Members of the Penn women’s swimming and diving team released a statement announcing their support for Lia Thomas amid recent criticism of the transgender swimmer.
Thomas competed for Penn’s men’s swimming team for three years before transitioning and moving to the women’s team. This season, she has set multiple program records and has qualified for next month's NCAA swimming and diving championships in the 200-yard, 500-yard and 1,650-yard freestyle events.
In the last two months, multiple national outlets have published anonymous accounts attributed to Penn swimmers and parents that denounced Thomas’s participation on the women’s team.
“We want to express our full support for Lia in her transition,” the athletes said, per ESPN. ”We value her as a person, teammate, and friend. The sentiments put forward by an anonymous member of our team are not representative of the feelings, values, and opinions of the entire Penn team, composed of 39 women with diverse backgrounds.
“... We recognize this is a matter of great controversy and are doing our best to navigate it while still focusing on doing our best in the pool and classroom.”
The NCAA announced a change in its eligibility requirements for transgender athletes in January, deferring to the national governing bodies of specific sports. The previous policy, from 2010, required hormone-replacement therapy across all sports.
Penn Athletics then announced it would work with the NCAA in support of Thomas ahead of the swimming and diving championships in March. But the change means that USA Swimming, which uses a review panel to make individual determinations on eligibility, will make the final decision.
On Tuesday, USA Swimming announced its eligibility policy regarding “elite athletes” but did not mention how it will specifically affect Thomas nor the NCAA championships in particular.
