I rather thought you were thinking Zombies are People, with a lack of some esoteric capacity. One that doesn't much matter.
As I see it, it's a matter of definition. Zombies lack experiences. That's what 'zombie' means.
And we know what it means to have no experiences. It's like being dead.

I'm more persuaded by Mary than I am by the zombie argument. The former doesn't assume that qualia are epiphenomena, I'm afraid the latter does.
If it does, I think it's question begging.

Why do you want Chalmer's argument to succeed?

(I do think I may have read the Thomas paper, but it's been a while. Thanks for the quotation.)