US Official Says Transgender Swimmer Lia Thomas Is "Destroying Women's Swimming"

Lia Thomas is a transgender swimmer who takes part in women swimming tournaments. Recently, a swimming official in USA protested against Lia's participation in women's sports. The official resigned from her position because according to her Lia's presence is "destroying women's swimming".

The USA official who gave up on her position was Cynthia Millen. She was officiating swimming tournaments in the USA for the last three decades. Her resignation comes ahead of the organisation of the U.S. Paralympics Swimming National Championships which will take place in Greensboro, N.C.

Allegations On Lia Thomas

Cynthia appeared on a news channel where she argued that swimming is a sport where bodies compete with bodies and not identities. And when it comes to physical appearance, men have different anatomy than women and that is the reason why we have different tournaments for men and women.

Keeping the physical differences in mind, Millen argued that it is not fair for Lia Thomas to take part in women competitions as Lia's physicality matches to biological men. Lia's participation is unfair to other women participants. Cynthia resigned as she no longer wanted to take part in tournaments that allow transgender women to participate.

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As per the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), men have different physical features than women like larger lung capacity, larger heart, less fat, bigger skeleton and greater circulation. Due to this men are faster swimmers than women. It is mentioned in the NCAA rules that transgender participants need to be on testosterone suppressants for a minimum of one year to take part in women tournaments. Lia Thomas had stated previously that as per the rules, she was taking testosterone blockers.

Cynthia stills called the swimmer's participation as "horrible" and "destroying women's swimming". She said that she acknowledges the fact that Thomas is "God's child" but "we cannot ignore the fact that Lia's body is of a biological male and no matter how many testosterone blockers are taken, Lia will have an upper hand in women tournaments."

It is important to know that Lia Thomas, who is a transgender swimmer from Pennsylvania, had formerly participated in the men's swimming tournament for two seasons of University Of Pennsylvania. And earlier in the month of December, Lia won Women’s 200-yard freestyle held in Akron, Ohio and also set new Ivy League record in Women's 500-yard freestyle.