Lia Thomas’ Fight to Compete

[MUSIC]

[CHEERING]

ANNOUNCER 1: It’s the final in the Women’s 500-yard freestyle.

DAVID GREENE, HOST: It’s March of 2022, and nine swimmers are taking their marks on the blocks at the McAuley Aquatic Center in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s the women’s college finals in the 500-yard freestyle.

ANNOUNCER 1: The three-time Ivy League champion Lia Thomas was the top qualifier in the prelims.

DG: The atmosphere in here is unusually tense for a women’s college final. More news cameras than usual, protesters inside and outside the arena. That’s because Lia Thomas is here competing.

She’s a swimmer from the University of Pennsylvania, and she’s had a hugely successful season. She’s also transgender, and the debate over whether she should even be allowed to compete in women’s sports was raging all around her during her last season.

ANNOUNCED 2: There is no doubt about it, Bill, regardless of what side you’re on, there is a lot of tension.
ANNOUNCER 1: Did we mention there are protests outside?

DG: But this race is Lia’s specialty. 500 yards means 20 laps back and forth in the pool. And when she’s in the water, it’s the only time all that outside noise starts to fade away.

REFEREE: Take your mark

[BUZZER SOUNDS]

[SWIMMERS DIVING IN]

LIA THOMAS: You’re in there for a long time, just back and forth staring at that black line on the bottom. And so people, like even other swimmers, have asked me, like, what do you think about when you’re doing that? And the answer is, I don’t think about anything really. It’s almost like this trance-like state where once I find my rhythm, it’s everything else falls away. I don’t have to think at all. I just get to feel my body moving and feel the happiness that that brings me.

[SWIMMER COMING UP FROM THE WATER]

ANNOUNCER: Thomas wins the NCAA Championship!

[CHEERING]

DG: As expected by her times in the prelims, Lia comes in first place. She swims the race in 4 minutes 33 seconds — marking her best time of the season, and setting Penn’s program record.

This is the moment we talk about so much on this show. Victory. When an athlete’s hard work finally pays off. It’s normally the moment when a competitor gets to express pure, unbridled joy. But not Lia.

[MUSIC]

LT: One of the insidious things about transphobia is, it makes us unable to celebrate and be proud of what we’ve done. Because it’s either you don’t participate at all and you avoid getting dog piled and harassed, but you don’t get to race, you don’t get to see what you’re capable of doing. Or you say, “I’m gonna do it,” I’m gonna do what I’m capable of and celebrate that, but then you get dog-piled and harassed by people trying to take that away. And I remember when I won the 500, there was precious little time to savor that and be proud of that because so quickly after that, I have to flip a switch and be like, “OK, what are people gonna say about this? How do I try to counter that? How do I defend myself from this?”

INTERVIEWER: You’ve undoubtedly been under the spotlight over the past few months. How have you been dealing with that?

LIA THOMAS IN THE INTERVIEW: I try to ignore it as much as I can, I try to focus on my swimming, what I need to do to get ready for my races, and just try to block out everything else.

LT: And so it can be really intense in like stealing any joy you’re able to find. It takes a concerted effort to hold onto that.

[MUSIC]

DG: This is Sports in America. I’m your host, David Greene, and in this episode, we are sitting down with Lia Thomas. A woman who has been at the center of a heated debate over whether trans athletes should be able to compete in women’s sports.

Even though she won her NCAA title three years ago, Lia is still all over the news. That’s because earlier this year, the Trump administration claimed the University of Pennsylvania violated Title IX by allowing her to compete. The Department of Education threatened to withhold federal funding from Penn, and the school, in response, agreed to ban future trans athletes and also strip Lia of her past titles.

In all this noise, it’s so easy to oversimplify Lia — you know, to make her one-dimensional, or to see her as just an example of an argument that people have strong feelings about. Maybe you think she’s a trailblazer. Or maybe you think she shouldn’t have been allowed to compete at all. Whatever you think, wherever you are in this debate, one thing is for certain: the news about Lia over the past few years hasn’t just been news to her. It’s been her real life. And with international focus and scrutiny on her every single move, it has just not been easy to live it — let alone to compete.

Today, Lia tells us her full story. What it was like for her to train her entire life to compete as a swimmer — and then, in college, to realize that who she was, her very identity, could put her life’s dream in jeopardy.

