Thomas' experience has contributed to the growing debate surrounding the participation of transgender athletes in sport. USA Swimming updated its policy for elite swimmers in February to allow transgender athletes to swim in elite events, alongside criteria that aim to reduce any unfair advantage, including testosterone tests for 36 months before competitions. "Sophomore year I was miserable, so having that be lifted is incredibly relieving and allowed me to put my all into training and racing." "There's a lot of factors that go into a race and how well you do and the biggest change for me is that I'm happy," she said. Thomas says depression affected her performance in her first two years at university, but after transitioning she was able to better focus on her swimming. She has since broken records for her university swimming team. Thomas swam for the Pennsylvanian men's team for three seasons before starting hormone replacement therapy in spring 2019. Joanna Harper, a scientist at Loughborough University and a trans athlete herself, says her research "suggests that there is a substantial performance loss with testosterone suppression". However, there is limited research into what effect transitioning can have on an athlete - because there are so few transgender athletes, and even fewer in elite sport. Recent studies and reviews have also questioned the effectiveness of testosterone suppression. "The collection of those things creates significant performance advantages." They added transgender athletes were welcome in elite sport and an open category would mean a "level playing field".įormer swimmer Sharron Davies has said "no rules can reverse the advantage of male puberty", a point backed by sports scientist Professor Ross Tucker who says: "When human males go through puberty the heart becomes larger, the lungs become larger, the body fat percentage goes down, and the skeleton changes. Two current elite female runners told BBC Sport earlier this month that transgender women should compete in an "open category" in order to "protect women's sport", arguing that transgender competitors in the female sport category were taking away opportunities for women. There are concerns, however, that athletes retain an advantage from going through male puberty that is not addressed by lowering testosterone. Trans women have to adhere to a number of rules to compete in specific sports, including in many cases lowering their testosterone levels to a certain amount, for a set period of time, before competing. The heart of the debate on whether transgender women athletes should compete in women's sport involves the complex balance of inclusion, sporting fairness and safety - essentially, whether trans women can compete in female categories without giving them an unfair advantage or presenting a threat of injury to competitors. But I also don't need anybody's permission to be myself and do the sport that I love."Īsked whether she had ambitions to compete at the US Olympic trials in June 2024, Thomas said: "It's been a goal of mine to swim at an Olympic trials for very long time and I would love to see that through." "I knew there would be scrutiny against me if I compete as a woman. "If you support trans women as women and they met all the NCAA requirements then I don't think you can say something like that. "You can't go halfway and say you support trans women and trans people but only to a certain point," said Thomas. Some of Thomas' team-mates and their parents wrote anonymous letters supporting her right to transition, but added it was unfair for her to compete as a woman. Sullivan said she was "proud" to be one of more than 300 college, Team USA and Olympic swimmers who signed an open letter in support of Thomas and all transgender and non-binary swimmers.īut other athletes and organisations have raised concerns about trans inclusion. US swimmer Erica Sullivan, who competed against Thomas at the college event, said Thomas deserved "to be celebrated for her hard-won success".
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