‘I Hope People Can Finally Leave You Alone’

Lucas Draper is a junior at Oberlin College and Conservatory in Lorain County, Ohio, outside Cleveland. He is 21, majoring in both computer science and theater, and he is part of the Yeomen swimming and diving team. Originally from Australia, there’s one other thing that sets him apart at Oberlin: He’s transgender.

Although Draper dives instead of swims, he has something to say about the controversy that’s dominating his sport, and for that matter, all sports and the people who compete, coach and care about athletes, especially girls and women.

“It’s just such a complicated issue,” Draper told me, when asked about University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas, and her success competing as a woman. “I don’t have the experience of a trans woman. I know that it sucked for me to compete as a woman and I’m sure it sucked just as much to compete as a man when you identify as a woman. So, the fact that the NCAA has rules that allow her to do that, I think she was within her rights to do that, because that was what the rules laid out.”

Just days after our interview, the NCAA responded to complaints from cisgender athletes, activists and parents that Thomas was winning and setting new women’s records. She was misgendered and accused of cheating even though she followed NCAA rules, and the rules themselves were called unfair to cisgender girls and women. The organization was besieged with calls that it do something, including from Olympians Michael Phelps and Nancy Hogshead-Makar, who raised the temperature of the debate by insinuating that a trans woman competing with cisgender women was akin to doping scandals of the past.

So, the NCAA changed the rules, abandoning its 11-year policy of inclusion for transgender student-athletes in favor of a sport-by-sport format similar to that adopted last fall by the International Olympic Committee.

“I appreciate the NCAA’s attempt to be inclusive of transgender athletes as a whole, but this approach feels very much like they are attempting to be removed from the blame if something goes wrong,” Draper told me.

The NCAA’s announcement raised more questions than it answered, due its contradictory statements. The organization said the new policy was effective immediately, but also indicated it would go into effect with the 2022 winter championships in March. Also, the NCAA said if a sport does not have a national governing organization, that it should rely upon its international body for guidance, and then there was this: “If there is no international federation policy, previously established IOC policy criteria would be followed.”

The problem there? The IOC announced last November that its policy criteria was changing this March. So, a lot of people were left asking questions, including Draper.

“As of where the rules are at this moment, I’m a little uncertain and confused. It’s scary to think how quickly they can change the rules when there is attention on the issue,” Draper told me in a text conversation the day after the NCAA announcement. “Waking up to find out the rules had changed but no one really knew what the new rules are was jarring. Over the course of the last 24 hours, my understanding of the rules to compete for my team have changed dramatically. I have a meet next weekend, am I allowed to compete in it? Who knows?”

USA Swimming has said it’s awaiting guidance from the International Federation (FINA) which is drafting a new policy, but it also reiterated its support for both Thomas and all trans athletes, dating back to 2018.

Draper’s biggest fear right now is what sporting organizations will do to fill the vacuum created by the NCAA passing the buck to national governing bodies, like USA Swimming.

“I also fear that with this backlash, governing agencies are going to issue a knee-jerk change to the policy that is overly limiting and unfair to transgender athletes, in an attempt to get out of the spotlight,” he said. “The comparisons that have been made between transgender hormone therapy and illegal doping practices recently make me scared. Because these rules have changed, will I now be accused of doping because I followed the old rules and have more than my naturally produced amount of testosterone in my system?”

Draper told me he’s been very cautious about speaking out about all this, and granting few interviews. He’s been getting requests ever since he took a stand in support of Thomas.

On New Year’s Day, Swimming World Magazine published a moving op-ed by Draper, In Defense Of Lia Thomas and Her Right to Compete. It was an eloquent response to the tidal wave of negative and demeaning articles about Thomas, including those published by the outlet where he once interned and wrote stories about a trans athlete and his own experience as a diver, under his birth name.

In his concluding paragraph, he addressed Thomas directly:

“Lia, if you are reading this, I know this is tough and you are just following the rules. I am so sorry the world is putting you at the face of this issue and I hope people can finally leave you alone, and talk about this more as an issue of transgender participation, not the world vs. Lia Thomas.”

