Former Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines was among more than a dozen college athletes who filed a lawsuit against the NCAA on Thursday, accusing it of violating their Title IX rights by allowing transgender woman Lia Thomas to compete at the national championships in 2022.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Atlanta, details the shock Gaines and other swimmers felt when they learned they would have to share a locker room with Thomas at the championships in Atlanta. It documents a number of races they swam in with Thomas, including the 200-yard final in which Thomas and Gaines tied for fifth but Thomas, not Gaines, was handed the fifth-place trophy.
Thomas swam for Pennsylvania. She competed for the men’s team at Penn before her gender transition.
Thomas was the first openly transgender athlete to win a Division I title in any sport, finishing in front of three Olympic medalists for the championship. By not making the final, the lawsuit mentions that Florida swimmer Tylor Mathieu, who was not a plaintiff, was denied first-team All-American honors in that event.
Other plaintiffs included athletes from volleyball and track.
I think the first step needs to be asking why we do this and what we want. We have women’s sports because (cis) women generally cannot compete sufficiently with (cis) men. But what are we trying to accomplish? I would say in middle school and high school our goal should be inclusivity. So trans men and women should be able to compete in their identified genders.
On the other hand in college and the Olympics inclusivity is probably not as important for adults competing at some of the highest levels. So I am more willing to accept some limits, but I’m certainly not well versed enough to know where to draw that line.
It’s very easy to resolve, most kids that participate in sports are themselves (shockingly) also kids and will not have gained any advantage if allowed to transition early enough. Even a year or two of puberty is going to shed away very quickly.
(And leave us older trans people who are no longer teenagers who might have gone through a full puberty to have that advantage not participate in sports, and leave kids alone to transition and participate in their chosen gender.)
Either way this is a problem that resolves itself if trans people are allowed to accept and be themselves when they figure it out, which would be a lot more possible if people actually took the time to understand us.
Also genetic advantages like Micheal Phelp’s lungs and body have always been a part of sports. So if we happen to want to play sports we’re still women playing sports with a genetic disadvantage in every way that matters to us like having babies. (sports are the last thing on most of our minds)
Either way stop making trans people the center of your political battles. We just want to live without you fucking up our lives. We aren’t anything that matters to the vast majority of instances. We are the rare exception. Go figure out that they’d rather you argue about us than about the actual issues like health care, abortion, union rights, civil rights, etc.
But the thing is, it’s the actual athletes that make up the league that have a problem with this.
You’re only looking at it from your side and not from theirs
The vast majority of women don’t mind. And you don’t speak for us or get to decide if women and trans women are on different sides about anything. Because we literally are women.
I agree the vast majority don’t.
These ones do, the problem could be solved easily enough with separate locker rooms.
And I’m not trying to speak for anyone, so watch your fucking self it’s right there in the article.
But why seperate, why differentiate just to alienate a kid trying to live out their lives?
First of all, the person in question was in their 20’s at the time. She is 25 now and it happened 2 years ago.
Secondly, I never said to alienate anyone. Give the women that are uncomfortable their own locker room.
I do not see the issue here.
The only place would not be allowed is that locker room and that does not affect her in any meaningful way.
Yes, she has to deal with the fact that those people are uncomfortable around her, but that is just part of life.
Let’s try this another way, if the way to make the problem go away is just to allow someone else to have another locker room and not share it, why shouldn’t we do that with how easy it is?
Because it’s insisting on a distinction when there is none. Anatomy doesn’t make the woman dude.
You keep looking at this like I have ever said that.
Here are the simple facts: you have one person who makes some of the group uncomfortable changing around them, you give the group that is uncomfortable, their own changing area.
Why they are uncomfortable does not matter at all maybe it could be just because they don’t want to change around a different competitor. I really don’t give a shit. There’s an easy solution.
Would we be having this issue if it was a group that didn’t want to change around certain competitors for any other reason?
Maybe they’re from nationalities that clash next time, the same solution works.
Maybe it’s just redheads that do not want to change around people with blue eyes.
You already have two locker rooms, and room and the women’s room have the ones that are uncomfortable use the men’s room there’s not gonna be anyone in there anyway
I buy that if it’s not a “trans locker” but a “TERF locker”. Women that don’t have a problem can go to the “normal” women locker.
That’s what I keep saying, everyone wants to take it the wrong way.
I even said the people with a problem could just use the men’s locker room.
If that is a problem then they can just go in shifts. There are so many easy ways to let these people isolate themselves if they are uncomfortable or bigoted.
Either way everyone wins.
If tomorrow the separate locker was build then it would be another thing. It’s not about seeing a penis (and maybe not even that) but “that is not a woman”. And that is the only problem. In their minds a trans woman is not a woman.
There is already another room. The men’s locker room.
How often are men and women competing at the same time, so that might change something.
Maybe just use shifts then?
I don’t care about what the reason is.
The people asking for it are the ones isolating themselves, and honestly I just see that as a good thing.
Our lives would all be way better if bigots isolated themselves.
Edit: better gots to bigots