Thomas spoke out for the first time against the recent national ban on transgender women competing in women’s sports.
Thomas, a former collegiate swimmer at University of Pennsylvania, rose to national prominence in 2022 after controversy stemming from Thomas being a biological male and competing against women. Several of Thomas’s female teammates have since filed suits against UPenn for Title IX violations regarding Thomas’s eligibility. The trans swimmer said he was “devastated” by the recent executive order, and called on transgender athletes to “stick together and support each other.”
“I’m going to fight this as much as I am able to,” Thomas said at the youth forum. Previous NCAA regulations allowed for transgender women to both compete and use the same locker room as women, and there were no restrictions on Thomas’s eligibility to take home medals in the 2022 Ivy League National Swimming Championships. Thomas had previously competed on UPenn’s Men’s swimming team as Will Thomas.
Following President Trump’s executive order, the NCAA amended the rules to prevent biological men from either competing against women or using the same locker rooms. Thomas, who received overwhelmingly positive media attention initially despite protests from teammates, disagreed with the rule changes and called for trans inclusion policies to be left up to trans athletes.
“It has to be the athletes deciding for themselves where they feel most affirmed and most comfortable,” Thomas said. “Having routes that are safe and non-discriminatory, that allow them access to that.” Thomas did not address the lawsuit filed by teammates, led by Riley Gaines. The lawsuit seeks to strip Thomas of the national championship award won by the swimmer in 2022 at the Harvard University finals.
Thomas has repeatedly denied having transitioned to gain any type of competitive advantage and reiterated at the youth forum that the decision was based solely on “wanting to feel true to myself.”
“I didn’t want to swim. I just wanted to step away and be able to transition and be myself,” said Thomas. “But my love of swimming kept me going. … When I had transitioned, I felt more comfortable, and I said, ‘I can do this. I could do both.”
President Trump referenced the controversy surrounding Thomas’s championship victory several times on the campaign trail, and made his desire to ban to protect women’s sports an integral part of his Jan. 20 inauguration speech, during which he introduced a string of executive actions.
“The radical left has waged an all-out campaign to erase the very concept of biological sex and replace it with a militant transgender ideology,” Trump said at the initial press conference in February. The President invited several female athletes before proclaiming, “the war on women’s sports is over.”