LT: Early on, those like feelings of gender dysphoria they were very hazy. They’re not concrete or pronounced. I couldn’t really pinpoint what I was feeling. I just kind of felt like something was off.

DG: Growing up as a kid in Austin, Texas, Lia experienced complicated feelings about her gender and who she was from a young age. But she couldn’t quite put her finger on what it all meant.

LT: My main strategy was to just kind of like push it out of my mind, especially as I got older and into like middle school and high school kind of just chalking that up to, “Oh, that’s just a quirk of puberty. That’s just, you know, everybody feels a little bit like that. I don’t have to worry about that.”

[KIDS PLAYING]

LT: And what, one of the benefits that swimming had for me was that it was a place I didn’t have to worry about anything. Like, once I dove into the water…

[SPLASHING INTO THE POOL]

LT: Nothing else outside mattered. School, friend drama, whatever fear or worry, it wasn’t important in that moment. I could just be in the water. That was sort of the dynamic in regards to these two feelings; I could put it out of my mind and focus on swimming. And that carried on until I got to college because I realized I was trans about a week, week and a half before my freshman move-in. And so once I knew I was trans, I knew what that feeling of feeling off and disconnected was, and that it was gender dysphoria. It became much harder to push it out of my mind like I had in the past. Over time, over those first years of college swimming, and the pool specifically became the place where I couldn’t hide from that at all because I’m in the water in nothing but a swimsuit, there’s no hiding my body from everybody, and no hiding my body from myself. Those were some of the moments where that gender dysphoria was the most intense and most painful.

DG: So talk to me about getting to the University of Pennsylvania. I mean, at that point, how much was swimming part of your identity? Like how important was it for you to be a swimmer? Was it part of your life? Was it everything?

LT: It was basically everything, like, it was who I am. Cause I talked, I started swimming when I was five years old. And at that, even within a couple of years of starting year-round swimming, I would be like enthusiastically introducing myself as a swimmer. It was every single one of my icebreaker fun facts. It was, “I’m Leah, I’m a swimmer.” It was like inextricably linked to who I am.

DG: Lia’s journey, particularly once she got to college, unfolded sort of like chapters in a book. When she arrived at the University of Pennsylvania as a freshman, it was a chapter about self-discovery. She already knew that she was a swimmer. That was her whole thing.

But what she was realizing for the first time is that she was also trans.

Now, if you talk to just about anyone in the LGBTQ community, they’ll tell you: their identity isn’t a choice. It’s just who they are.

But people are multifaceted, right? They’re more than just one thing. So what about when you’re a trans woman, and you’re an athlete? Lia had no idea how to navigate that. She wasn’t sure her world could even accommodate both parts of her.

And she says the idea of picking one part over the other? Unfathomable.

DG: So your first couple years, you’re an amazingly successful swimmer on the men’s team. But as you’ve already said, I mean, you’re already realizing also who you are. But what was that like? How did you kind of balance the coming to terms with needing to transition and also being like a great swimmer?

LT: (Laughs) So the short answer is there is no balancing all that.

[MUSIC]

LT: My first two years, it was just a game of how long can I juggle all of these pieces before they all come crashing down

.DG: Wow.

LT: Because I, as I mentioned, I realized I was trans right before I started college, and it totally shakes my world. It was a wonderful, wonderful realization. When I had it, the first response I had was overwhelming joy at like figuring out this part of myself. But then very soon after that, the outside worries of: What is my family gonna think? My friends? My teammates? All of these worries come rushing in, and it becomes really, really overwhelming. The issue I felt, the biggest issue those first two years at Penn was: How do I reconcile the trans part of me and the swimmer part of me? Because they felt utterly irreconcilable. I felt like I had to pick one; I had to either not transition and keep swimming, or I had to quit swimming so I could transition.

DG: You never saw swimming on the women’s team at that point as even a possibility.

LT: At that point, I didn’t know there were even rules that would accommodate for that. And even if there were, I thought there was simply no way that’s, just, it’s too much emotional burden or whatever. It’s just too much vulnerability, even, just, I had to pick one, I didn’t see there being an option. And so, I remember the first few weeks of my freshman year feeling really torn, and I considered quitting the team at that time because I was like, I don’ think I can keep swimming if I want to transition.

DG: Yeah, I can’t imagine the pain of that. I mean, just those two things that sound like they were and are the most important thing to you, being the person you are, and having swimming in your life and having to choose between those two. I mean, it just sounds, it must’ve felt impossible.

