Hashtag Lia Thomas – Opinion

In response to controversy surrounding male swimmers who are female-identified, the World Swimming Coaches Association has created a new group of competition categories.

Hashtag, Lia Thomas.

The proposal offers three divisions – female division, male division, and an open division, where presumably transgender athletes would perform. Also presumably, that would basically just be another male division, since we don’t really see women trying to break into men’s sports by claiming to be a different gender.

But it doesn’t matter.

Is this really a compromise? Well, it’s a compromise, and while someone always loses in a compromise, I suppose it’s better than nothing. That being said, if sports began erecting “open divisions” to satisfy the transgender trend, I believe it could be a way to end the controversy once and for all, which is why we won’t see trans activists supporting the move. Male athletes who identify as transgender don’t go into women’s sports because they just want to be one of the girls. They want to rule the girls. A woman who can win her sport isn’t going to risk losing titles and sponsorships and scholarships to an open division where she’ll be asked to take on men. This would create an additional division, which is likely to be almost entirely male-dominated. I don’t think that’s what trans activists want. They are looking for total surrender. An open division could be the compromise that satisfies this new social reality, but I’m willing to bet the activists have no interest in it. A swimmer like Lia Thomas surely doesn’t. Lia was a male swimmer and was in the middle 500s. As “woman” Lia is now a champion. Is Lia interested in competing again against men?

I doubt it.

Kudos, WSCA, for coming up with a solution. Maybe, just maybe, some will be able to see that the activism side is not as enthusiastic about the solution.