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OOF: Lia Thomas’ Woman of the Year Dream is Over

Male-born UPenn swimmer, Lia Thomas has finally been eliminated from the NCAA Woman of the Year awards, cut from the competition in the first round.

Thomas was cut out of the contest by the Ivy League after it chose to have Columbian fencer Sylvie Binder advance as its final candidate for the award.

The winner will be announced at an NCAA event in San Antonio, Texas in January 2023.

UPenn’s decision to suggest Thomas as a candidate for the award sparked outrage among the public, Thomas’ teammates, and many other women athletes, as many suggested the male-born athlete had already robbed biological females of numerous wins and giving Thomas an award for doing so would not only be unfair, but also rob those women of yet another win.

According to the NCAA’s website, its Woman of the Year program “was established in 1991 and honors the academic achievements, athletics excellence, community service and leadership of graduating female college athletes from all three divisions.”

Each college was allowed two nominees, but the woke NCAA has rules to try and push them into nominating the people championed by the current thing, so at least one of the two had to be from a minority group or an international student.

Ultimately, 577 student candidates were put forward in total by different colleges.

Binder was reportedly the NCAA’s Women’s Foil Champion in 2019 and came fifth in the Ivy League championships this year.

After the controversy surrounding Thomas’ wins against biological females, including his championship victory in March, international swimming body FINA, which also governs Olympic swimming, ruled that biological males could not enter official women’s competitions.

It did, however, rule that biological men could enter women’s competitions: “provided they have not experienced any part of male puberty beyond Tanner Stage 2 [which marks the start of physical development], or before age 12, whichever is later“.

In June, the body also announced its plan to create an “open” category for transexual athletes whose biological sex is different from the sex they now identify as.

The rules do not apply to college sports and each institution is able to make up its own mind regarding transgender athletes, but the NCAA has said that it will adopt FINA’s rules regarding swimming for its competitions.

According to Thomas’ distraught team members, UPenn stated that her being part of the swim team was “non-negotiable”:

“They’ve made it pretty clear, if you speak up about it, your life will be over in some way, you’ll be blasted all over the internet as a “transphobe,” … you’ll never be able to get a job,” said an anonymous teammate last month.

Another girl said the college wanted to keep Thomas on the team because she helped them win more races. The team was 27th in the league in 2019, yet since Thomas has been on the team they’ve bumped up to 20th:

“Lia obviously helps us do better. She is swimming really fast. Her performance helps the UPenn swim team. The feeling of winning doesn’t feel as good anymore because it feels tainted,” said the anonymous student athlete.

Meanwhile, Thomas said she hopes to swim for the USA in the women’s Olympic races one day. She said:

“I don’t need anybody’s permission to be myself, I intend to keep swimming … It’s been a goal of mine to swim at Olympic trials for a very long time, and I would love to see that through.”

She went on to say that anyone who doesn’t support her plight to keep racing against women is a “transphobe”:

“You can’t go halfway and be like, “I support trans people but only to a certain point. If you support transwomen and they’ve met all the NCAA requirements, I don’t know if you can say something like that.”

By: Gen Z Conservative, editor of GenZConservative.com. Follow me on Facebook and Subscribe to My Email List

This story syndicated with permission from Gen Z Conservative