LT: It really did. And so, for my freshman year, what I ended up doing is the weight of that impossible choice, under that, I essentially walked myself back into the closet. Where I was like, “No, no, I’m not trans, I’m cisgender. I’m straight. I’m just going to swim. Keep doing this. I’m going to ignore all these other feelings.” They kind of kept encroaching back in and coming up and being like, “Hey, like you’re still trans, you gotta do something about this.” But there’s enough distractions your first year at college, adapting to this new environment, that you can keep yourself plenty busy and not think about them. And it wasn’t until the end of my freshman year when I fully and sort of finally accepted to myself that I was trans.

DG: And what was that moment? What did that feel like? And what was going through your mind then?

LT: It was sort of right, like a week or so after finals ended my freshman year, I was staying on campus for a bit because Wes was graduating from his master’s degree.

DG: Lia is talking about her older brother, Wes. He went to Penn right around the same time that she did.

LT: And I was there already, so I was going to stay and watch his graduation ceremony. It was, you know, on campus during graduation.

LT: There’s all the grad celebration and regalia going around. It’s sort of impossible not to imagine, like, “What will this be like in a few years when it’s my turn?”

[INDISCTINCT CHATTER]

And that was sort of a big kind of moment that forced me to, like, really think about it because I imagined my graduation.

[GRADUATION MUSIC PLAYS]

LT: And picturing myself as a man walking across the stage felt so painful and uncomfortable.

[GRADUATION MUSIC STOPS]

LT: I had to do something.

DG: What Lia decided to do about it, that is coming up next on Sports in America.

[MIDROLL]

DG: Welcome back to Sports in America. I’m David Greene.

Watching her brother’s graduation ceremony, Lia realized she couldn’t hold in her identity any longer. She had to come out as trans.

What was the process of letting people in, telling your family, your siblings, teammates, coach? How did that go, and what was that feeling like?

LT: Yeah, coming out, it was an extended process. In June 2018, which was the summer after my freshman year. I and my girlfriend at the time were staying on campus to do like a summer class. She was and has continued to be a very staunch queer ally. And she invited me to go with her to the Pride Parade as like allies to be supportive. And as a closeted trans woman, I was like, “Yes, absolutely. I would love to go hang out with cool queer people.”

[CHEERING]

[MUSIC]

BROADCASTER: The city of Philadelphia celebrating Pride. The LGBTQ community and its allies coming out in force to Center City for a parade and festival.

LT: And that going to Pride that first time was another moment that just totally opened my world because I saw hundreds, probably thousands of openly queer people living their authentic lives. And while I didn’t really talk to any of them there, just seeing them doing that and living their lives gave me the confidence to come out and to say, “I can do it too.” And so that evening when we got home, I came out to her. I think that might have been the first time I said the words “I’m trans” out loud. And so that was a very huge milestone, and she was incredibly supportive. It was a really great first step into coming out.

DG: What was the toughest conversation that you remember from that period of coming out to people?

LT: The toughest conversation was the first time I came out to my parents. And that was the most sort of terrified I’ve ever been in my life. They were caught totally off guard. They had no idea; they did not see it coming. But they said, “OK, like we’re very confused, but we, you’re still our child, and we love and support you. But we want to talk more about this.” And what I think essentially happened in between that first conversation and the next conversation was they tried to research what being trans was and meant. And in doing that, fell into essentially transphobic misinformation rabbit holes. And then were sent tumbling down that pipeline because the next time we talked, they were like, “No, like we do not think you’re trans, you shouldn’t transition. We’re very against this.”

DG: And this moment, the beginning of Lia’s second year at Penn, marks another chapter. She knows that she’s trans now, but she’s afraid that means she’ll lose swimming, and maybe her bond with her family. And so she doesn’t accept it.

Lia tries to stifle a key part of who she is. And that is not easy. She struggles every day with gender dysphoria — this feeling where your body just doesn’t match how you feel inside. It caused her a lot of pain.

LT: There was nowhere to hide. I knew I wanted to transition. I knew I wanted to come out, but I couldn’t. I felt I didn’t have the family support necessary to, like, do that. And so I just felt very, very trapped, and it’s a very painful time, so I’m sort of stuttering over my words a little bit.

DG: No, no, take your time.

