In a conversation about Thomas, one person said to me--it's just sport, and sport is corrupt anyway. I am not someone who is into sports generally myself. But this issue hits me hard. I was a competitive swimmer when I was in high school. A B grade swimmer, never someone who would make a college team. But somewhere in my basement I still have the one blue ribbon that I earned for the 50 yard backstroke. Why do I remember? Why does it matter? I knew I wasn't ever going to be a serious swimmer or an elite athlete. But it felt good to train, try my best, stretch the limits of my own body and yes, to try to win. I wouldn't have even stayed on the team if boys had been allowed to swim with us. So this is not just about the elite, it is about all girls and the joy in the movement of our bodies.
And of course, the issue is not really "women's sports." This is just one horrific lens. It's the overall degradation of women, the silencing of women, the gaslighting of women, the violation of women's boundaries. As she says:
"I still can't believe I had to tell my adult-age daughter. “You always have a choice about whether you undress in front of a man.” What messages that these girls have been receiving this year. How many of the other girls were feeling this? My heart was ripped apart. Damage far greater than the sports arena was now apparent to me."
My god what a heartrending story - I cannot understand why there are no protests outside the swim meet? is it 'cos the US is so absolutely captured? we would be doing it here wouldnt we?
It is very painful to hear even when we know what is going on. How women have been and are being betrayed. I wish the very worst to the architects of this humiliation.
Thank you for sharing this with your subscribers. As many people as possible should hear this account. As a signatory of the declaration on women's sex-based rights, I get an invite to their webinar events and I am glad I heard this mother's story live. I am just so angry that the girl's voices are being silenced and the mother has to stay anonymous. I hope that sense prevails soon, that policies are reversed and Lia's results are expunged from the records. Then we can all learn who this brave mother is and thank her.
The most disgusting part of this for me - and there are many to choose from - is that it had clearly been getting planned for months if not years and there was absolutely no attempt to consult, prepare, or take the girls feelings into account.
They didn't even have the decency to pretend to consult.
The whole thing was done in an aggressive, bullying, abusive manner when it didn't need to be.
For me, the worst of it - and that's pretty damning considering it's all so hideously damning - is the mother coming up against the cold-eyed dogma of the lawyer, a woman lawyer at that (as in the old-fashioned, boring female kind), at the ACLU. I don't know if the ACLU "has lost its way" is remotely an adequate description to what is going on here, since rather they seem to be actively set upon destroying the rights of women and girls.
As a subscriber to the NYTimes (still just about hanging in there despite their recent pitiful ad campaign which saw fit to throw JK Rowling under the bus), I recently saw an ad by the ACLU in the online paper which ran with three projects they were behind: Protecting voting rights, protecting abortion rights, then, muscling in on those two goals which many ordinary people would back, there was the wooly but reasonable-sounding "trans people's rights to live freely".
Yet this is what the ACLU means by that vague statement: Trans rights are a male swimmer trashing the years of training and sacrifice of girls and their supportive families, who went to the pool every morning early before school. Trans rights are the rights of a male sex offender who only five minutes ago cottoned on that he could identify his way out of a male prison. Trans rights are a group of women minding their own business in a female locker room in the WiSpa Los Angeles and enduring a serial sexual offender getting his kicks out of exposing himself beside them, and those women being denounced then as bigots for objecting.
I think a way forward might be to make some of the ACLU's donors aware of this tape and the ACLU's position on this. There will be many reasonable but unaware donors. The ACLU seems to be faced with competing aims right now. In the past, for example, it has defended the KKK, in the name of free speech so it has always made decisions which people will feel uncomfortable with but which some would argue are part of a society where free speech is sacrosanct and a cornerstone of democracy. But there are other voices in the ACLU now who see themselves more as "progressive" activist types who would argue that the mother in the tape is using hate speech. However, even if she is (obviously, she is not), the ACLU would previously, I believe, have supported her right and that of the swim team to voice their objections and possibly to take action against their college. Like many institutions, there's probably an internal battle about this kind of stuff going on in the ACLU.
I would never contribute to them financially, not now, no matter what other important work they are doing. When it's at the expense of women and girls yet again being told to sit down, shut up and be kind, that's my line in the sand.
One of the parts of this interview that stood out for me was this:
"The one race in the meet where the girls all knew beforehand who was competing and had a chance to talk to each other across multiple teams. They all marched out holding hands from the ready room, around the pool all the way behind the blocks."
That's it, that's the limit of the action those girls could take without all being thrown out of the meet: holding hands without him.
I hope they're still allowed to go out next market day.
Thank you Graham. So many seeing this from the substack, will finally have access to these chilling words, from this mother. It’s actually gut wrenching to realise this is being perpetuated, the involvement of so many offices, to keep this looking calm and acceptable is ridiculous.
Such a shame that this huge shouldered man, can’t be hidden nicely away, like a 5’6” male could be, whereas 6’4”? and built like a wardrobe really peaked so many, didn’t it ?
As Martina Navratilova has tweeted - this is a joke.
I'd go further, it's a sick, sick misogynistic joke. I don't care what his motivations are, Thomas is a cheat, and is being enabled in his cheating. Cheats don't get the privilege of women using wrong-sex pronouns to refer to them - they have shown the women they've stomped on no such respect. I think the only thing that will change the situation is for a mass protest by his team-mates and competitors. It should never have to come to this - because it's a joke.
Can people please share this with people like Stella Creasy and ask them why they support this?
