Controversial UPenn transgender swimmer Lia Thomas is unrepentant that he took several college swimming records away from female competitors.
Thomas says that he would not do anything differently despite having his college erase his women’s swimming records, and even in the face of the school’s apologies to his female opponents for allowing him to compete on the women’s swim team.
Thomas said he tries to avoid thinking negatively about swimming after he went from the height of being a record-breaking success in women’s sports, to being erased from his school’s records in an interview with Pennsylvania Public Radio station WHYY.
100%. They won’t get Avery to come back, so they’ll recast it and that’ll suck.
“With everything that happened my senior year and has happened since, it’s very easy to slip into almost like a negative perception of swimming,” he told the station, “where swimming and being in the water just brings up all that pain and all those feelings of grief all over again and very fresh. It takes a lot of effort to try to focus on the joy that swimming still brings me. ”
Thomas became the focus of controversy in 2021 when he began winning records in women’s swimming after transitioning and previously swimming on the school’s men’s team. By the end of the 2022 NCAA season, the University of Pennsylvania even submitted Thomas for a “Woman of the Year” award (he lost).
But but 2025, after Donald Trump won his second term in the White House and passed new rules outlawing transgender athletes in women’s sports, UPenn agreed to apologize for allowing Thomas to compete as a woman and began deleting her dubious records.
Thomas told WHYY that telling his parents he was trans was harder than anything else he has done since 2020. Though he also notes that his relationship with them has gotten better since the rough times after he came out to them.
“They parroted a lot of really transphobic talking points, and it caused a lot of harm. But it wasn’t totally unsalvageable,” Thomas exclaimed. But now, he says his parents are his “biggest supporters.”
Thomas also had advice for trans kids.
“It’s easier to fight the whole world than to fight yourself every day,” Thomas told the station. “Because when I look back on my journey, on all the difficulties, all the highs and lows, I would do it all over again in a heartbeat.”
He went on to say that he tells kids that they should live their “authentic self.”
“There’s just no substitute to living and being your authentic self. But it unfortunately takes courage because of the many difficulties that there are surrounding being openly trans, especially being an openly trans athlete. But it’s absolutely worth it, and I know you can do it,” he advised.
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