LT: I knew I wanted to transition, but I couldn’t. And the pain of gender dysphoria was only getting worse every day. And so I ultimately resolved that, OK, I’ll get to the end of the season, I’ll swim the best I can, and then after the season, that’s an extra four months, surely by then I’ll have convinced my parents, or they’ll have come around, and we’ll be all good there. Once the season’s done, I’ll start HRT. And that sort of worked. It worked in the sense that there was at least a goal to focus on, and there was sort of a light at the end of the tunnel. Even then, I was not swimming sort of the same way I was the year before. It was just impossible to be fully present and invested in each practice and each race because to do so would be to open myself up to the full onslaught of gender dysphoria, and that would be utterly overwhelming.
And so even as I resolved myself to keep swimming, I was doing so in at best a sort of half-dissociative state just to get through each day or each practice. And that sort of carried me through the end of the season in early March. But once that comes along, I don’t have swimming as the sort of daily routine anymore to keep me focused. And my parents have not made any progress on coming around. And so that is sort of the moment where everything comes tumbling down. There’s a period here of about five weeks of this feeling depressed and hopeless and suicidal that, in thinking back on, felt like it was years at the time. Ultimately, what starts to get me out of that moment is talking to Schuyler Bailar.

SCHUYLER BAILAR: Welcome back to Dear Schuyler, my show where I talk to all kinds of amazing people about topics that I’m asked about as a transgender educator and advocate…

LT: A close friend and a mentor to me. He’s a trans man who swam at Harvard. We overlapped a few years, and he does lots of speaking and education on trans issues. Now, April of my sophomore year, he’s at Penn giving a talk. And the morning after, we get brunch together, and I sort of talk about like where I’m at and what like is happening with me and like wanting to transition and my parents and stuff, and he essentially encourages me not to give up.

[MUSIC]

LT: But one of the things he said that has stuck with me to this day is that it’s easier to fight the whole world than to have to fight yourself every day. And it could not be more true. And after that, I resolve that I’m going to transition. I’m going to start hormone replacement therapy. I’m going to be myself. And it was like a survival instinct more than any sort of decision that I made. It was doing what I needed to do to live.

DG: You thought that you had made that impossible choice. Like I’m going to be who I am, but I have to let go of swimming.

LT: Yeah. That impossible choice that I’d had for the first two years of feeling like I had to choose between swimming and being trans was sort of made for me in the sense that I realized if I don’t transition, I’m going to kill myself.

DG: I’m so sorry, Lia.

LT: Yeah, it was a very difficult and dark moment. There’s a lot that goes into that moment or that time. Part of me wonders, would it have ever gotten that bad If I didn’t feel I had to make that choice? If being trans and being an athlete didn’t seem like an impossible ask, if that seemed like a safe and doable path, would it have gotten that bad? It’s impossible to say for sure in hindsight, but I think it would have made it a lot easier because I wouldn’t have been stuck in that for so long. But so after starting HRT, I was like, “I’m done with swimming. I’m not going to come back in the fall.”

DG: OK, I should tell you a little bit about HRT before we go on. HRT means hormone replacement therapy. It’s a medical treatment that replaces the hormones your body naturally produces, or has stopped producing. People can take it to help transition, or even to treat the symptoms of menopause.

When Lia started HRT, she assumed that would be the end of her swimming career. But then she started doing a little research.

LT: I’m on HRT, I’m in the process. I’ve started transitioning. I’m living more authentically. I’m not fully out yet, but I’m on the path there. And that does tremendous, tremendous things for my mental well-being. And so I’m not feeling so hopeless and depressed anymore. And somewhere along those first two years, I had learned what the NCAA trans-athlete policy at the time was. And so I knew it was technically an option. I just hadn’t considered it feasible until now, when I’m like, I’m feeling a lot better. Maybe there is an option where I can keep swimming. Because I still don’t want to lose it if at all possible.

[MUSIC]

DG: When Lia started transitioning, the NCAA’s policy was that trans athletes could compete on the team that aligns with their gender identity, so long as they’ve been on hormone replacement therapy for at least one year.

There’s a lot of evidence to back up the idea that when trans women are on hormone replacement therapy, they do lose quite a bit of muscle mass and aerobic capacity. Whether that’s enough to erase any competitive advantage, the science is still mixed on that. And the NCAA’s policy has gotten more strict since Lia competed.

But that was the policy at the time, the summer after Lia’s sophomore year. So Lia says she brought it up to her coach, Mike Schnur.

