An anonymous female swimmer for the University of Pennsylvania said in an interview this week that she fears the impact of biological male William “Lia” Thomas’ participation in the 2022 NCAA Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships has “completely ruined the integrity of the sport.”
The anonymous student-athlete told Fox News in an interview published Thursday that the decisions that led to Thomas competing against biological women, and breaking records, is “disappointing” and the NCAA “lacks the courage to do the right thing.”
“It’s [Thomas winning against women] not necessarily an achievement in my mind,” the student said. “Women’s records are separate from men’s records. It’s its own distinct category because no woman is going to be as fast as man, and here is just completely – we’re just throwing away the definition of a record to fit into someone else’s agenda of what it should mean to them when in reality it makes no scientific sense to do so.”
Fox noted that Thomas is one of 322 athletes who qualified for the upcoming men’s and women’s championships “after securing several records at the Ivy League Championships last month with wins in the 100, 200, and 500 freestyle events,” as Townhall also covered. Thomas will reportedly compete in those same races at the championships.
"I think if Lia were to break an Olympian’s record, it would cause a lot of damage to the sport and to women,” the swimmer said in the interview. She added that if Thomas “had compassion for your teammates or women at all, you would admit you have an unfair advantage and not do this to women.”
This month, as I covered, Thomas told Sports Illustrated in an exclusive interview that “I’m a woman, just like anybody else on the team” and that “I’ve always viewed myself as just a swimmer” and that it’s not about wins or records.
“The very simple answer is that I’m not a man,” Thomas told SI. “I’m a woman, so I belong on the women’s team.”
The anonymous swimmer told Fox this week that “[she] will not back down, and my teammates and women across the country should not be told to back down from speaking their mind about an issue that so heavily affects them.”
“They’re [female swimmers] being discriminated against. Women’s rights are being violated,” she added."This whole season has been about her [Lia]. Everything this whole season has been about Lia, and we’ve all sacrificed everything, our entire livelihoods we've sacrificed. How much more should we be willing to sacrifice for Lia? I’m not willing to sacrifice anything else,” the swimmer concluded in the interview.