Female swimmers are ‘frightened’ to speak out against dominant male competitor

Mar 19, 2022 by Jill

by Calvin Freiburger, LifeSite:

‘They’re frightened of losing friends. They’re frightened of being kicked off their teams. They’re frightened of being told by their universities that they’re transphobic and hateful.’

The prospect of professional, personal, and academic reprisals has left female swimmers “frightened” to speak out about the intrusion of biological male Lia Thomas in their competitions, according to the mother of one such swimmer, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The Post Millennial reports that the unidentified mother of an Ivy League, National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) swimmer spoke to the conservative Independent Women’s Forum (IWF). She made the comments in reference to University of Pennsylvania swimmer William “Lia” Thomas, a man who recently “transitioned” to female yet retains male genitalia and reportedly remains heterosexual (despite self-identifying as lesbian), which has generated unease among his female teammates, particularly due to sharing lockers.

His participation in female swim competitions has also caused unrest due to the fact that he quickly started dominating women’s swimming after switching from the men’s team, which was the focus of the mother’s comments.

“So the first time I heard about Lia Thomas, I was just glancing through the results of some of the early dual meets in the season and I thought, who is Lia Thomas? Why don’t I know this name?” she said. “The idea that there was an Ivy League swimmer that was capable of going 1:46 in the 200 free in a practice suit in a dual meet was shocking because that would have been someone I would have — that would have been on the radar.”

“Holy cow, we’re going to talk about a male swimmer — a full grown male — attempting to take down female icon records, and taking a spot on an Ivy team from one of the Penn swimmers, who have rightfully deserved it,” she continued. “And we’re talking about, this person’s gonna swim on every relay going forward at championship meets, is going to take the position of a woman on a travel team, is going to take a space in every finals.”

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