LT: And so by the time late August comes around, when everybody’s coming back to campus, I was like, I’m going to try it. And that’s when I came out to Mike and our assistant coaches. And I was blown away by how supportive Mike was. He was another one who I just had no idea what to expect from coming up to him, but he was again, very surprised and was not expecting it. But after, he like paused for a moment and then collected himself, and then was just fully supportive from then on.

DG: That’s amazing. Did he say you’re going to keep swimming? Whatever it takes.

LT: I think he asked if I could keep swimming, and I sort of told them what the policy was, and he was like, “OK, so you’re going to keep swimming.” And he, like, sort of on his own initiative, worked with Penn’s LGBT Center to help both better educate him and, like, sort of ask what best practices were for like supporting me, and has always been right by my side, and it was the support I needed to be able to keep swimming. So it was at the end of that summer that I say, “OK, I do want to keep swimming.” And then Mike sort of, a little bit, kind of threw me into that, where there was, like, one day, more like the first weeks we were back. It was after practice, and I was talking to him, and he was just like, “Oh, so you’re going to come out to the rest of the team at the team meeting on Friday, right?”

[MUSIC]

LT: And again, his like over the top, like infectious, like positive energy was just, there was no saying no to that. I was like, I guess I am now. I remember leading up to that, it was like right after practice, despite warming down, my heart rate still felt like it was over 200 going into that meeting. But I did it. I was met with so much support. And I remember walking or getting home specifically after that meeting, and I sat down on the couch, and I felt like I was floating, such a burden had been lifted from me, where for two years now I worried endlessly over what my teammates would say, and I didn’t have to anymore because they supported me.

DG: That’s really powerful and really, really a beautiful moment given the low points that you had talked about.

LT: Mhm.

DG: The chapters in Lia Thomas’ life keep unfolding. Her junior year, she continues to swim on the men’s team. Then comes COVID – and a year off. Her final year at Penn is a chapter about everything seeming to come together. She had met the NCAA’s requirements for competing on the women’s team. Lia would finally swim on the team that aligned with her identity.

You come into the 21-’22 season. You’re on the women’s team. You’ve been on hormone replacement therapy for quite some time. It was a hugely successful season statistically.

LT: Yeah, I came back feeling confident and happy in my body. And I was itching to get back in the water after pools had been closed for so long. And the biggest difference between my swimming that year versus before transitioning was just how much more engaged I was in the sport. I was way, way weaker. My muscle mass had decreased so much, and I had way less endurance, but I was, I could put my full energy into swimming again because I wasn’t putting most of it into dissociating just so I could get through the day. I could now bring all my energy to bear in swimming. I was energized and hyped up for it like I hadn’t been in years. And just, it was like falling in love with the sport all over again.

DG: That’s a beautiful way to put it. But I know that a lot of that year wasn’t always beautiful. I mean, even though it sounds like it just felt so right, this is when you were starting to be the subject of intense scrutiny and people questioning whether you should be swimming on the women’s team. Is there a memory or a moment that you remember that kind of takes us into that contradiction? The beauty that you just described of falling in love with the sport again, and also getting this unwanted attention and all these questions.

LT: Going into that season, I knew, like, to expect that. I knew to expect that to some degree. Just being a trans person, you see how people talk about other trans people. You know what to expect. What caught me was one of the first feelings I had when seeing this takeoff was confusion. I sort of conceptually understood what was happening, but I was confused because, from my perspective, I’m just a normal college woman doing college sports. No one has ever cared about women’s college swimming. And so to see this much attention being dedicated to it and to me was, I was like, “I’m just a normal woman trying to live my life. What’s the big deal here?”

[MUSIC]

DG: And Lia is making an interesting point. All the attention that trans athletes get – from all sides of this debate – can be kind of surprising because, statistically, there aren’t that many actually competing. Last year, the president of the NCAA said there are fewer than 10 trans athletes competing at the college level, among more than 500,000 total student athletes.

But the responding backlash that these athletes get can be massive. And Lia certainly had her fair share — abuse on social media, protests in person, even people suggesting that she transitioned just to be able to win on the women’s team.

DG: Did the questions you were getting affect how much you could enjoy the successes in the pool? I mean, you did so well at the Ivy League and NCAA championships. Were you able to enjoy those successes?

