"They are using the guise of feminism" - Lia Thomas calls out 'anti-feminists' for 'transphobic beliefs'
Lia Thomas is the most talked about name when it comes to topics regarding trans athletes. She represented the University of Pennsylvania men's team in swimming. Later, the swimmer underwent hormone replacement therapy and started competing for the women's team at the University of Pennsylvania.
She has been publicly opposed by former University of Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines on several occasions, and in some cases Lia Thomas has provided responses in her interviews to comments made by Riley against her. Most recently, Riley appeared on Piers Morgan Uncensored, during which she spoke about the statements made by Lia.
Thomas recently appeared on fellow trans swimmer Schuyler Bailar's podcast "Dear Schuyler." According to the Fox News and Dear Schuyler podcast, Trans swimmer said the following statement:
"They're using the guise of feminism to sort of push transphobic beliefs. I think a lot of people in that camp sort of carry an implicit bias against trans people but don't want to, I guess, fully manifest or speak that out. And so they try to just play it off as this sort of half support."
While interacting with Lia for the podcast, Schuyler Bailar said:
"They think about how twisted 'feminism' has become their arguments. In order to exclude anybody in the trans category, you have to reduce women to reproductive capacity, which is, in my opinion, extremely anti-feminist"
Further during the interaction, Lia stated that some of her University of Pennsylvania teammates are half-supportive of her, according to the aforementioned source.
"They're like, 'Oh, we respect Lia as a woman, as a trans woman or whatever. We respect her identity. We just don't think it's fair.' You can’t really have that sort of half support where you're like, 'Oh, I respect her as a woman here, but not here'"
Thomas continued:
"You can't sort of break me down as a person into little pieces, and you're like, 'Ok, this is Ok, this is Ok, that's not.' It's pretending to be supportive on some level but, in reality, it just sort of falls flat."
According to Fox News, the trans swimmer said that 16 of her teammates wrote a letter to the school saying that they felt it was unfair that Lia Thomas was competing in the women's division. The podcast was posted on the Diversion YouTube channel and the video is attached below:
Lia Thomas doesn't feel responsible for the debate surrounding transgender females
The trans swimmer said she doesn't feel responsible for the heightened debate regarding transgender females in women's sports, according to Fox News and Dear Schuyler.
"I definitely struggled with, at first, sort of like a year ago following the season, following NCAAs, of feeling almost a responsibility or maybe even a blame for some of the new rulings or rules or legislation. It wasn’t me personally that sparked it.
"It was just, they were waiting for a trans woman to be successful to go on a whole tirade against trans people and pass all sorts of legislation. So, that’s helped me move past that a little bit."
According to Fox News, the U.S. House has passed legislation with the aim of preventing biological males from competing as transgender athletes in girls' and women's sports as schools across the country. The legislation was passed after a debate in which several Democrats accused Republicans of "bullying" transgender students by calling up the bill as per the aforementioned source.