Lia Thomas, a transgender swimmer from the United States, has come out to say that her kind is not a threat to women's athletics.
Thomas has recently become a public figure in the issue over transgender athletes.
Thomas, who was born a man, enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania in 2017 and joined the men's swimming team, but she became progressively despondent during her freshman year.
She then transformed into a woman and began competing among the females.
She took a year break from swimming to comply with NCAA rules before returning to the UPenn women's team in 2020.
Since then, she has won every race she has entered, prompting activists to demand that she be barred from racing against biological females.
In March, Thomas became the first transgender athlete to win an NCAA
Division I title after winning the women's 500-yard freestyle event.
"Trans women are not a threat to women's sports" Thomas said in an interview with ABC on Tuesday, May 31.
Thomas said: "Trans people don't transition for athletics. We transition to be happy and authentic and our true selves."
"That's part of what kept me from transitioning for so long. The thing
is, I wasn't sure if I could continue swimming and doing the sport that I
love," Thomas said.
Speaking about when she began hormone replacement therapy (HRT) in 2019 during her sophomore year, she said;
"The mental and emotional changes actually happened very quickly," she
said. "I was feeling a lot better mentally, I was less depressed and I
lost muscle mass. I became a lot weaker and a lot slower in the water."
"I knew there would be scrutiny against me if I competed as a woman. I was prepared for that," she said. "But I also don't need anybody's permission to be myself and to do the sport that I love."
Thomas said "there are a lot of factors that go into a race," but the biggest difference now is that she is happy."It allows me to put my all into training and to racing," she said.
Now out of college, she has her eyes set on something bigger.
"It's been a goal of mine to just swim at an Olympic trials for a very long time and I would love to see that through,"
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