Today is International Transgender Day of Visibility, an annual event that reminds us of the daily struggle faced by those who transition, but it also celebrates their contribution to society.
It’s still a triggered topic and we have seen that becoming especially common in sports, where trans women, in particular, are mocked, categorised as others and humiliated for trying to compete in their now medically assigned gender.
Lia Thomas, the NCAA Division One champion and University of Pennsylvania swimmer, has felt this outrage more than the rest of us, with people literally arguing over her existence and her place as a woman in society.
Sports is the most meticulous and data recording facet of society. From expected goals, reaction time, hand measuring at combines, vertical jumps, you name it, sport has probably quantified it and turned it into a statistic. The obvious and most essential pieces of data are first to cross the line, first to touch the wall and most scores accumulated over a period of time.
A lot of the commentary surrounding Lia Thomas has been fear-mongering, discriminatory and downright ignorant
At the NCAA finals on March 17th, only one statistic stood out, in the 500-yards freestyle, Thomas came first with a time of 4:33.24. Looking at the records listed on US Swimming’s database, Thomas’s 500-yard time makes her the 15th fastest college swimmer, about nine seconds behind Katie Ledecky’s record in 2017. Nine seconds versus the current greatest female swimmer is a long time.
A total of 27 NCAA records were broken across that weekend in March, none by Thomas, while 18 records were broken by swimming phenom Kate Douglass of the University of Virginia, who now holds records in the 50-yard freestyle, the 100-yard butterfly, and the 200-yard breaststroke. Except for Douglass, no swimmer has ever held three records that involved breaststroke.
Data compiled by the Independent in the UK basically confirmed what everyone was thinking about Thomas. She’s good, in fact really good, but she’s not that good... and that’s no disrespect to the young swimmer, she has the potential. But her times compared to some of the great swimmers NCAA has produced leaves her a bit from the top but still well clear of the bottom.
According to that data compiled, Thomas’s time means that her time in the 500 yards short-course leaves her the eighth fastest out of 56. According to the same data, in the 100-yard race, her time is 55th out of 56. Her time in the 200-yard race is the 31st out of 56.
Comparing Thomas's 500-yard time (4:33.24) to 500 free race at the Junior Nationals in Texas in 2021, 16-year-old Bella Sims recorded a time of 4:32.28, and 15-year-old Katie Grimes touched the wall just behind her in the same race at 4:32.97. In other words, two high school kids beat the NCAA's eighth-fastest swimmer.
Before transitioning and being on the University of Penn men’s squad, Thomas’s times were seriously impressive in 2017. As a freshman, Thomas set a time of 8:57.55 in the 1,000-yard freestyle, the sixth-fastest men’s time in the country, an event she now doesn’t compete in. The following year, Thomas took second place at the 2019 Ivy League championships in the men’s 500-yard, 1,000-yard and 1,650-yard freestyle, shaving seconds off her earlier times.
While research is slack, we have some data, and at the moment, it states that there is a moral panic when it comes to trans women in sport
Pre-transition, she was over 10 seconds behind the male record in the 500-yard (Kieran Smith’s time of 4:06.32 vs Thomas’s 4:18:72). Post-transition, she is 10 seconds behind the female record (Katie Ledecky’s 4:24.06 vs Thomas’s 4:34.06). Post-transition and with hormone therapy, Thomas obviously slowed by over 15.34 seconds.
This isn’t to disregard what Thomas has done, she is a remarkable athlete, but going from stats and data alone, trans women aren’t ready to dominate the pool or your favourite event. In fact, a lot of the commentary surrounding her has been fear-mongering, discriminatory and downright ignorant, with some highlights being that those who don’t care about women’s sports are now laying their lives down to protect it.
In a conversation I had with Joanna Harper for a segment on HerSport, I was interested to learn how much hormone replacement therapy (HRT) affects your times. While research is scant, Harper, herself a trans woman and researcher at Loughborough University, estimates that within nine months of starting hormone therapy, she was running 12 per cent slower, and "that's the difference between serious male distance runners and serious female distance runners. As a scientist I was intrigued,"she explained during our chat.
So, while research is slack, we have some data, and at the moment, it states that there is a moral panic when it comes to trans women in sport. Instead of implementing legislation and stoking the fire, demand that investment is made in women’s sport across the board and across all ages. If you want to protect women’s sports, great, but not by disregarding an entire community.
