The White House this week refused to respond to questions about transgender swimmer Lia Thomas' dominating performance at the Ivy League women's swimming championships and whether the controversy surrounding her involvement has affected President Joe Biden's position on allowing transgender athletes to compete in girls' sports, Fox News reports.
Over the weekend, Thomas broke a couple of records at the event and won three races. NCAA bylaws permit transgender athletes to compete as women after they have completed one year of testosterone suppression treatment.
The Biden administration favors allowing transgender people to compete in girls' athletic events despite concerns about fairness. He campaigned on passing the Equality Act, which would expand civil rights laws to explicitly outlaw discrimination based on a person's sexual orientation or gender identity.
The House passed the bill in February, though its fate in the Senate remains unclear.
Some of Thomas' teammates at the University of Pennsylvania have spoken out against her being allowed to compete, but the school last month said it would comply with NCAA rules for transgender athletes.
Nancy Hogshead-Makar, a three-time Olympic swimming gold medalist and founder and CEO of Champion Women, said in a letter to the school and the Ivy League that Thomas could break ''Penn, Ivy and NCAA Women's Swimming records; feats she could never have done as a male athlete.''
''We fully support Lia Thomas in her decision to affirm her gender identity and to transition from a man to a woman. Lia has every right to live her life authentically,'' read the letter, obtained by The Washington Post..
''However, we also recognize that when it comes to sports competition, that the biology of sex is a separate issue from someone's gender identity. Biologically, Lia holds an unfair advantage over competition in the women's category, as evidenced by her rankings that have bounced from #462 as a male to #1 as a female."
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