That is not all that is unusual about her situation, though. The other quirk is that she happens to be very, very fast for a collegiate swimmer—when compared with the men she used to compete against. Thomas posted the 32nd fastest 1,650-yard freestyle time in the nation for men during her sophomore season in 2018-19. In the 1,000-yard freestyle, she was ranked 18th. Nobody would give a shit if she wasn't good, and most trans athletes are worse than their peers and as such you don't get a media uproar about them, -remember that one olympic weightlifter who was supposed to wreck the competition according to the press, who proceeded to fail to make it past the first round? now it seems that the ncaa have changed their rules to make sure that no college transfem athlete will be able to compete effectively (>3 years of hrt required and testosterone upper limits that many cisgender athletes exceed), and lia thomas is widely mocked, called a man, and turned into a prop for the culture war - and for what, the integrity of women's college sports? when have you ever seen anybody who doesn't participate or have a family member participate in women's college sports ever care about it? but suddenly when the tranny wins an award, everybody starts writing thinkpieces it comes from an ultimately sexist attitude where women are inherently inferior and need their own little flower garden to play in, while the men do the real athletics over in stadium -this is one of the many reasons why nobody complaining about this has ever considered trans men, who are forced to play against women even though they are literally taking testosterone which is significantly more unfair than the reverseThomas’s recognition relatively early in college that she wanted to transition, and the fact that she commenced hormone therapy during the summer, enabled her to navigate the window enabled by the NCAA rules in effect at the time where others may not have.
this is a good video that is in depth on the topic, but the main points are: 1. this is the new issue that antitrans activists have moved on to now that the "bathroom panic" has become politically less viable - concerns about trans athletes are primarily external to the sports world and happening in america and the UK 2. ensuring fairness in sports is much more complicated than separating people "born male" and "born women" for a litany of reasons, and any good solution to the problem will need to be more complicated than either excluding trans people or allowing everybody to join anything they want (for example, establishing different groups based on physical differences that actually affect the sport in question akin to height/weight classes) the current culture war debate is deliberately framed in a way to make the issue seem like PC run amok loony left, yadda yadda, just like the bathroom panic was ("grown men pissing next to my little girl? how could this be!")
and to be honest it really sucks to be the community trans explainer -it's not like i have to do it, but i feel like i should, and it's a vibe killer. i hope that someday people like me won't be treated like political footballs or conversational curiosities
If it helps, it's a really tiny community? Speaking as a white dude just a few months younger than Hilary Swank? "Explainer" is probably the single most valuable thing you can do for everyone else. What I can share from the entitled queerbashing conservative nothingchanges community of white males is a general dread of being wrong and being pilloried for stuff that simply wasn't an issue our entire lives. How many tens or hundreds of millions of people out there have "Klinger from M.A.S.H." as their trans paradigm? And I get that you just want to live your (harder) life but on top of that "change is bad" layer that you'll never penetrate there's a whole 'nuther "what I do this time" layer of behavior that has no fucking idea how to navigate change. If you can clear that pathway even a little bit you increase acceptance for everyone. I recognize and appreciate your bravery. I recognize and appreciate your discomfort. I simply want to say it isn't in vain.
it's only because it's a small community that i feel some kind of pressure to be honest - tng addressed the hubski trans community, but if you do the math that basically means just me and spoons the wind is strong but I'll keep pissing into it I'm kinda just bitching
"Sports" is very much a socioeconomic divider between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. Who gets paid to get into college? Athletes. Whose parents have the time and energy to support extracurricular bullshit? Athletes. Who's going to get the better interviews? Athletes. "Sports" is also very much a tax-advantaged college industry that has nothing to do with academics (see also: above). Money in college sports is very much an alumni good-ole-boy virtue-signalling backroom bullshit bonanza and, surprise surprise, not a particularly progressive one. It's a big dumb Harrison Bergeron bullshit fest, wherein competing this way is A-OK but competing that way is grounds for expulsion and as with most things rule-bound, the rules are fundamentally a way one group of people can dominate another. Considering the 49ers are still without a decent quarterback, six goddamn years after Kaepernick taking a knee, old white dudes losing their shit about girls' swimming is the least surprising thing on earth.