Three competitive female swimmers at Roanoke College in Virginia are pushing back against their university after it allowed a male-bodied athlete who identifies as “transgender” to join their team.
In an interview with Daily Mail, the three captains of the women’s swim team, Kate Pearson, 19, Lily Mullens, 20, and Bailey Gallagher, 20, explained that their “transgender” teammate told school staff last month that “she” wished to compete on the women’s team. Last season, he did not compete in order to undergo “transition care.”
Predictably, the girls had concerns about a man competing on their team. When the girls spoke up to the school, the university told them to decide how to handle the situation. The three women were told “they had to confront the trans swimmer themselves, and make their case – only for the trans swimmer to tell them that she felt suicidal and was desperate to be included.”
Virginia college swimmers’ fight to stop tran athlete joining women’s team after competing as male https://t.co/0On3BevLta pic.twitter.com/IP98pjEsun
— New York Post (@nypost) October 5, 2023
“There's so many 'grown ups' around that should be making these decisions,” Pearson told the outlet.
'That's part of their job. It was just a hot mess - I was like, what is happening,” she explained. “We kept getting put in these situations, and it was so stressful, and every single night we were discussing this through, discussing that.”
Gallagher told the outlet that the situation was “so exhausting - every aspect: emotionally, physically, mentally."
“It was just the longest month of our entire life,” she added.
Pearson said that they are calling on the NCAA and colleges to “be proactive” about creating policies for these situations.
'There's no blueprint for this, which is also why we want to stand up and get our voices heard,' she said. “Because there should be - there should be a blueprint for this kind of thing.”
The situation at Roanoke is being compared to last year’s controversy surrounding Will “Lia” Thomas at the University of Pennsylvania. As Townhall covered, female swimmers were forced to compete and share a locker room with Thomas. Thomas won races against females and took home a Division I Title, robbing it from deserving female athletes.
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