This is so, so wrong

 

If you follow swimming and sport, you've probably heard about Lia Thomas.  If/when (and I hope "if" turns into something that doesn't happen) Thomas breaks Katie Ledecky's national college (NCAA) and American record in the 500-yard freestyle at this year's NCAA formerly Women's National Division I Swimming Championships, there will be a lot more news about this.  Right now, it's simmering under the surface, so to speak.

However, this opinion from a transgender athlete is just so, so wrong.

Ivy League swimming champion becomes target of transphobic rhetoric

Here's the opinion:

“We’ve never seen a transgender NCAA champion, and Lia is not likely to do it either,” Harper said. “But even if she did win an NCAA championship, we should see a few trans women each and every year winning NCAA Division 1 championships. So at some point it has to happen, and this idea that it’s some horrible miscarriage of justice that Lia is successful just doesn’t add up.”

 (By the way, Joanna Harper is a trans woman and a competitive runner.)

That part I underlined is the wrong part.  When an athlete has an unfair advantage -- which Lia Thomas does when competing against biological women -- then they should not win Division I women's championships, and it does not have to happen. 

There may be, and probably are, college sports in which trans women do not have a built-in physical advantage over biological women.  (Chess, archery, riflery qualify.)  So if trans women compete against biological women in those sports and win championships, fine. But in sports where they do have an advantage, that advantage needs to be completely eliminated for them to compete fairly --- and that's not easy to do.

I have more thoughts on this, which I hope to express soon.