Watching Lia Thomas Win

Honestly with Bari Weiss

The Free Press

News, Society & Culture

4.6 • 7.8K Ratings

🗓️ 6 March 2022

⏱️ 24 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Lia Thomas is a transgender woman who has, in one year, become the star athlete of the women’s swim team at The University of Pennsylvania. When she competed on the men’s team, she was seeded no. 462 in the NCAA. Now, she’s seeded No. 1 and expected to beat Olympic gold medalist Katy Ledecky, widely considered one of the greatest female swimmers of all time, later this month at the NCAA championship. Thomas won’t stop there. She recently told Sports Illustrated that she has her sights set on the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris. What does the rise of Lia Thomas mean for the future of women’s sports? Suzy Weiss reports from the Harvard pool, where Lia Thomas recently smashed Ivy League records. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Barry Weiss. This is honestly.
0:04.0	Leah Thomas is a transgender woman who is now the star of the women's swim team at Penn. But before she was Leah Thomas, she was
0:16.4	a middling swimmer for three years on the men's team at Penn. Back then, Thomas was seated number 462 in the NCAA.
0:25.0	But now, on the women's team, Thomas is seated number one.
0:32.0	Next month, Leah Thomas could even best Olympic gold medalist Katie Lidecki
0:36.4	who is widely considered one of the greatest female swimmers of all time.
0:43.1	It's really hard to write and to talk about this topic.
0:46.6	And it's not just because it's scary to get smeared as a bigot or a transphobe for saying
0:51.0	the wrong thing or being curious about the wrong question.
0:54.0	It's also because it pits two moral values, two different virtues against each other,
1:00.0	fairness versus inclusion.
1:03.0	And it seems, in this case at least,
1:05.0	that you just can't have both.
1:08.0	This is a debate that can feel a little abstract.
1:12.0	But the thing is, it's not just a debate. It's not just
1:15.2	esoteric. It involves very real people. Leah Thomas, for one, but also the women
1:21.5	that she's competing against.
1:23.0	That's why we sent one of our reporters, Susie Weiss, yes, it's my sister,
1:28.0	to the Women's Ivy League swimming and diving championship at Harvard last week.
1:32.0	There's been a lot of headlines written about Leotome. diving championship at Harvard last week.
1:32.8	There's been a lot of headlines written about Leah Thomas,
1:35.8	but we wanted to understand what this actually looks like on the ground,
	...

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