The “elite swimmer”
Philadelphia Magazine has a list of top influential people in that city. Coming in at number 27 is the ever-popular William “Lia” Thomas, celebrated cheat.
In a profile of Thomas last winter, Sports Illustrated called the elite swimmer “the most controversial athlete in America.” It’s not a title the recent Penn grad ever set out to hold. When Thomas decided to begin her gender transition process in 2019, her aim, she told ESPN, was simply “to be happy, to be true to myself.”
Well he would say that, wouldn’t he. He wasn’t going to say it was in order to take all the prizes.
NCAA rules allowed Thomas, who’d spent three years on Penn’s men’s team, to compete with the women after undergoing transformative hormone therapy. So she did. Next came intense public scrutiny, an NCAA championship title (the first for a transgender swimmer), and an all-out culture war. And while it’s true that Thomas’s story brought no shortage of big questions to the fore — about trans rights, women’s sports, fairness, feminism, equity, gender, biology — one thing is undebatable: Far more seasoned athletes than Thomas have buckled under far less pressure. And less vitriol.
Ah that’s nice, isn’t it – they admit, in a veiled sort of way, that he’s an affront to fairness and to women, but go on to flatter him anyway. Thanks, Philadelphia Magazine.
Thomas, who has only rarely spoken with journalists, has remained outwardly stoic, steadfast, the picture of perseverance — likely the same traits that helped her excel in the sport to begin with.
Erm, no. He didn’t excel in the sport before he cheated. He was more like average. He didn’t “excel” until he gave himself a massive advantage by competing against people inherently smaller and less muscular than he is. No doubt being callous and obstinate helped him do that, but it’s a funny thing to praise.
(They’re also traits that will come in handy in law school, where Thomas has said she intends to study civil rights and public interest law. She’s grown passionate about “fighting for trans rights and trans equality,” she told ESPN.)
He’s passionate about fighting women’s rights, that’s what he’s passionate about.
I wonder a bit about … the family?
thoughts are a little diffuse:
is homophobia involved somehow?
religion?
@soogeeoh:
It’s on record that Thomas is attracted to women; in other words, he’s a straight man/trans “lesbian,” and so homophobia is very unlikely to be a contributing factor. In my view, the most likely explanation for the whole sad spectacle is the sexual paraphilia known as autogynephilia, which seems to be the primary motivator for the majority of MtF transitioners.
“top influential” – I guess this doesn’t mean the candidates have to be a *positive* influence on anyone, merely an influence.
I don’t know how a Stoic would view such men as Thomas, since it is not in accordance with nature. I realize they are using stoic in a modern, colloquial sense that means “burying your feelings, hiding your emotions.” This is a stereotypical trait of masculinity, not feminity, so I don’t think he’s really trans (except for perhaps the AGP and noted above.)
He didn’t talk to the press for the same reason that lawyers tell suspects not to talk to the police. If you keep your trap shut, you won’t trip over your lies.
I don’t think it’s autogynephilia in Thomas’s case, I think he’s just straight-up cheating, i.e. he’s pretending to be trans. Why? Because he makes no effort.
Lie. The men’s division was open to him, but he knowingly chose to intrude.
I wonder if those other athletes had half the physical advantage Thomas does over his chosen opponents. That would have helped them.
@5: I don’t think that “pretending to be trans” is a meaningful way of saying anything, since “trans” simply means “pretending to be the opposite sex”. So he’s pretending to pretend?
Rather (assuming your analysis is correct, which is reasonable), he’s pretending to be a woman in order to win medals, as opposed to pretending to be a woman in order to fulfill a sexual fetish, or in order hide homosexual tendencies, or any other reason.
Other athletes didn’t have the advantage of the overwhelming support from the communities known for supporting progressive causes. They didn’t have a cheerleading section hailing them as a heroine in the advancement of human rights while spitting back vitriol at the critics. Nor did they have mainstream publications reporting both their claims and the caricatures of the opposition as fact.
I do think Thomas probably believes he’s a woman — a butch lesbian. It’s so incredibly easy for the trans narrative and explanation to take hold of a life, and it’s also easy to flex and adapt your own “gender journey” to your own situation and inclinations. We are the easiest people to fool. If so, it’s very likely Thomas joined the women’s team seeing himself as a combination of Jackie Robinson and John Galt. The notoriety and vilification is part of the thrill.
GW @ 7 – it’s entirely possible to pretend to pretend though. See: double bluff.
Sure, but someone pretending to pretend to be a woman would in fact be a woman. See: Kikomi the Bio Trans Girl (google results).
I read that first line as “a list of the too influential people”.
Am I remembering wrong? Or wasn’t there something about female athletes not being allowed to say anything to the press, while “Lia” talked to journalists? If so, how in fact, was he a “stoic” who didn’t say anything?
