2022’s Man of the Year: Lia Thomas
Christopher Tremoglie
Video Embed
To say 2022 was an eventful year would be an understatement. There were the lingering effects of the pandemic, rampant inflation, a war, men saying they were women, and multiple important elections worldwide. Yet through it all, one man arguably did more to affect the world than any other, and he did it while claiming to be a woman. I chose Lia Thomas, the transgender swimmer who won Ivy League and NCAA female swimming championships in 2022, for Man of the Year.
THE UPENN SWIM TEAM IS ACTUALLY FEMALE AGAIN
After bursting on the scene as the fastest man in a pool full of women, Thomas’s presence brought much-needed attention to how radical and powerful the transgender movement has become. While many considered him a cultural anomaly, others realized the possible threat he posed — especially to women’s sports.
When Thomas defeated 2020 Olympic silver medalist Emma Weyant in the 500-yard freestyle, many were no longer laughing. He made history as the first transgender woman to win a women’s swimming national championship event. Yet, this victory inspired women everywhere to fight to keep women’s sports female.
Thomas also revolutionized the rules for athletic competitions between boys and girls, men and women. He brought awareness to the disturbing trend that boys could take away opportunities from girls on sports teams simply by stating they identify as female. FINA, the international governing body for water sports, changed its rules about transgender women competing in women’s sports because of Thomas.
Whether you love or hate him, Thomas’s impact on the world in 2022 was undeniable. Because of him, millions of people first became aware that men were claiming to be women and trying to compete in female sports. Because of Thomas, millions of people became aware of the disturbing trend to normalize the practice of adolescent men identifying as women. Moreover, because of Thomas, many even started asking what a woman is.
And while I presume Thomas was just a college student with a mental health problem who just wanted to swim, he became a weapon for the radical Left to try to destroy science, biology, and the sociocultural norms of thousands of years of human civilization. Thomas forever changed things, and he did it from a swimming pool. Whether those things were good or bad depended on where one was on the political spectrum.
Ultimately, Thomas was the poster boy of the LGBT genderless world and utopia the Left hoped to create. He was more than just a collegiate swimmer. He was a cultural catalyst that brought adoration or rebuke depending on one’s politics. And while his presence in the swimming pool rallied many supporters of the LGBT movement, Thomas also accomplished something no man had ever been able to: make conservatives and Republicans aware of the left-wing threat to our cherished cultural norms.
For all he did, Thomas was undoubtedly 2022’s Man of the Year.