“Note the way the writer uses “[Lia]” when reporting the comment from Lia’s teammate, which I assume is the way that writer avoids the pronoun trap associated with this business.”
I noticed that too.
I wonder if the anonymous swimmer quoted used he or she?
I’d bet she used “she” - that’s the fashion among the educated these days.
But the writer for the article handled the entire situation in a manner I considered just about perfect: she used the swimmer’s new name, Lia, when necessary, which I’m fine with - Johnny Cash settled that issue with me with “A Boy Named Sue”. But she *never* used a pronoun for the XY swimmer in the entire article, always using a proper noun or descriptive noun when needed.