Transcription
Leah Thomas, the elite college athlete who became the first openly transgender woman to win an NCAA swimming title, she's speaking at her first TV interview with Nightline. At Judo Chang: "Good morning, Juju." "Good morning to you, George." You know, Leah Thomas says there are two major aspects of her identity: being an elite swimmer and being trans. And yet, it's her success as a trans athlete that's landed her smack in the center of a heated culture war over trans rights. And she's breaking her silence for the first time on camera as people try to balance the core values of inclusion versus fairness. She's the swimmer who created shock waves across the country. 23-year-old Leah Thomas, Thomas pulling away, the UPenn swimmer making history in March as the first known transgender athlete to win a Division I national title. But her athletic achievements on the women's swim team igniting fierce debate over fairness in women's sports. "It is just not fair when it comes to competition. It's just not a fair fight."
Throughout the controversy, Thomas has largely remained quiet until now. "I knew there would be scrutiny against me if I competed as a woman. I was prepared for that. But I also don't need anybody's permission to be myself and to do the sport that I love." Assigned male at birth, Thomas grew up in Austin, Texas, where she says she fell in love with swimming when she was just four. But as she grew, she says she felt increasingly disconnected to her body. "I didn't feel like I was a boy. I was like, this isn't, this isn't me. This isn't who I am." Thomas earned a spot at her Ivy League dream school, UPenn, on the men's team. But by her sophomore year, she says her gender dysphoria left her depressed and suicidal. "I was barely going to classes. I could really barely get out of bed. And I, I said, I can't, I can't live like this anymore. And I want to be able to do things I enjoy, even if it might cost me my swimming pool." "Yeah, and that's, that's part of what kept me from transitioning for so long is I wasn't sure if I could continue swimming and doing the sport I loved."
Thomas began HRT, hormone replacement therapy, in May of her sophomore year, 2019. "The mental and emotional changes actually happened very quickly. I was feeling a lot better mentally. I was, I was less depressed. And I lost muscle mass and I became a lot weaker and a lot, a lot slower in the water." After following NCAA guidelines of a year of hormone therapy to change gender categories, Thomas started her senior year on the women's team. But her success in the water was met with outrage leading up to the NCAA championships. Her critics say she jumped in the rankings between the men's and the women's team. "There are some who look at the data and suggest that you're enjoying a competitive advantage. What do you say to that?" "There's a lot of factors that go into a race and how, how well you do. And the biggest change for me is that I'm happy. And sophomore year, where I had my best times competing with the men, I was miserable. And so having that be lifted is incredibly relieving and allows me to put my all into training, into racing." "Trans people don't transition for athletics. We transition to be happy and authentic and our true selves. Transitioning to get an advantage is not something that ever factors into our decisions." "You didn't transition to win more medals."
Thomas quickly became a lightning rod. 16 of her own teammates and some of their parents wrote anonymous letters arguing Thomas posed a threat to women's sports. "The women who signed the letter anonymously said that they absolutely supported your right to transition, but they simply think it's unfair for you to compete against cisgender women." "You can't go halfway and be like, I support trans women and trans people, but only, only to a certain point. Where if you support trans women as women, and they've met all the, all the NCAA requirements, then I don't know if you can really say something like that. Trans women are not a threat to women's sports."
While the science on transgender athletes is new and evolving, some medical experts say the effects of higher testosterone during male puberty may never be fully erased. "What are the physical aspects that trans women may not be able to roll back with hormone therapy?" "Obviously issues related to body size, airway size, hand size, foot size, perhaps bone density and so forth. But I think the main thing is the, just the interactions of exercise training and skeletal muscle." "Are you saying that years of hormone therapy cannot put trans women in place to compete with cisgender women?" "I think that evidence so far would suggest that periods of a year, two years, three years, four years is probably insufficient. There is this concept of the legacy effects of testosterone and that that can't ever be zero." "Should that eliminate or disqualify transgender women?" "I'm not a medical expert. But there is, there's a lot of variation among cis female athletes. There are cis women who are very tall and very muscular and have more testosterone than another cis women, and should that then also disqualify them?"
In January, the NCAA updated its transgender athlete eligibility guidelines, saying each sports governing body could make their own rules, later clarifying it wouldn't impose the new rules mid-season, clearing the way for Thomas to compete at the NCAA's. "It was an incredible experience to be able to fulfill that personal goal and be at that meet, um, as well as competing as my authentic self was just such an amazing experience to have these, these things that I've been working towards for so long all come, come together." "Are there Olympics in your future?" "It's been a goal of mine to just make Olympic trials for, for a very long time, and I, I would love to see that through."
Now, her college swimming career is over. Leah just graduated from UPenn and is getting ready for law school, perhaps a future career as a civil rights lawyer advocating for trans rights. "George and Juju, did Leah ever think about quitting swimming?" "Absolutely. She said that she was so depressed when she transitioned, she thought she gave it up, even if it would cost her her swimming career." "And of course, critics have said, if you just stop swimming, no one would have a problem." "And her response to that is, people are going to have a problem with me no matter what I do. So I don't want to be forced to give up my identity as a swimmer."
You can see more of Juju's interview today on ESPN tonight on Nightline. Well, hey there, GMA fans, Robin Roberts here. Thanks for checking out our YouTube channel. Lots of great stuff here. So go on, click the subscribe button right over, right over here to get more of awesome videos and content from GMA every day, anytime. We thank you for watching and we'll see you in the morning on GMA.