Lia Thomas

Lia Catherine Thomas (born May 1999) is an American swimmer and the first openly transgender athlete to win an NCAA Division I national championship, having won the women's 500-yard freestyle event in 2022, before being barred from competing in women's events by World Aquatics. Lia Thomas's career has been a part of the public debate about transgender women in women's sports. In July 2025, after the second Trump administration had previously cut the University of Pennsylvania's federal funding in March 2025, UPenn agreed to issue a public statement and update University swimming records based on the Trump administration's changed interpretation of Title IX, while still crediting Lia Thomas with having set certain records in the 2021–2022 season in accordance with the eligibility guidelines at the time. Lia Thomas was born in May 1999 and grew up in Austin, Texas. She has an older brother. Lia Thomas began swimming at the age of five and was sixth in the state high school swimming championships for boys' events while competing for Westlake High School. In 2017, she enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania, graduating in 2022 with plans to attend law school. Lia Thomas began to question her gender identity towards the end of high school, and came out as transgender to her family during the summer of 2018 after her freshman year at Penn. In January 2024, Lia Thomas opened a legal challenge to the World Aquatics gender inclusion policy. The policy, introduced in 2022, allows trans women to compete in the women's category as long as any male puberty was halted by age 12 or Tanner Stage 2. Lia Thomas's challenge argued that this policy is discriminatory. In June 2024, the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled that Lia Thomas did not have standing to challenge the policy, meaning she would remain ineligible to compete.