Lia Thomas, a transgender swimmer, smashes women’s records at the University of Pennsylvania

 

 

Lia Thomas, a collegiate swimmer, is breaking women’s swimming records this season, and skeptics argue it’s because she used to be a man.

With a mark of 1:41.93, the University of Pennsylvania swimmer extended her dominance Saturday at the 2021 Zippy Invitational in Akron, Ohio, setting a pool, program, and meet record in the 200-yard freestyle.

“She won the race by nearly seven seconds and her time was the fastest in the country,” the Penn sports information department said in a press release.

Her record-breaking victory came a day after she set a pool and meet record in the 500 freestyle preliminaries, then claimed more records in the final with a time of 4:34.06, beating the second-place finisher by 14.39 seconds.

“That time is currently the best in the country in the event,” the university said. “Her mark was also a new program record.”

Women’s sports advocates, on the other hand, say that allowing a male-to-female transgender athlete to compete is unfair to female-born rivals.

“Well of course women’s records are being smashed!” tweeted Linda Blade, author of “Unsporting: How Trans Activism and Science Denial are Destroying Sport.” “Lia competed as male for first three years in #NCAA. This is not right!”