This week, Draper is speaking with CBS Sunday Morning correspondent Lee Cowan as well as with a trans athlete who’s a contributor to Outsports, Karleigh Webb, the host of The Trans Sporter Room podcast.

Ten days after his op-ed appeared, Swimming World published a response by Coach Linda Blade; Draper told Webb that when he read it, he cried.

Blade misgendered him 35 words in, then dug deep into the TERF playbook to counter his arguments: Suggesting hormone therapy is the same as doping, claiming Thomas deserves scrutiny because she “chooses to be in the spotlight,” that competitors of different ages are akin to trans vs. cis competition and then called up that ol’ reliable, transphobic trope that trans women are really men and you can easily spot the difference just by looking: “The distinction between male versus female biological design is categorical; in the same way that, say, a NASCAR vehicle is distinct from an F1 car in auto racing.”

Who is Linda Blade? She is the author, with journalist Barbara Kay, of the book, UNSPORTING: How Trans Activism and Science Denial are Destroying Sport, so she is hardly unbiased on this issue.

“Anyone who doesn’t respect the identity of trans people pisses me off,” Draper told me. “Sports is such a complicated thing, and I’m going to keep bringing up the comment that people have made, ‘What if Michael Phelps randomly decided to be trans?’ The whole wording of that is stupid. But just ignore the shitty language and process the concept: He’s still, as a cis man, one of the best in the world. And it’s even better to consider if Katie Ledecky came out as trans masc, and wanted to compete in men’s events. She would still be competitive in the men’s events without the testosterone, and that’s the kind of point that I was trying to make in my article: Especially in the age groups, there is so much variance between ability that just the concept of gender sometimes doesn’t make sense.”

Another issue that confuses Draper: What the NCAA didn’t say in its announcement.

“One part of their announcement that particularly stands out to me is the lack of differentiation between the different groups within the transgender community,” Draper wrote in a text to me. “Nowhere in any release from the NCAA in the last 24 hours does the word “transgender” precede the words “female” or “male.” Nonbinary individuals are not mentioned. Intersex individuals are not mentioned.”

Yet another issue is testosterone, a hormone that both men and women naturally have in their bodies, to varying degrees. The difference is, trans women take medication to suppress testosterone, and as a trans male, Draper has been taking “T” for two months as part of his medical transition. Back in November, the IOC decided testosterone alone was not a reliable determinant for eligibility, but in the NCAA announcement, it said trans student-athletes would now be required to have their testosterone levels checked:

“Transgender student-athletes will need to document sport-specific testosterone levels beginning four weeks before their sport’s championship selections,” the statement released Jan. 19 declared. “Starting with the 2022-23 academic year, transgender student-athletes will need documented levels at the beginning of their season and a second documentation six months after the first. They will also need documented testosterone levels four weeks before championship selections.”

“I am aware the focus is very much on transgender women right now, but these regulations need to be made without consideration for the current trigger issues,” Draper wrote in another text. “Given the current focus on transgender women, do I as a transgender man need to submit testosterone levels as frequently? Because in all honesty, what difference do my current testosterone levels make? I am increasing my naturally low levels of testosterone to a higher amount, yes, but if I compete in the male gender and have an approved medical plan, is my treatment as important to monitor. My conference championship is a month away, do I need to rush to get all my proverbial chickens in order before then?”

“I also want to note that if decisions are based on the governing bodies of each sport, swimming and diving are seperate sports, where body composition play different roles,” he wrote. “As an swimmer-turned-diver I can speak to the distinction. In swimming you want all round power. In diving, the size of your biceps will make little difference in how high you can get on the board or how well you score. So this presents a challenge. Since swimming and diving are classified as one sport by the NCAA, whose rules do they follow, USA swimming or USA diving if those rules end up presenting differently?”

The bottom line for Draper, he said, is that thus far, trans women athletes like Thomas have followed every rule, and still they are attacked just for doing the best they can.

“It sucks for trans women who are getting hate for it,” he said. “I feel really bad for the people who are being targeted by this, and I think as long as they’re following the rules, they have every right to compete.”

Now all someone need do is… figure out what those rules are.