LT: I was, but it’s one of the sort of, I guess insidious things about transphobia is it makes us unable to celebrate and be proud of what we’ve done because it’s either you don’t participate at all and you avoid getting dog piled and harassed, but you don’t get to like, you don’t get to race, you don’t get to see what you’re capable of doing. You’re limited. Or you say, “I’m gonna do it, I’m gonna do what I’m capable of and celebrate that.” But then you get dog-piled and harassed by people trying to take that away. And I remember when I won the 500, there’s precious little time to savor that and be proud of that because so quickly after that, I have to flip a switch and be like, “OK, what are people gonna say about this? How do I try to counter that? How do I defend myself from this?” And so it can be really intense and like stealing any joy you’re able to find. It takes a concerted effort to hold onto that.

DG: Coming up, how does Lia respond to the people who don’t think she should be allowed to compete in women’s sports? And three years after her college career ended, what is she up to now? That is next, on Sports in America.

[MIDROLL BREAK]

DG: This is Sports in America, I’m your host David Greene. And let’s get right back into our conversation with Lia Thomas.

DG: One of the things that I know you have heard and dealt with is people saying, “I support trans rights. I support you as a trans woman and all the rights that you deserve and should enjoy. And I have questions about whether you should be able to compete in women’s sports, specifically women’s swimming, because of who you are there could be a competitive advantage.” And I know you’ve really pushed back on that, but I know I do hear that from a lot of people. It’s like, “I am not transphobic. I just think that there are reasons to question when it comes to athletics.” And can you talk about how you approach people who have that kind of complicated viewpoint?

LT: I think there are two aspects of that that I think people don’t sort of understand when they say something like that. The first is that you don’t get to pick and choose when you see me as a woman. You don’t get to say, “You can be a woman in these situations, but not in these.” Because you would never do that to a cis woman. You would never say, “Oh there are only certain situations in which you can be a woman.” But for trans women, a lot of people think, “Oh, it’s OK that I can sort of be the arbiter and pick and choose when I see them as women.” And the other thing is, I think people have not really a full understanding of how massively HRT affects your body and the changes it makes, and how it changes, sort of, every aspect of your physical performance. And there are massive losses to muscle mass, strength, and endurance, and to say, to make blanket statements like, “Oh, I see you as a woman, but you just shouldn’t compete in women’s sports,” is both transphobic and not reflective of the realities behind being trans and being on HRT.

DG: You know, as a journalist and as a journalist who is really just so passionate about the art of conversation, and, like, I believe even in the most polarizing times and on some of the most sensitive cultural questions in our life and society, it’s like a conversation can be the pathway to, like, to greater understanding. Do you see that as even possible in our society today? Do you see a path to conversations like that, that might get us forward and lead to greater acceptance for you and greater understanding? Or has the world just gotten past that?

[MUSIC]

LT: I don’t think we’re past it. I think there is an avenue. I think the avenue is sort of sitting down and trying to see each other as the people we are. I think the example with my parents is an incredible example of this, where, for about a year, they were not supportive. They parroted a lot of really transphobic talking points, and it caused a lot of harm. But it wasn’t totally unsalvageable. And what fixed it, what healed that relationship, was seeing just how much this meant to me. And also after starting hormone replacement therapy, seeing just how much happier I was when I was being true to myself. And every day more that they saw that, they only solidified their support and have come fully around and are now some of my biggest supporters.

DG: That’s so powerful, that image of parents, whatever kind of confusion or judgment or worry they have, like seeing their child happy and smiling, can hopefully kind of overcome everything else.

LT: Yeah. I think it’s a really great example of how powerful that authentic happiness is in, like, in being able to, sort of, change hearts and minds. Because that’s what it did for my parents. Them seeing all the human emotions and feelings that go into a person being trans and coming out and sharing that. I think that is the thing that’s been lost. I think that’s the aspect we have to find if we’re going to have those conversations and bring people together and move forward, because my parents were lucky that they knew their trans daughter and had that sort of real-life exposure to sort of dispel a lot of the preconceptions and misconceptions they had around being trans. And absent that real, tangible human connection, the only thing that’s left is the media portrayal of trans people, which is so often misconstrued and sensationalized to push a certain narrative.

DG: Is there something that we, and I put myself in this category, in the media, included, can do better?