In a conversation about Thomas, one person said to me--it's just sport, and sport is corrupt anyway. I am not someone who is into sports generally myself. But this issue hits me hard. I was a competitive swimmer when I was in high school. A B grade swimmer, never someone who would make a college team. But somewhere in my basement I still have the one blue ribbon that I earned for the 50 yard backstroke. Why do I remember? Why does it matter? I knew I wasn't ever going to be a serious swimmer or an elite athlete. But it felt good to train, try my best, stretch the limits of my own body and yes, to try to win. I wouldn't have even stayed on the team if boys had been allowed to swim with us. So this is not just about the elite, it is about all girls and the joy in the movement of our bodies.
And of course, the issue is not really "women's sports." This is just one horrific lens. It's the overall degradation of women, the silencing of women, the gaslighting of women, the violation of women's boundaries. As she says:
"I still can't believe I had to tell my adult-age daughter. “You always have a choice about whether you undress in front of a man.” What messages that these girls have been receiving this year. How many of the other girls were feeling this? My heart was ripped apart. Damage far greater than the sports arena was now apparent to me."
Thank you SO much for preserving this and transcribing it! This needs to be shared widely, but our tech overlords want it squashed!
It was a message. It was silent but it was a message. “We support each other”
My god what a heartrending story - I cannot understand why there are no protests outside the swim meet? is it 'cos the US is so absolutely captured? we would be doing it here wouldnt we?
It is very painful to hear even when we know what is going on. How women have been and are being betrayed. I wish the very worst to the architects of this humiliation.
Is it just me - isn’t this utterly utterly evil?
Thank you for sharing this with your subscribers. As many people as possible should hear this account. As a signatory of the declaration on women's sex-based rights, I get an invite to their webinar events and I am glad I heard this mother's story live. I am just so angry that the girl's voices are being silenced and the mother has to stay anonymous. I hope that sense prevails soon, that policies are reversed and Lia's results are expunged from the records. Then we can all learn who this brave mother is and thank her.
The most disgusting part of this for me - and there are many to choose from - is that it had clearly been getting planned for months if not years and there was absolutely no attempt to consult, prepare, or take the girls feelings into account.
They didn't even have the decency to pretend to consult.
The whole thing was done in an aggressive, bullying, abusive manner when it didn't need to be.
For me, the worst of it - and that's pretty damning considering it's all so hideously damning - is the mother coming up against the cold-eyed dogma of the lawyer, a woman lawyer at that (as in the old-fashioned, boring female kind), at the ACLU. I don't know if the ACLU "has lost its way" is remotely an adequate description to what is going on here, since rather they seem to be actively set upon destroying the rights of women and girls.
As a subscriber to the NYTimes (still just about hanging in there despite their recent pitiful ad campaign which saw fit to throw JK Rowling under the bus), I recently saw an ad by the ACLU in the online paper which ran with three projects they were behind: Protecting voting rights, protecting abortion rights, then, muscling in on those two goals which many ordinary people would back, there was the wooly but reasonable-sounding "trans people's rights to live freely".
Yet this is what the ACLU means by that vague statement: Trans rights are a male swimmer trashing the years of training and sacrifice of girls and their supportive families, who went to the pool every morning early before school. Trans rights are the rights of a male sex offender who only five minutes ago cottoned on that he could identify his way out of a male prison. Trans rights are a group of women minding their own business in a female locker room in the WiSpa Los Angeles and enduring a serial sexual offender getting his kicks out of exposing himself beside them, and those women being denounced then as bigots for objecting.
I think a way forward might be to make some of the ACLU's donors aware of this tape and the ACLU's position on this. There will be many reasonable but unaware donors. The ACLU seems to be faced with competing aims right now. In the past, for example, it has defended the KKK, in the name of free speech so it has always made decisions which people will feel uncomfortable with but which some would argue are part of a society where free speech is sacrosanct and a cornerstone of democracy. But there are other voices in the ACLU now who see themselves more as "progressive" activist types who would argue that the mother in the tape is using hate speech. However, even if she is (obviously, she is not), the ACLU would previously, I believe, have supported her right and that of the swim team to voice their objections and possibly to take action against their college. Like many institutions, there's probably an internal battle about this kind of stuff going on in the ACLU.
I would never contribute to them financially, not now, no matter what other important work they are doing. When it's at the expense of women and girls yet again being told to sit down, shut up and be kind, that's my line in the sand.
One of the parts of this interview that stood out for me was this:
"The one race in the meet where the girls all knew beforehand who was competing and had a chance to talk to each other across multiple teams. They all marched out holding hands from the ready room, around the pool all the way behind the blocks."
That's it, that's the limit of the action those girls could take without all being thrown out of the meet: holding hands without him.
I hope they're still allowed to go out next market day.
Thank you Graham. So many seeing this from the substack, will finally have access to these chilling words, from this mother. It’s actually gut wrenching to realise this is being perpetuated, the involvement of so many offices, to keep this looking calm and acceptable is ridiculous.
Such a shame that this huge shouldered man, can’t be hidden nicely away, like a 5’6” male could be, whereas 6’4”? and built like a wardrobe really peaked so many, didn’t it ?
Thank you for this. I’ve not been able to watch it because always marked ‘private’. The silencing tactics are horrendous.
As Martina Navratilova has tweeted - this is a joke.
I'd go further, it's a sick, sick misogynistic joke. I don't care what his motivations are, Thomas is a cheat, and is being enabled in his cheating. Cheats don't get the privilege of women using wrong-sex pronouns to refer to them - they have shown the women they've stomped on no such respect. I think the only thing that will change the situation is for a mass protest by his team-mates and competitors. It should never have to come to this - because it's a joke.
This is so desperately sad. I feel for those girls. They want so badly to silence us it seems to be at any cost
It's now available again on Youtube. Nearly 8.30 am West Coast USA, 11.30 am East Coast, 4.30 pm UK time.