False claim US national team threatened to quit over transgender swimmer | Fact check

Joedy McCreary, USA TODAY
·3 min read
8
University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas made history in March 2022 by becoming the first transgender woman to win an NCAA swimming competition in Division I.
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The claim: US national team threatened to quit over transgender swimmer Lia Thomas's tryout

A July 21 Facebook post (direct link, archive link) shows a photo of a woman's volleyball team next to a photo of transgender swimmer Lia Thomas.

“US Women’s Team Says They’ll All Quit If Lia Thomas Gets a Tryout: ‘We Don’t Need a Ringer,’” reads text included in the post.

The post was shared more than 5,000 times in four days.

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Our rating: False

The claim originated as satire and the writer of the original piece called it “completely fictional.”

Thomas is swimmer, not volleyball player

Thomas became the first transgender athlete to win a national championship at the NCAA’s highest level when she won the 2022 Division I title in the women’s 500-yard freestyle in March. The accomplishment made her a central figure in the ongoing discussion about transgender women in sports.

The Facebook post links to a story published on a website called "Health of Ministry" in the comments.

The text in the story on the website is nearly identical to one posted in June by the Dunning-Kruger Times, which is described as a subsidiary of the America’s Last Line of Defense network of satirical websites. Its “About Us” section says “Everything on this website is fiction.”

Christopher Blair, creator of America's Last Line of Defense, told USA TODAY in an email that everything in the story about Thomas is “satire and completely fictional” and called transgender athletes “a hot-button” issue.

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Images both in the Facebook post and above the story on the Dunning-Kruger Times show the U.S. women’s volleyball team.

While Thomas has said she wants to compete at the Olympic trials with the goal of swimming at the 2024 Summer Games in Paris, she has never played competitive volleyball, and there are no reports of anyone offering her a tryout for that team.

The story also refers to a coach named Joe Barron, but no one by that name is listed on the national volleyball team’s coaching staff.

USA TODAY has previously debunked numerous false claims originating from the Dunning-Kruger Times.

The Facebook post is an example of what is known as "stolen satire," in which stories written as satire and presented that way originally are reposted in a way that makes them appear to be legitimate news. As a result, readers of the second-generation post are misled.

USA TODAY reached out to the Facebook user for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: False claim US team would quit over transgender swimmer | Fact check