Did Lia Thomas Have Surgery?

It is unclear if Lia Thomas had surgery. However, she underwent hormone replacement therapy (HRT). Read more below to get full details.

Thomas put off hormone replacement medication for a long time because she was afraid it might ruin her swimming career. However, in May 2019, she began HRT. She told Sports Illustrated.

Lia was well aware of how the regimen would affect her body: she wouldn’t be as strong, it would take longer to recover from workouts, and it would alter her in other ways. But she also realized that it might help her feel better.

“I did HRT knowing and accepting I might not swim again,” she said. “I was just trying to live my life.”

Her bad feelings began to fade almost immediately.

“It surprised me,” she said. “I felt, mentally, a lot better and healthier pretty quickly. The relief it gave me was quite substantial.”

Thomas wanted to compete against women, but she needed to take a year of HRT first. She, on the other hand, craved competition and opted to compete against men.

Her body’s effects on HRT became apparent when she could no longer keep up with male athletes. Thomas was a standout distance swimmer in high school and proceeded to excel at the university level. She finished second in three Ivy championship races and came close to swimming in the NCAA finals during the 2018-19 season.

She informed Sports Illustrated that she’d lost an inch of weight and noted fat redistribution all over her body. This is two years after starting HRT.

After winning the women’s 500-yard freestyle event in March 2022, she became the first openly transgender athlete to win an NCAA Division I national championship in any sport. She was a part of the public debate concerning transgender women in athletics in 2021 and 2022.

She began hormone replacement therapy in May 2019 and came out as a trans woman to her coaches, friends, and the University of Pennsylvania’s women’s and men’s swim teams during her junior year.

While undergoing hormone therapy, she was required to swim for the men’s team in the 2019–2020 academic year as a junior, and then swam for the women’s team in 2021–2022 after taking a year off school to maintain her eligibility to compete while competitive swimming was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Thomas has fulfilled all gender-related restrictions in order to compete in NCAA swimming as a woman.

Lia Thomas Instagram is currently unknown.