USA Swimming changes rules in wake of transgender athlete's success

Lia Thomas, a transgender woman, swims for the University of Pennsylvania at an Ivy League swim meet against Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on January 22, 2022

A transgender American swimmer's controversial career hung in the balance Wednesday after USA Swimming announced new rules, including testosterone limits, that could impact her ability to race competitively.

Lia Thomas has dominated US collegiate women's swimming as a student athlete at the University of Pennsylvania where, just a few years ago, she competed on the men's team.

The policy said that because swimming is "an important vehicle for positive physical and mental health," it remains committed to "greater inclusivity" at the non-elite levels of the sport.

USA Swimming said it had created a new set of guidelines for transgender athlete participation in elite competition that "relies on science and medical evidence-based methods to provide a level-playing field for elite cisgender women, and to mitigate the advantages associated with male puberty and physiology."

A key criterion that the panel will look for is that "from a medical perspective, the prior physical development of the athlete as a male, as mitigated by any medical intervention, does not give the athlete a competitive advantage over the athlete's cisgender female competitors."

Doctors measure testosterone in nanomoles per liter (nmol/L). According to New York's Mount Sinai hospital, the healthy range of testosterone in a woman is 0.5 to 2.4 nmol/L.

But some organizations, such as the Women's Sports Policy Working Group, have deemed these rules insufficient, especially in cases where an athlete has begun her transition after puberty.

"These sweeping new restrictions appear to be a direct retaliation against Lia Thomas, a talented, hard-working athlete who has followed all guidelines, is supported by her team, and trains diligently," said Anne Lieberman, the group's director of policy and programs.

The NCAA, which governs US college sports, said in January it would enforce rules set forth by USA Swimming, which has the authority to bar swimmers from competitions.

"Penn Athletics has been informed of the new USA Swimming transgender participation policy," the university's sports department said in a statement. 

Thomas said she began her transition in May 2019 with hormone replacement therapy -- a combination of estrogen and testosterone suppressants.

Her performances have renewed a long-running debate about the fairness of a transgender woman competing against those who were born biologically female.

"We want to express our full support for Lia in her transition," they said in the statement released late Tuesday, apparently after one teammate spoke out about Thomas.

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