Lia Thomas nominated for NCAA 2022 Woman of the Year Award | CNN
he Woman of the Year selection panel will pick 30 honorees, from which they will then announce nine finalists — three from each NCAA division, according to the organization’s website. The NCAA Committee on Women’s Athletics will then review those finalists before deciding on a 2022 NCAA Woman of the Year, according to the site.
The Woman of the Year will be named at the NCAA Convention.
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The University of Pennsylvania nominated swimmer Lia Thomas - who has become the face of the debate on transgender women in sports - for the 2022 NCAA Woman of the Year award.
The Ivy League swimmer was nominated as a Division I athlete for Swimming and Diving, according to the NCAA website. The award is meant to honor the "academic achievements, athletics excellence, community service and leadership of graduating female college athletes from all three divisions," according to the website.
In March, Thomas became the first transgender athlete to win an NCAA Division I title after finishing first in the women's 500-yard freestyle event and recording the fastest time of the NCAA season. With that victory, she became the first transgender athlete to win a D-I title in any sport.
Thomas, who previously swam for Penn's men's team, brought renewed attention to the debate on trans women's participation in sports and the balance between inclusion and fair play during a time when states across the US are passing laws aiming to curb the rights of transgender people.
She first launched into the public eye with a stunning performance at the Zippy Invitational in Ohio in December, when she set NCAA season-best times in the 200-yard and 500-yard freestyle races. And she won the 100-yard, 200-yard and 500-yard freestyle races at the Ivy League women's championships in February.
In a May interview with ABC, the swimmer talked about feeling depressed early in college, before her transition. She began hormone replacement therapy in 2019 and, following NCAA protocols, took a year off swimming before joining the UPenn women's team in 2020.
"I knew there would be scrutiny against me if I competed as a woman. I was prepared for that," she said in the interview. "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, adding that trans women are "not a threat to women's sports."
The Woman of the Year selection panel will pick 30 honorees, from which they will then announce nine finalists — three from each NCAA division, according to the organization's website. The NCAA Committee on Women's Athletics will then review those finalists before deciding on a 2022 NCAA Woman of the Year, according to the site.
The Woman of the Year will be named at the NCAA Convention.
CNN's Eric Levenson and Steve Almasy contributed to this report.
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Apparently I need to give this article a comment to start it off.
This is that comment.
Yep, I read it. Nuff said!
You might need a fire extinguisher to end it.
Women everywhere are honored by "her" nomination.
Could care less if she wants to become a woman; but until she medically is fully a woman (that means all operations and hormone therapy done) she shouldn't be allowed to compete against women.
Meanwhile the left's war on women continues. One day someone will finally pin them down on what the definition of a woman really is.
Why don't they simplify things and just make it "Trans Woman of The Year"?
That is impossible regardless of how many surgeries or how many hormones he takes. He will never be a woman. The best he could ever be is a man masquerading as a woman.
"Lia" remains a "he". So does Bruce.
Gotta love semantics!
Don't forget Jared aka jazz
Is that the TV reality show young person who started transforming in middle school and has had serious physical and psychological problems?
Yup sure is . Last i heard he had the truck job done and is now fatter than a sow. The only semi sexual relationship he has had was with a girl. Hmm he has become a trans lesbian it's like Bruce Jenner. As far as I know he still has his man parts and dates women.
Until a person's genetic chromosomal makeup can be altered, XX=female, XY=male no matter how many medical procedures are performed on that person.
Surgery and hormones won't do it. Those procedures won't undo the shape of the pelvis, the size of hands and feet, lung capacity, heart size, the size and shape of femurs, etc. All of those traits impact swimming by they way.
Muscle mass and bone density will decline, of course, but that takes a while - especially with an athlete who continues to train.
One wonders where all the Title 9 people are right now.
This issue more or less destroys all previous progress in that regard.
Some are cheering for the transgender cheaters. Some defend the biological girls and women. The rest are radio silent.
Hypocrites
Spot on
Deserve what they get.
One of those things if you told a time traveler from the year 1995 theyd refuse to believe you.
Until Lia Thompson's chromosomes are changed to XX, "she" will always be a biological male.
Just as Chastity (chas) Bono and Ellen (Elliot) page will always be biologically women.
You go girl!
That was because he found out he couldn't beat a dead frog in college swim meets against males but figured he might be able to win championships against women.
When one can jump from a dismal male ranking of 400+ to being #1 in women's swimming ... total greed.
Girls will be boys, and boys will be girls
It's a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world
accept Lola, for what he/she be, except, i don't when it comes to he changing genre to a she and competing unlevely, against others
My sentiments exactly.
Bill Maher is on hiatus this month, so I will take a crack at imagining his monologue joke this week:
"Having failed to protect a woman's right to choose the Democrats are going all in on protecting a man's right to choose. ..to be a woman."
Don't quit you job at the dealership just yet. Comedy is not your forte!
Well keep yours at the filling station. Your jokes are worse than his and you stole most of yours.
At least there was some originality instead of a cut n’paste meme.
And usually a stupid one at that.
There you go. I will support any trans woman right to have an abortion
OK. I'll try to look at this with an open mind.
*TL;DR: She doesn't deserve it.
I have no information about her academic achievements . Maybe her grades got her this award?
Her athletic excellence seems to rely primarily on the fact that she developed as a male and not any particular skill set. I don't usually associate "athletic excellence" with unusual - arguably unfair - physical advantages that other competitors can't possibly access (unless they all are also trans female).
Leadership? I have seen no evidence of leadership. Mere winning doesn't make you a leader. Does she inspire others to greatness? I don't know. She probably inspires trans athletes. So there's that. But it seems like she would be largely discouraging to cis female athletes who must be frustrated trying to compete on an uneven playing field.
I totally support this person's right to live however they need to. Note, I even use the female pronouns. And I have no problem with any person or organization showing moral support for them. I don't even care what bathroom she uses.
But competitive sports are divided along lines of biological sex precisely because (all else being equal) males are naturally larger, stronger, faster, and more robust than females. Anyone who develops into puberty as a male will take on these advantageous characteristics. Hormone treatments can diminish some of them over time, but not all of them. The trans female athlete will always have a natural physical advantage over her cis-female counterparts.
Having been a competitive athlete myself, I could not do what this person did. I could not allow myself to dominate a competitive field knowing I had this unique advantage. If I was just born larger or stronger than my opponents, that would be different. Wilt Chamberlain and Shaquille O'Neal are good examples. They just won the size lottery, which gave them a boost in basketball, but they were still men, and not something else.
An obvious female example is Serena Williams, who is bigger and stronger than most female tennis players you might see, and she has absolutely dominated her sport. But there is no doubt that she was born and developed as a female.
And as strong as she is, even with a serve of 128 mph, she cannot come close to the top 50 fastest male serves .
Everybody recognizes that these athletes had certain advantages, but no athlete with any integrity or sportsmanship ever thought of it as a cheat. If I had developed as a male and then crushed women in competition while playing as a female, I would feel like I was cheating.
We've all seen the advantages a little hormone infusion can give a person. Just look at Major League Baseball in the late 90s to early 2000s.
In contrast, the cis female athlete is someone who developed in a body that should, in theory, be competing against male athletes, not female. Everyone involved understands that. It's ridiculous to pretend otherwise. And I don't think it's worthy of "Woman of the Year."
Did you ever see the South Park episode where Cartman decides to compete in the Special Olympics so he can crush it?
Up the Down Steroid
There's another, (Raising the Bar) where Cartman gets tired of the heavyweights abusing Jazzys so he joins the fray. I don't have a problem with people sitting - it's when they use the thing like a weapon.