By Daily Mail (U.S.) | Created at 2025-04-02 21:35:36 | Updated at 2025-04-03 18:21:32
20 hours ago
Transgender swimmer Lia Thomas has sparked outrage after vowing to 'keep fighting' for inclusion in women's sports despite Donald Trump's ban.
Trump signed an executive order banning trans athletes from women's sports back in February, with the president using Title IX to ensure only biological females are allowed to compete.
Thomas, a biological male, was at the center of major contention in 2022 after winning a national swimming title for UPenn in 2022, with former opponent Riley Gaines currently leading a lawsuit against the NCAA for a number of athletes who were forced to compete against them.
Yet despite Trump's ruling, the controversial swimmer has promised to 'fight' to overturn it and bring trans athletes back into women's sports.
'I am going to keep fighting as much as I am able to,' Thomas said over Zoom at the HiTOPS trans youth forum, via Outkick.
'In order to fight the battles we need to fight, we have to stick together and support each other.'
Trans swimmer Lia Thomas has vowed to 'keep fighting' for inclusion in women's sports
Trump signed an executive order banning trans athletes from women's sports back in February
Instead of Trump of his fellow politicians, Thomas believes trans athletes themselves should have the final say.
'It has to be the athletes deciding for themselves where they feel most affirmed and most comfortable,' she continued. 'Having routes that are safe and non-discriminatory, that allow them access to that.'
Last year Thomas was also dealt a blow after the Court of Arbitration for Sport rejected her request to overturn a ban on biological males competing against women in hopes of racing at the Paris Olympics.
World Aquatics changed its policies so that trans women can only compete in women's races if they have completed their transition by the age of 12.
Thomas argued those rules should be declared 'invalid and unlawful', and broke the Olympic charter and the World Aquatics convention.
But in a decision handed down at the Court of Arbitration for Sport, they concluded that Thomas wasn't 'entitled to engage with eligibility to compete in WA competitions'.
After banning trans athletes from women's sports, Trump also cut $175million in funding to UPenn last month for allowing biological males to take part in women's sports.
The president's decision came exactly three years since Thomas controversially won a national swimming title for the school in the women's 500-yard freestyle at the 2022 NCAA Championships.
Gaines, who has been at the forefront of the fight to ban trans athletes from women's sports ever since she competed against Thomas in that race, was left delighted after UPenn's funding was halted, praising it as 'serendipitous' on the third anniversary of her high-profile defeat.