It could, of course, be the usual trans doublespeak of being silenced…and vitriol simply meaning people pointing out he is a man.
No, someone pretending to pretend to be a woman would not necessarily be a woman.
He didn’t talk to the press much, if I remember correctly. Kept his head down. I’m pretty sure that’s not because he’s a “stoic” though, but rather because he was getting what he wanted and saw no particular reason to risk problems by talking to the press.
I don’t think trans means “pretending to be the opposite sex”. For one thing, I’d leave open the possibility that some of these people genuinely think they are the opposite sex. For another, I don’t think trans means much of anything anymore, given the strange expansion of meaning that allows for “trans non-binary” and other categories.
But I agree with Ophelia that Thomas seems to be pretending.
I kind of do think being trans=pretending, because even genuinely thinking one is the opposite sex is a batty thing to think. Still, given the literal meaning, I take your point.
See: thinking one is Napoleon. Or, one of Ophelia’s favourites, the planet Jupiter. With either of these claims the battiness is obvious. The battiness comes first, like seeing lightning before hearing the thunder. “Sincerity” doesn’t enter into it. It’s irrelevant. If the individual is sincere, that doesn’t speak to the validity of the claim, only the degree of treatment required. Sincerity signals that there is something seriously wrong with the person making the claim, not that we should go along with them because their claims are true.
With many (most?) men who claim to be or think they are women, the battiness should be equally obvious. In fact, it is. But for some reason (and not simply because some men make enough effort to be able to pass), we are expected to swallow our incredulity, to swallow the battiness, to swallow the lie, and accept them as women. “Danielle” Muscato? Please. Rather than the person suffering from the delusion, we are expected to bear the burden of pretense, to turn our world view upside down. We are being subjected to conversion therapy on a massive scale. Our words are redefined, our speech compelled, coerced and -literally- policed. We are supposed to play make believe. We are supposed to participate in our own gaslighting. Willingly. Enthusiastically.
“Sincerity” is no longer diagnostic of the seriousness of the “gender identity” delusion, but indicative of how far trans identified males are willing to go in order to enforce our compliance. To enforce women’s compliance particularly. But wait; it gets better. Personal “sincerity” is no longer needed; it’s been outsourced. There are plenty of individuals and organizations ready to be sincere for you, as they earnestly, humourlessly intone the Holy Mantra, “TWAW.” With institutional capture, powerful bodies and organizations are doing the heavy lifting for them, helping them gain access to spaces and resources to a degree that “conventionally” batty people could only dream of. This is particularly damaging for women, as they are forced to share their spaces and positions with impostors, and to do so without protest, or sideways glances.
Napoleon, or Jupiter aren’t going to be put into the position of being forced into “validating” pretenders. Nor is either in a position to complain, even if anyone were to accept, these batty self identifications. Nobody is going to offer up the French Imperial throne to Napoleon 2.0. Nobody is going to be thrown into jail for failing to obey his decrees. Nobody is going to force NASA into using our Mr. Jupiter’s mass for gravitational assist trajectories to the outer planets. No one is going to accept these impostures. If they did, the results would be disastrous. But women are forced to accept men who claim to be women in their spaces, and the results have been disastrous. Many governments have signed onto decrees drwan up by trans activists, which have been enforced by law. Agencies and organizations have volunteered (or been forced) to accept trans identified males as women. Unlike Napoleon and Jupiter, women are still right here, and in a position to speak out, though you might not know it. Media collusion, including the retooling of language used in reporting, language that conceals the truth of what is happening, has helped this battiness take hold and spread. It has also helped silence and smear women who resist. Despite vocal opposition, women’s complaints have been ignored and punished in the name of “kindness.” Not only does the Emperor have no clothes, he’s parading around in the women’s locker room.
There’s an old joke that goes like this:
“We’re terribly worried about Uncle Henry. He thinks he’s a chicken.’”
‘Why don’t you send him to the doctor?’’
‘Well, we would, only we need the eggs.”
It feels like we’re living in a nightmare, real-life version of this joke in which we are being forced to believe in Uncle Henry’s chickenhood, but nobody’s getting any eggs. The only laughter we hear has a harsh, unsettlingly gleeful, but distincly batty sound to it.
I seem to remember reading (probably here, so someone else ought to remember it too) about one of his team mates saying something to the effect of “he is very obviously male and attracted to women” in the context of how unpleasant it was to share changing rooms with him. I took that to mean that he was parading his erection around the changing room, so whether he’s getting off on his own imagined womanhood, the sight of a bunch of naked women or the fact that he gets to be there against the women’s will, he is getting something sexual out of it (insert vomit emoji).