LGBTQ Sports History: 2 Out Transgender NCAA Athletes Compete Head-To-Head

History books will record Saturday, March 19, as the first time that two out NCAA transgender student-athletes competed against one another for a Division I national championship. And it was a sharp rebuke to those activists who complain that trans women are “destroying women’s sports” or dominating them.

Out transgender swimmer Lia Thomas, the University of Pennsylvania fifth-year senior, was almost a full second slower in the 100-yard freestyle than in Saturday morning’s preliminary meet in Atlanta. She finished dead last, the eighth out of eight women, ending her college swimming career.

But it ends having accomplished something special: As Karleigh Webb of Outsports reported, Thomas is a three-time All-American and tied with CeCé Telfer as the most decorated NCAA transgender student-athlete since the inclusion policy was first instituted in 2011.

Thomas, 22, did not speak to reporters following Saturday night’s final. Her only comments came on Thursday when the Austin, Texas-native was named Division I national champion in the 500-yard freestyle. “I didn’t have a whole lot of expectations for this meet,” Thomas told ESPN. “I was just happy to be here, trying to race and compete as best as I could.”

Transgender man Iszac Henig of Menlo Park, California, tied for fifth with Louisville’s Gabi Albiero, finishing at 47:32, a quarter of a second faster than he swam in the morning. Henig, 20, represented Yale, where he is a junior, as their sole entrant. After receiving his trophy, his parents, younger sister and other supporters congratulated Henig for his outstanding and historic performance in the pool. He is now a first-team All-American.

“I was glad that it didn't hit me until after,” he said. “I just wanted to be able to be there to race and have a good time.”

NCAA transgender trailblazer Schuyler Bailar gave him a hug and posed for pictures together. They’re friends, and they made plans to meet up with Thomas Saturday night to celebrate the end of finals.

“Lia and I are friends, so it's always nice to swim against your friends,” Henig told me. “It was incredible. She's been great. I was really happy competing with her. I swear I couldn't have asked for it to have gone better.”

‘Let Trans Kids Play’

Henig has a tattoo on his right arm that says “Let Trans Kids Play.” He spoke to me about why he wants people to see that important message.

“There's so many bills in different states right now trying to ban trans women from sport at all different levels,” Henig said about anti-trans legislation across the nation. “We’re not allowed to have anything on our clothes, but they also didn’t say anything about your skin. So I took that, you know, platform that I was hoping to have, to use that to say, trans athletes are like any other athlete. We just have to be able to play to build that community.”

Although he had top surgery to remove his breasts, he is not on testosterone and postponed that part of his medical transition, so he can continue to compete with his women teammates. Beth Stelzer, the founder of the anti-trans inclusion group Save Women’s Sports, misidentified Henig in an interview Thursday as a woman and suggested his operation might provide him with some advantage in the pool.

“I actually really don't know how to respond to that,” said Henig. “I'm not a woman. I would love to know how they're defining ‘woman’ because I think that like womanhood is what you make it. And I'm not a woman. I'm not a woman.” He added, “I am just a guy trying to go as fast as I can.”

Henig said he couldn’t comment on whether he’d be back with the Bulldogs next year or what steps he would take in his gender transition.

I asked Henig about Swimming World Magazine editor in chief John Lohn’s opinion that Thomas had been, in his words, “sandbagging,” or deliberately swimming at a slower speed, and about a tabloid report about an anonymous swimmer at Penn who accused her teammate Thomas of conspiring with Henig to prove, in her words, "Oh see, a female-to-male beat me."

“I think anyone who's been an athlete and as a competitive person knows that you don't throw races,” Henig told me. “You don't conspire to do anything. You're just here to show up to your best.”

Who Won?

Contrary to the narrative spun by opponents of transgender inclusion in sports, the winner of the 100-yard freestyle was a cisgender woman: Virginia freshman Gretchen Walsh from Nashville. Walsh won her first individual title and set a new pool record at the McAuley Aquatic Center on the Georgia Tech campus.

“I definitely think that I never expected this to happen,” Walsh told me after her victory. “Going into this, I knew I would be racing Lia. I think at that point I was just treating everyone as a fair competitor, because I came here to do the best, for me, and I was just overall really, really happy with my swim. So, I wasn't trying to think about anyone else too much, just focus on me and do my best.”

“Everybody here is a competitor,” added her head coach Todd DeSorbo, who was talking to reporters about UVA winning back-to-back NCAA National Championships when he was asked about Thomas. I asked him if, having witnessed her and Henig compete, if he would ever coach a transgender swimmer. DeSorbo said he’d decide that question if and when it ever happens. “I think that’s a tough question to answer because it would have to happen,” DeSorbo explained. “I would need that to happen for me to know how that would unfold.”

Anti-Trans Activists: ‘Mission’ Accomplished

The crowd inside cheered for Walsh, and also for Henig, but once again a scattering of boos were heard whenever the announcer said Lia Thomas’s name.

The activists from Save Women’s Sports, who since Thursday have been booing Thomas inside and demonstrating outside, told me they achieved what they had set out to do.

“I just feel like the mission that we came here to accomplish, we were successful, better than we could ever imagine,” Jeanna Hoch of Save Women’s Sports told me following finals. “The public is definitely on our side. It's overwhelming on social media, in the news and the person to person interactions with people here on campus. Everyone is really, really supportive of our fight.”

Following that interview, other activists standing with Hoch surrounded this reporter and challenged me about my identity as a transgender woman and my use of the women’s public bathrooms in the aquatic center. A man wearing a Cal Athletics polo shirt named Matthew joined them in asking me whether I ever menstruated. Campus security officers started to move in when I made a reference to myself as doing “the job of mom” for my three children following the death of their mother. That resulted in activists screaming at me, “How dare you!” said Stelzer, pointing her finger in my face. “You never birthed your children. You are not a mother!” Both the activists and I recorded the clash with our phones. The U.K. group Standing For Women posted an edited video on Facebook. The full, raw audio recording is on YouTube.

It was around this point that a senior campus security officer intervened and escorted the activists outside. But the commotion continued there, without me present. Members of the Save Women’s Sports group reportedly splintered in what one reporter described as “a spectacle.”

Lia Thomas ‘Followed the Rules’

This last night here in Atlanta was far more emotional than any other night, and never was that more true than when the press room welcomed DI national champion Regan Smith of Lakeville, Minn., a 20-year-old Stanford freshman.

“That was sick!” Smith said about winning the 200-back before tying for second in the 200-fly. Out nonbinary journalist Katie Barnes of ESPN asked Smith for her thoughts about competing with Thomas.

“She's followed the rules that have been in place for her. I'm all about being supportive of people that are here and not putting anyone down, and being a good sport about everything,” she said. “I think everything that's going on has been really crazy, but I just hope that things get worked out in the future and that, you know, everyone leaves the situation in a good place.”

That’s certainly true for Thomas, who leaves Atlanta a champion, who with Henig proved that transgender athletes are not unbeatable, they play by the rules and they do belong in competition.