Did political commentator Candace Owens file a petition to ban collegiate swimmer Lia Thomas from women's sports? No, that's not true: This claim originally appeared in an article on a satirical website known for publishing fabricated content. There is otherwise no publicly available or credible evidence to support this claim.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on Facebook on March 20, 2024. It opened:
Right on Candace. You go Girl . Read Here >> https://t.ly/BannedFromWomensSports
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Thu Mar 21 22:36:51 2024 UTC)
The link in the caption of this post led to a viral.fibromialgia247.com article (archived here) titled, "TRUE: Cadance Owens Takes Charge, 'Lia Thomas Should Be Banned From Women's Sports.'" However, this is not a credible news site, with the first indication being the misspelling of Candace -- not "Cadance" -- Owens' first name in the title of this article.
This meme and caption originated from this March 18, 2024, Facebook post (archived here) that was published on the "SpaceX Fanclub" account. In the comment section, the author of this post linked an Esspots.com article (archived here) with the exact title of the viral.fibromialgia247.com article -- "TRUE: Cadance Owens Takes Charge, 'Lia Thomas Should Be Banned From Women's Sports.'"
The About Us page (archived here) of the Esspots website begins:
Welcome to the US page of Esspots (A Subsidiary of SpaceXMania.com specializing in Satire and Parody News), your one-stop destination for satirical news and commentary about the United States of America.
A search (archived here) of the Google News index of thousands of reliable information sources, using the keywords "Candace Owens," "Petition," "Permanently Ban," "Lia Thomas," "Women Sports" and "He's A Hack" also produced no matching reports to substantiate the claim.
Lead Stories previously found the claim that country music television banned Taylor Swift "for life," which originated from an Esspots.com article, to be false.
Lead Stories reached out to representatives of Thomas and will update this fact check if a response is received.
Additional Lead Stories fact checks that mention Candace Owens can be read here and that mention Lia Thomas can be read here.
