Phelps Gives Muddy Response On Trans Swimmer Situation

The controversy surrounding transgender swimmer Lia Thomas has dominated the swimming world’s news cycle for over a month. Michael Phelps has offered his views on the matter. He is one of the most admired and respected swimmers.

Is that his position? According to him, it’s complicated.

Phelps seems to be ok with the fact that a man is calling himself a woman (which makes no sense in any form of reality), but he does want sporting events to be held on “an even playing field.”

Related: ‘Ridiculous’: Teammate Talks Turkey on Trans Woman Smashing Swim Records

“I don’t know where this is going to go. I don’t know what’s going to happen. My belief is that everyone should be happy with themselves. But I think sports should all be played on an even playing field…I don’t know what that looks like in the future. But it’s hard. It’s very complicated.

This is what I do. It has been my main sport for my entire professional career. However, I wish everyone could compete on an equal playing ground. That’s all I can say,” Phelps said.

The video below has more context for Phelps’ thoughts:

Reflection on Djokovic’s bungle before the Australian Open: The most decorated Olympian ever @MichaelPhelps says that “as athletes, we are role models… I’ve had Covid and it was terrible… We can all work together and follow certain guidelines.” pic.twitter.com/RBwZk3B9BJ

— Christiane Amanpour (@amanpour) January 13, 2022

This may not be the most enthusiastic or confident answer to the question. However, it’s understandable since if even one word of his reply offends any cancel mob members, they will undoubtedly pursue him.

But at the very least, by saying he wants athletes to compete against each other on similar playing fields, he could be implying that Thomas’ presence in women’s sports is detrimental to female athletes and should not continue (Thomas is breaking female swimming records left and right and obliterating her competition in most events).

But his position on transgenderism has a lot of flaws. People cannot simply take testosterone suppressants or have reassignment surgery to “change their gender.” You are either born a male or a female, anything else you do is a feeble attempt to change the fundamental identity you were born with. So we should never be “comfortable in our own skin” if we are living a lie, but our Phelps seems perfectly okay to let that one slide.

Is Phelps’s assessment of the situation half-baked? Yes. Could he have shown more strength and backbone? Probably. Is he properly using his power within the sport to protect women’s swimming in the future? While he is able to use his power within the sport for right now, it’s not clear what the future holds.