MN lurker, I just joined to express how much I admire the fierce discussion here at MN in support of the female UPenn swimmers.

I'm a WaPo subscriber, and am relieved to see the comments under its article, from a decidedly progressive readership (the NYTimes, with similar readership, disallows comments on trans topics).

I've noticed that photos accompanying press coverage of Lia Thomas (with one exception) carefully frame Thomas alone or from an angle, away from female swimmers, so as not to call attention to the enormous difference between Thomas's male body and the bodies of the team's female members. But the press can’t keep up this pretense forever.

The Democrats will pay a political price for supporting female-identified male athletes at the expense of female athletes and their families.

I second everything you've said. Glad you're here.

I recall reading in the Racing Post an interview with Victoria Smith, formerly Vince Smith, who transitioned late in their career as a jockey. They deliberately used a toilet rather than the female changing rooms so as not to make women colleagues uncomfortable. So it is possible for males to behave considerately to females in sport.

Interestingly, searching for that link brought up a more recent interview in which Smith bemoans the fact that it's now hard to find a date, as women aren't interested: www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-6614949/Worlds-transgender-jockey-reveals-love.html I find this fascinating as it's really not clear if they expect heterosexual women or lesbians to be attracted.

There was an article about this on BBC R4 More or Less just now. A program about statistics. Car radio cut out half way through but they were interviewing Ross Tucker. Based on Maths / Science and Testosterone etc.

Anyone hear it? Would love to know the conclusions and can't listen just now.

I heard the last bit of it. It was very good. Basically it boiled down to current testosterone levels are fairly irrelevant when men compete against women. What is relevnt is a male body going through puberty and the integral differences in muscle and skeletal structures. Worth a listen on catchup.

Oh and to slightly clarify- reducing testosterone levels will have a slight difference on male performance, but even lowered testosterone levels convey an advantage over women.

Cis and ButWhere,

There was a thread about this recently for anyone wanting to read more details:

More or Less Radio 4 Trans Women in Sport | Mumsnet

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4476753-More-or-Less-Radio-4-Trans-Women-in-Sport?msgid=114950983

Aaah thanks! Off to look now.

www.swimmingworldmagazine.com/news/nancy-hogshead-makar-penn-swimmers-cannot-express-opinions-on-lia-thomas/

Also clip here Nancy being interviewed by Michael Smerconish.