LT: Part of it is making sure you’re reaching the people who are coming with those questions in good faith, who are open to learning and understanding, and trying to avoid the people who are approaching this in bad faith and intentionally trying to muddy the waters. One of the biggest things you can do is to raise up trans voices, to match that, to have trans people share their experience and have that be a lens to show that shared humanity.

DG: So, since Lia Thomas graduated from college, she hasn’t left the spotlight. She was hoping to swim in the 2024 Olympics. She even levied a legal challenge against the more strict rules set by World Aquatics, which prohibited her from competing. But that didn’t go as she’d hoped.

You lost your legal challenge to compete in the ‘24 Olympics. How did that feel? How did you deal with that setback?

LT: In June of 2022, World Aquatics released their new trans policy, which was, at the time, one of, if not the harshest policies I’d seen, where it banned trans women from competing if they transitioned after age 12, which, given the practicalities of sort of the journey it takes to realize you’re trans and some of the barriers to getting gender affirming care, it’s essentially an outright ban on all trans women competing in the women’s category. It was a gut punch, and even now, almost a year after the case has ended, it still hits me sometimes. It’s just like that aching grief at not being able to do the sport that I love.

DG: The last time Lia competed at the college level, at Penn, was three years ago. We spoke to her just before she was brought into the spotlight yet again when the University of Pennsylvania stripped her swimming titles, under pressure from the Trump administration.

Are you still swimming?

LT: I still swim occasionally, just on my own at a local YMCA. It’s sort of part of what I mentioned earlier about it being a, for trans people, it takes a concerted effort to hold on to those moments of joy because, for me, with everything that happened my senior year and has happened since, it’s very easy to slip into almost like a negative perception of swimming, where swimming and being in the water just brings up all that pain and all those feelings of grief all over again and very fresh. It takes a lot of effort to try to focus on the joy that swimming still brings me.

DG: Are there still moments at the Y when swimming can be the escape?

[MUSIC]

[SWIMMING SOUNDS]

LT: There are moments where I can just, I can find that escape that it was for me as a child, and just let everything sort of wash away and it feels almost like I’m flying, and it still absolutely, it can be that place of peace and happiness, but it takes, it unfortunately, it takes a concerted effort at times.

DG: Is there a lesson in your experience that you might pass on to younger trans athletes who are, who look at your experience and want to sort of learn something, the good, the bad, and otherwise?

LT: If I could pass on anything, I would pass on what Schuyler told me just over six years ago now. It’s easier to fight the whole world than to fight yourself every day. Because when I look back on my journey, on all the difficulties, all the highs and lows, I would do it all over again in a heartbeat. There’s just no substitute to living and being your authentic self. But it unfortunately takes courage because of the many difficulties that there are surrounding being openly trans, especially being an openly trans athlete. But it’s absolutely worth it, and I know you can do it.

DG: Lia, thank you. Thanks for sharing your story.

LT: Thank you, thanks for having me.

DG: This is Sports in America, thanks for listening. I’m your host, David Greene.

[MUSIC]

Next time, on Sports in America: Susannah Scaroni is a wheelchair marathon racer. She has landed on the podium about a dozen times in marathons all over the world, and she’s won gold in the Olympics.

SUSANNAH SCARONI: After a while, I’m realizing they’re not catching up, and there’s two laps left, and I was like, “Wow, I think I might be able to pull this off.”

DG: But her journey to becoming a world-famous athlete has not been straightforward.

SS: Susannah, like, pull yourself together, like, when you were sitting on the road you were just so grateful to be alive.

DG: We’ll sit down with Susannah in the run-up to her next race: the New York City Marathon. That’s coming up next week, on Sports in America.

This is Sports in America. I’m your host, David Greene.

Our executive producers are Joan Isabella and Tom Grahsler.

Our senior producer is Michael Olcott. Our producer is Michaela Winberg, and our associate producer is Bibiana Correa. Our engineer is Mike Villers. Our tile artwork was created by Bea Walling.

Sports in America is a production of WHYY in Philadelphia, and is distributed by PRX. Some of our interviews were originally created by Religion of Sports with special thanks to Adam Schlossman. You can find Sports in America on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, the iHeart Radio app — you know, wherever you get your podcasts.

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Executive Producer: Tom Grahsler
Senior Producer: Michael Olcott
Producer: Michaela Winberg
Associate Producer: Bibiana Correa
Engineer: Mike Villers
Tile Art: Bea Walling

Sports in America is a production of WHYY, distributed by PRX, and part of the NPR podcast network.

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