Doctors have confirmed trans swimming champion Lia Thomas has a physical advantage in competition over biological females.
"There are social aspects to sport, but physiology and biology underpin it; testosterone is the 800-pound gorilla," the Mayo Clinic's Dr. Michael J. Joyner told The New York Times.
"You see the divergence immediately as the testosterone surges into the boys. There are dramatic differences in performances."
While the University of Pennsylvania swimming's Thomas does reportedly take testosterone suppressants during a sex transition, Joyner and an international physiologist confirmed Thomas has inescapable advantages.
"Gender cannot trump biology," according to World Athletics chief Sebastian Coe, an Olympic champion runner.
Thomas won the 500-yard freestyle at the NCAA Women's Championships in Atlanta in March.
Tennis legend Martina Navratilova, outspoken for lesbians, told the Times, Thomas gets an unfair edge in swimming.
"I played against taller women," Navratilova told the Times. "I played against stronger women, and I beat them all.
"But if I faced the male equivalent of Lia in tennis, that's biology. I would have had no shot. And I would have been livid."
Even half of Thomas' University of Pennsylvania teammates used the "unfair advantage" phrase in their lawyer's letter to the school.
"Activists conflate sex and gender in a way that is really confusing," Harvard University Dr. Carole Hooven, author of "T: The Story of Testosterone," told the Times. "There is a large performance gap between healthy normal populations of males and females, and that is driven by testosterone.”
Statistically, there is little arguing with the data. Elite adult male swimmer record-holders are 10-12% faster than that of female counterparts – which has held over decades – the Times reported.
"Lia Thomas is the manifestation of the scientific evidence," Dr. Ross Tucker, a sports physiologist, told the Times. "The reduction in testosterone did not remove her biological advantage."
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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