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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis blasted decorated transgender female swimmer Lia Thomas as a “fraud” Friday during a speech at Liberty University in Virginia.
Speaking to a supportive crowd of roughly 9,000 at the famous Christian college, the prospective 2024 Republican presidential candidate questioned the legitimacy of the former University of Pennsylvania star’s athletic feats.
“It is wrong to have a swimmer compete for three years on the men’s swim team, switch to the women’s team and win the women’s national championship,” DeSantis said to cheers. “That is a fraud. That is wrong.”
Thomas began transitioning in May 2019 and eventually joined the Penn women’s swim squad during the 2021-2022 season.
She later became the first transgender athlete to win an NCAA national championship after winning the women’s 500-yard freestyle event in March of last year.
Thomas bested Florida native and Olympic silver medalist Emma Weyant — then competing for the University of Virginia — in the race, prompting DeSantis to sign a proclamation declaring Weyant the true winner.
Weyant has since transferred to the University of Florida.
Thomas’ detractors argue that she enjoyed unfair biological advantages over her competitors and that her abrupt athletic ascent came at the expense of swimmers who were born female.
DeSantis put himself at the center of the deepening debate over transgender policy during his speech, noting that Florida has banned puberty blockers and sex-change surgeries for minors.
“It is also wrong for physicians to pump minors with puberty blockers or to perform sex change operations on them,” he said. “And now in Florida, physicians who do those things will lose their medical license.”
DeSantis has crisscrossed the country in recent weeks to burnish his national profile ahead of an anticipated clash with former President Donald Trump for GOP supremacy.
DeSantis also touted Florida’s financial growth and population boom during his term in office, calling the Sunshine State a “promised land” of freedom for defectors from Democrat-run states and cities.
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