International federation claimed to have banned Lia Thomas disbanded in 1934 | Fact check

Gabrielle Settles, USA TODAY
·2 min read
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.

The claim: Lia Thomas banned from participating in women’s sports

A Sept. 10 Facebook post (direct link, archive link) features two photos of transgender swimmer Lia Thomas.

“Breaking: Lia Thomas Banned from Participating In Woman (sic) Sports,” the post reads. “CHECK FIRST COMMENT!!"

The first comment links to a blog post about the purported banning of Thomas.

The Facebook post was shared more than 3,000 times in three days.

Follow us on Facebook! Like our page to get updates throughout the day on our latest debunks

Our rating: False

The claim comes from a website that publishes satire, and the organization it references as banning Thomas hasn't existed since 1934.

Federation alleged to have banned Thomas hasn’t existed since the 1930s

There are no credible news reports about Thomas being banned from women's sports.

The Aug. 23 blog post comes from a website called USA Community, which identifies some of its stories as satire – although the one about Thomas is not labeled as such. It claims that a group called the International Women’s Sports Federation announced a ban against Thomas.

However, that federation couldn’t have done so – because it hasn’t operated in roughly a century.

In 1921, French athlete Alice Milliat founded the Fédération Sportive Féminine Internationale (or the IWSF in English) in response to women being barred from competing in the Olympics in sports like track and field. The federation put on the Women's World Games every four years until 1934 when, under an agreement with the International Olympic Committee, women were fully initiated into the Olympics and Milliat gave up the federation, according to the European Parliamentary Research Service.

The blog post also uses a faulty name as the head of the federation – Sir Reginald Pompous III. USA TODAY could not locate a record of a president by that name.

Fact check: Post claiming IOC banned transgender swimmer Lia Thomas for life is satire

Thomas has faced opposition, however. Soon after she won the NCAA women's championship for the University of Pennsylvania in March 2022, World Aquatics, the governing body of water sports, effectively banned trans women from competing in the Olympic games. It made an exception for swimmers who transitioned before the age of 12.

However, the group later revised its policy by adding an “open category” to swimming. The first races in the open category will take place in Berlin in October.

USA TODAY reached out to Thomas for comment, as well as the Facebook user who shared the post, but did not immediately receive a response.

Our fact-check sources:

Thank you for supporting our journalism. You can subscribe to our print edition, ad-free app or e-newspaper here.

Our fact-check work is supported in part by a grant from Facebook.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: No, Lia Thomas was not banned from women's sports | Fact check