Teammate Slams UPenn, NCAA for Allowing Transgender Swimmer to Compete on Women’s Team
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
A female teammate of transgender University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas slammed university and NCAA officials as “weak” and “shameful” for allowing Thomas to swim on the women’s team, in an interview with News Nation Now released on Wednesday.
Thomas, who decided to transition from male to female in college, has broken various records in competition since beginning to compete on the UPenn women’s team.
The decision to allow Thomas to join the women’s team has drawn protests from teammates, with 16 UPenn swimmers signing a letter, anonymously, supporting Thomas “in her decision to affirm her gender identity” but adding that Thomas “holds an unfair advantage over competition in the women’s category.”
The female teammate who spoke with News Nation Now also requested anonymity for fear of backlash against her.
“There’s about 2 percent of the population in this country who attack people, no matter what they say. They don’t actually have an argument and they don’t present any facts or logic,” the teammate said. “They just want to attack other people and, like, bring people down. And I just don’t really wanna subject myself to that.”
The swimmer criticized university and NCAA administrators over the situation.
“Do better, stop being weak and afraid,” the swimmer said when asked if she had a “message” for UPenn. “Do what’s right to support women. I don’t know why supporting women has become such a crazy concept.”
Meanwhile, Thomas said “I want to swim and compete as who I am” in an interview with Sports Illustrated last week.
“I’m a woman, just like anybody else on the team,” Thomas said. “I’ve always viewed myself as just a swimmer. It’s what I’ve done for so long; it’s what I love.”
Thomas was allowed to compete on the female team under now-rescinded NCAA guidelines allowing male swimmers to compete as female after one year of testosterone suppression treatments. The NCAA changed that policy in January to require “sport-specific testosterone levels” determined by a sport’s national or international governing body. The new policy is set to take effect during the 2022-2023 academic year.
However, the NCAA announced in February that “there will be no changes to the NCAA’s previously approved testosterone threshold for transgender women to compete at the 2022 women’s swimming and diving championships.”
The NCAA is “discriminating against cisgender women” by allowing Thomas to compete as a woman, Thomas’s teammate said.
“I’ve been discriminated against and most of my teammates have, too,” the swimmer said. “And other girls who’ve been at meets that we’ve been . . . they’ve all been discriminated against and the NCAA has allowed it to happen. And it’s shameful.”
The swimmer then said that in several years, “We’re gonna look at the people who are making these decisions and were in charge and kind of laugh at them and just ask, ‘What were you doing? You had the power to change that and you chose not to. You’re kind of a coward for that.'”
