Transgender Swimmer Lia Thomas, has broken a woman Olympian's record ......
The Picture Tells The Story? |
...... at the Ivy League swimming Championships in the USA in February 2022.
'She'
competed on the men's swimming team just three years prior to
transitioning, but she's since joined the University of Pennsylvania’s
women's swimming team, after starting hormone replacement therapy in the
spring of 2019. However her first individual title win in the 500 yard
freestyle, with a winning time of 4:37.32 was more than seven seconds
quicker than her teammate Catherine Buroker in second place, and started Ms Tomas's current dominance in women's swimming.
Her
latest win set a new record at Harvard University's Blodgett Pool,
beating the former record set by Olympian Kate Ziegler. Thomas's set
another record with a winning time of 1:43:12 in the 200yd freestyle.
Some
medics, such as Dr. James Barrett, the director of the Adult Gender
Identity Clinic in London, have defended men who transitioned into women, competing against natural women, saying that despite having males muscles in a
female trans body 'Trans women by and large aren’t winning across the board. It’s not obvious that there’s necessarily an advantage at all.'
But many critics have voiced concerns about her and other transgendered athletes who went through male puberty having an 'unfair advantage' over other women, as summarised by two-time Olympian Mara Yamauchi (second-fastest GB women marathoner):
'Record
breaking is one part of the destruction of women’s sport. Some female
World Records in athletics are ‘fossilised’ because of doping — no
female can now get near them. The exciting goal of breaking a World
Record removed for all females. Same now w males taking female records.'
As well as obvious physiological attributes such as height
and weight, or performance metrics such as speed and strength, the
trans-females also went through male puberty with testosterone and a denser
bone building than women. So they argue that testosterone suppression
and oestrogen tablets after male puberty, does not adequately reduce the
advantages gained in male puberty, within any given women's sport, is a
valid complaint.
In
March 2022, Florida governor Ron DeSantis signed a proclamation
recognising runner-up Emma Weyant as the winner of the US national
college swimming title - stripping Thomas of the women's 500-yard
freestyle title in Atlanta. He said her win in a record time of four
minutes 33.24 seconds, had "undermined the integrity of the competition".
Ms Weyant, who won 400m individual medley silver at the 2021 Tokyo
Olympics, had finished 1.75secs behind, which effectively made Ms
Thomas the best 'female' swimmer in the world at that distance.
DeSantis
also criticised the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) for
allowing Thomas to compete against natural women.
"The NCAA
is basically taking efforts to destroy women's athletics, they're trying
to undermine the integrity of the competition, and they're crowning
somebody else the women's champion and we think that's wrong. They are
putting ideology ahead of opportunity for women athletes and I think
that there are just some people that are afraid to speak out and say
what they are doing, but that is what they are doing."
De Santis is not the only person to express concern at the latest woke trends. World Athletics President Lord Coe issued a warning over the future of women's sport if sporting organisations get regulations for transgender athletes wrong.
"I
think that the integrity of women's sport if we don't get this right,
and actually the future of women's sport, is very fragile ... and fairness is non-negotiable"."
Such
is the concern engendered by this phenomena, that USA Swimming recently updated its policy regarding
transgender competitors in women's events, who are now required to have smaller levels of
testosterone for 36 months before being eligible. Cycling's governing body, the UCI, also toughened its rules on transgender eligibility by doubling the period of time before a rider transitioning from male to female can compete ... but as swimming has shown, this is only postpones the problem, and does not solve the puberty issue.
Other sports such as the International Rugby League (IRL) have recently banned transgender players from women's internationals, and said it wanted to "balance the individual's right to participate... against perceived risk to other participants" .... the risk in contact sports such as both codes of rugby, are obvious .... a transwoman who had previously been a male, 19 stone prop forward, could plough through women players, and could easily injure or even kill one. Boxing could also pose a physical risk for normal women against a transwoman.
In June 2022, Fina, the world swimming governing body, voted to stop transgender athletes from competing in any women's elite race, if they have gone through any part of the process of male puberty. The transgendered swimmers now have to have completed their 'transition' by the age of 12, in order to be able to compete in women's competitions.
But after this bit of common-sense, they then felt that they had to give a sop to the 'trans inclusiveness culture', that is largely being driven by men who have transitioned to women, when they said that this was "only a first step towards full inclusion" for transgender athletes, and that they aim to have an 'open' category at competitions, for swimmers whose gender identity is different than their birth sex.
Possible Future Olympic Final? |
So you can now foresee 'open' races, where only one competitor 'races' to Olympic gold ... or even races where a transwoman beats a transman ... as only one of them went through male puberty .... Joke or What? ..... how could competitive sports survive this nonsense?
Of course all this fuss is actually currently about just a handful of transwomen athletes, but if this tiny number can disrupt world women's sport to this extent, then imagine what a larger number will do to it? Why would women even bother in some sports, that would simply be destroyed for them ....
You only have to look at what happened, when it is alleged that women athletes in communist countries, were being given male drugs to enhance performances (effectively becoming transmen) ... there were women's world and Olympic records being set then, that have remained unbroken or even unchallenged in the 30 or 40 years since:
- Czech Republic - Jarmila Kratochvílová 1983, World Record women's 800ms (only one woman athlete has come within one second of this time since).
- East Germany - Marita Koch 400m 1985, World Record women's 400m.
- USSR - Natalya Lisovskaya 1987, World Record women's shot put.
- East Germany - Gabriele Reinsch 1988, World Record women's discus.
- USSR - Nadezhda Olizarenko 1980, Olympic women's 800 metres record.
- USSR - 4 x 400m relay 1988, World and Olympic women's record.
- USSR - 4 x 800m relay 1984, World women's record.
Those who claim that having transwomen compete in women's sports poses no threat to its fairness or its integrity (as well as posing no physical risks), should think about this, before making untested medical assertions on the possible impacts to natural women's sports.
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