Lia Thomas and the Civil Sphere

By Anonymous

  


Ian Krein

 Last month Lia Thomas became the first trans person to win a NCAA national championship by winning the 500 freestyle. Shortly after, a larger portion of the population was outraged that she was allowed to compete as a woman. The picture above shows Lia on top of the podium after the event, the second and third place finishers decided to pose with the 4th place finisher (who they thought should have gotten 3rd). 

    In the media storm that ensued, the NCAA was quickly characterized as an uncivil institution. One swimmer, Reka Gyorgy, wrote an open letter calling the NCAA “unfair” and “disrespectful” (Gyorgy). Language like this falls on the uncivil side of the binary that Alexander lays out in chapter 4, writing that the “binary codes supply the structured categories of pure and impure into which every member, or potential member, of civil society is made to fit.” Clearly people see Thomas’s success as a violation of some kind, and the language that is used to discuss her success helps to indicate support or distaste for her. Alexander continues later on by laying out modes of incorporation; most importantly for discussing Thomas is the assimilation method. This is the process by which people seeking to be incorporated into civil society adopt the norms of the society for which they would like to join. What is interesting in the case of Thomas is that people like Gyorgy don’t see a path of assimilation, rather they want to keep trans athletes like Thomas competing as the gender they were assigned at birth, or in a completely different category. Alexander also points out that assimilation can “make such neutralization impossible to achieve” (Alexander, 430). 




Anderson, N. (2022, March 20). Virginia Tech swimmer bumped out of finals by Lia Thomas writes letter blasting NCAA. Daily Mail Online. Retrieved April 1, 2022, from https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10633529/Virginia-Tech-swimmer-bumped-finals-Lia-Thomas-writes-letter-blasting-NCAA.html 

  • Published Gyorgy’s letter in full

Alexander, J. C. (2006). The Civil Sphere. Oxford University Press. 

Casterline, J. (2022). Swimmer Lia Thomas on the podium after winning the 500-yard race at the 2022 Ncaa Championships. photograph. 


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