Swimming is a major sport throughout college in which many students participate.

There is a situation going on in women’s swimming, where there is a transgender woman named Lia Thomas who swims for UPenn. She transitioned to a woman last year and has taken women’s swimming by force. She is setting records across the country. She even aspires to make the women’s olympic team, and she is on pace to break records there as well. This has drawn an immense amount of controversy to Thomas and she is being attacked in ways that she could never have even imagined. 

Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida is considering the runner-up of the 500-yard freestyle to be the true champion rather than Thomas. Emma Weyent is from Florida, and DeSantis wants Florida to get the recognition it deserves. He believes that there is an unfair advantage with Lia Thomas competing in women’s swimming, and some of the students are complaining about their placement since Thomas is getting faster times than them.

When Thomas won her match, the applause was significantly less compared to when anybody else won their events. The media, as well as parents of some of the swimmers, are beginning to rebel against the NCAA for allowing Lia Thomas to swim. 

Former Olympian and Virginia Tech female swimmer Reka Gyorgy published a letter on Sunday criticizing the NCAA’s policy which is allowing biologically male swimmers to compete against female swimmers. Reka Gyorgy (who swims at Virginia Tech) felt as if she was cheated out of a spot in the finals due to Thomas getting a better time than her.

It will be interesting to see how all of this will unfold, but due to all the controversy I believe that the NCAA will come out and have a statement based on everything that is going on.