'Out of our control': The college swimming event that sparked a global gender debate

In March 2022, swimmer Lia Thomas tied with Riley Gaines for fifth place in the 200-meter freestyle NCAA championships. While a fifth place running between two college students would rarely get a second look, the fallout from this event continues to be felt today.

The reason is that Lia Thomas was a transgender woman who was competing in a women’s swimming event. Since that day, Gaines has become an outspoken critic of Thomas, the NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) and rules on trans athletes in competitions. Let’s look at how this issue has unfolded. 

While Thomas’ role in the race had been publicized prior to the competition, it became a global news story soon after as Gaines took to social media to criticize the NCAA’s handling of the event.

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Gaines told The Daily Wire in March 2022, that an NCAA representative told her that they only had one fifth-placed trophy, and she would have to pose with a sixth-place trophy while a fifth-placed version would be mailed out at a later date.

Gaines said that she argued with the official about why Thomas would get the trophy instead of her. Even though the two swimmers tied, Thomas is listed ahead of Gaines on the official results page, which indicates that Thomas touched ahead of Gaines by less than one-hundredth of a second, according to Swimming World Magazine.

"It was a bit disheartening," Gaines said, according to The Daily Wire. "It really was. I left the pool with no trophy. Not a big deal, but it was the goal that I had set all year."

"I am in full support of her and full support of her transition and her swimming career and everything like that because there’s no doubt that she works hard too, but she’s just abiding by the rules that the NCAA put in place, and that’s the issue," she told The Daily Wire in March 2022.

Since then, Gaines has been less restrained about her thoughts on transgender athletes and the rules of the NCAA’s competition.

Just one month later, in April 2022, Gaines spoke to Tucker Carlson on Fox News to discuss the issue further and stated that she thought Thomas had an "unfair biological advantage" in the sport due to being born a male.

"We’re dealing with something that’s completely out of our control when we’re racing, biological males. Whether they have different lung capacities, their height, testosterone levels whether they’ve used testosterone blockers or not — it doesn’t suppress going through puberty as a male. Especially Lia, who swam for three years as a male," she told Carlson. 

Image – Screenshot from YouTube @FoxNews

In July 2022, Thomas was named the 'NCAA’s Woman of the Year' for the University of Pennsylvania, whom she represented, Thomas had been on something of a run, winning the 500-yard freestyle competition at the 2022 NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships – becoming the first transgender athlete to do so.

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Gaines, who was also among the 240 nominees, wrote on X, then known as Twitter: "Being the real girl in that photo and also University of Kentucky’s nominee for NCAA WOTY, this is yet another slap in the face to women."

Later that month, Gaines spoke to Carlson again and revealed that female competitors in the NCAA race she had with Thomas had to share a locker room and said she was uncomfortable changing in the same locker room as someone with "different parts" and accused organizers of failing to disclose the fact that Thomas would be using the women’s facilities, as reported by the New York Post.

Gaines has continued to be active in this arena, publicly campaigning against the NCAA’s current protocol, writing essays on the issue, even giving a State of the Union address where she slammed US President Joe Biden for proposing to change the definition of 's e x' in a federal civil rights law to include 'gender' and 'gender identity.'

Image – Screenshot from YouTube @FoxNews

Thomas, for her part, has not made any public statements directly addressing the controversy. However, in interviews with various news outlets, she has discussed her experiences as a transgender athlete and the challenges she has faced in her swimming career.

"I’m a woman, so I belong on the women’s team. Trans people deserve that same respect every other athlete gets," she told Sports Illustrated.

Thomas has also emphasized the importance of inclusivity and diversity in sports, stating in an interview with NBC News that "everyone should have the opportunity to participate in sports and feel comfortable and safe doing so." She has called for more education and understanding around transgender issues in sports, and for policies that ensure fairness for all athletes.

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Several famous athletes have also commented on the issue, including swimmer Michael Phelps the most decorated Olympian of all time. Phelps has expressed support for the rights of transgender athletes to compete in sports, stating in an interview with NBC News that "everyone deserves a fair shot" and that he believes in "inclusion" but stressed the importance of having "a level playing field".

On the other hand, Martina Navratilova, a former professional tennis player and LGBTQ rights activist, has expressed concerns about the fairness of allowing transgender women to compete in women's sports. In a controversial op-ed for The Sunday Times, Navratilova argued that transgender women may have an unfair advantage over cisgender women due to differences in muscle mass and other physiological factors.

In July 2022, FINA, the international swimming governing body, approved new guidelines for transgender swimmers. The guidelines called the "gender inclusion policy," only allow swimmers who transitioned before the age of 12 to compete in women's events, effectively disqualifying most transgender women from the competition. 

Thomas – who has been unable to compete as a woman since the 2022 rule change – argued that those rules should be declared "invalid and unlawful" and took a legal case against World Athletics to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in the hopes of getting a shot at 2024 Olympic qualification. She would ultimately lose the case in June 2024.

In a 24-page decision, the court concluded that Thomas was "simply not entitled to engage with eligibility to compete in WA competitions". The decision referenced scientific documents that stated swimmers such as Thomas had a biological advantage in this area – in endurance, power, speed, strength and lung size, even after altering testosterone levels, The Guardian reported.

The news was welcomed by World Aquatics, who hailed it as "a major step forward in our efforts to protect women’s sport".

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