TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — Just over a week after Gov. Ron DeSantis declared Sarasota swimmer Emma Weyant the winner of the NCAA Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships, rather than the NCAA-declared winner, Lia Thomas, U.S. House Republicans introduced a resolution to do the same.

Led by Lauren Boebert (R-Colo, 22 other Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives introduced House Resolution 1016, to recognize Weyant, a Tokyo Olympic swimmer, over Thomas as the winner of the NCAA Women’s 500-yard Freestyle.

As with DeSantis’ choice to declare a different winner than the NCAA, the issue is over Thomas’ status as a transgender athlete.

“The NCAA is basically takings efforts to destroy women’s athletics,” DeSantis said while critiquing the NCAA’s decision. “They’re trying to undermine the integrity of the competition. They’re crowning somebody else the women’s champion, and we think that’s wrong.”

Additionally, his position on the true winner of the competition is reflective of a law DeSantis signed into the Florida Statutes in 2021, which banned transgender female athletes from competing in girls’ and women’s sports. The law, called “The Fairness in Women’s Sports Act” makes it so athletes with birth certificates declaring them as male cannot compete in female sporting events and competitions.

It also created a new avenue for litigation, allowing students to sue if a school allows a transgender athlete on their women’s teams.

Now in 2022, the political divide over transgender athletes in sports competition has continued along the partisan lines drawn between Democrats and Republicans.

According to the resolution introduced by Boebert and her Republican colleagues, “Emma Weyant’s first-place medal was stolen from her by a man competing in women’s swimming,” she and her colleagues who sponsored the resolution are “resolved” to honor Weyant instead, as a “role model for girls across the country” and call her the “rightful winner.”

On March 22, DeSantis made similar comments while in Wesley Chapel, DeSantis announced he would issue a proclamation declaring Weyant the “rightful winner” of the event. The announcement by Florida’s governor came after Thomas made history for being the first transgender athlete to win an NCAA Division I championship. Weyant took second place, per the NCAA’s record, but DeSantis proclaimed Weyant, of Sarasota, was the real winner.

DeSantis’ comments in Wesley Chapel also preceded his officially signing another controversial bill into law. House Bill 1557, called Parental Rights in Education by its supporters and the “Don’t Say Gay” bill by its critics, was signed into law on March 28. It’s another piece of legislation that DeSantis’ political opponents say targets the LGBTQ+ community in Florida.

Thomas beat Weyant’s time by less than two seconds.

In February, USA Swimming updated its rules for transgender athletes to require at least three years of consecutive monthly testosterone levels 5 nmol/L or lower before a swimmer can be eligible to compete in women’s events. Before that, the requirement was one year of monthly testing with testosterone levels no higher than 10 nmol/L each month.

While the rules were updated for USA Swimming, the NCAA did not adopt that standard for the 2022 season.