"Lia" Thomas, the transgender former University of Pennsylvania swimmer, criticized women who oppose the participation of transgender athletes in women’s sports, claiming they’re fake feminists who hold transphobic beliefs.
Speaking to Schuyler Bailar, another trans swimmer, on the podcast “Dear Schuyler,” the NCAA gold medalist denounced his teammates for writing a letter asking the division to prohibit him from competing.
“They’re like, ‘Oh, we respect Lia, as a woman, as a trans woman or whatever, we respect her identity, we just don’t think it’s fair.’ You can’t really have that sort of half-support where you’re like, ‘Oh, I respect her as a woman here, but not here,'” Thomas said on Monday.
“They’re using the guise of feminism to sort of push transphobic beliefs,” Thomas continued. “I think a lot of people in that camp sort of carry an implicit bias against trans people, but don’t want to, I guess, fully manifest or speak that out. And so they try to just play it off as this sort of half-support. You can't do that, you can't sort of break down me as a person into little pieces.”
Bailar agreed.
“They're coming from...this whole protect ‘protect women's sports,’ [which] has become a very big movement and that they do it under the guise of feminism. ‘Oh, we're just feminists, we're just fighting for women,’ and whenever anybody says that I'm always [like]: 'Okay, you're fighting for women by excluding women so that's not fighting for women.'”
Here's Lia Thomas saying that any biological woman who doesn't support him competing against women in athletics is "using the guise of feminism to..push transphobic beliefs."https://t.co/fVPn2GjpkF pic.twitter.com/gyQoVVJyjX
— Tom Bevan (@TomBevanRCP) April 26, 2023
What a joke. There’s nothing more ‘anti-feminist’ than trans athletes like Lia Thomas using the massive advantages of their male biology to beat women at sport. https://t.co/N9xWBspEVY
— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) April 26, 2023
Lia Thomas appears on a podcast interview trying to push for MEN to be allowed in women’s sports, ahead of Biden administration’s push to amend Title IX.
— Oli London (@OliLondonTV) April 26, 2023
“They're using the guise of feminism to sort of push transphobic beliefs. I think a lot of people in that camp sort of carry… pic.twitter.com/hNt0pCo5vc
The comments come as the Biden administration is proposing a change to Title IX in a move critics say would "destroy women's sports."
House Republicans have defended women, voting recently to ban transgender athletes from competing in women's sports.
There's a reason Title IX exists. There is a reason that there are men's sports and women's sports.
— Kevin McCarthy (@SpeakerMcCarthy) April 20, 2023
House Republicans acted—without a single vote from Democrats—to protect fairness in women's and girls' sports. pic.twitter.com/mylLfvZ7cH