A swimmer for the University of Pennsylvania says that allowing Lia Thomas to participate in women’s college sports has “completely ruined the integrity of the sport.”
The swimmer who spoke to Fox News on the condition of remaining anonymous for fear of having her life ruined by woke leftists went on to say that allowing the biologically male Thomas to swim as a female is not fair and makes the achievements of real women meaningless.
“It’s not necessarily an achievement in my mind,” the student told Fox News. “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 a 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.”
The woman added that people are afraid to speak out about how unfair it is for Thomas to be demolishing records seemingly at will.
Lia Thomas goes 4:33:82 in the 500 prelims at the NCAA Championships which is a new top time in the nation this year.
Pat Forde's Olympian daughter has her work cut out for her later tonight in the finals. pic.twitter.com/QLbsHgMDKB
— Joe Kinsey (@JoeKinseyexp) March 17, 2022
“It’s still just disappointing to know that the NCAA lacks the courage to do the right thing,” the swimmer said. “I think if Lia were to break an Olympian’s record, it would cause a lot of damage to the sport and to women, and I think it would cause more people to come out [against the guidelines], people that were afraid to speak before.”
The student had harsh words for Thomas, too, saying that if Thomas cared about women, he would not compete against them due to his obvious physical advantage. “If you had compassion for your teammates or women at all, you would admit you have an unfair advantage and not do this to women,” the student said.
Transgender UPenn Swimmer Lia Thomas. (JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP via Getty Images)
Insisting that “Women’s rights are being violated” by allowing Thomas to compete as a woman in college swimming, the student added that she “won’t back down.”
“This whole season has been about her. Everything this whole season has been about Lia, and we’ve all sacrificed everything, our entire livelihoods we’ve sacrificed,” she said. “How much more should we be willing to sacrifice for Lia. I’m not willing to sacrifice anything else. We’ve already sacrificed team morale and the way that people look at our team success and have the media, to that aspect, thrown in.”
“This will still haunt us in the fact that pool and team records have been broken unfairly and in an illegitimate way. We’re supposed to look up at the record board and see Lia’s name and somewhere accept that,” the student concluded. “It completely ruins the integrity of the school.”
This is not the first time one of Thomas’ UPenn teammates has spoken out. In February, 16 Ivy League female swimmers sent a letter to the University of Pennsylvania and the Ivy League expressing concerns about allowing Thomas to compete on the school’s women’s team.
In addition, at least two of Thomas’ teammates spoke anonymously to the media, saying that they were extremely unhappy with the unfairness of allowing Thomas to compete as a woman.
It has all been to no avail, though, as the school has refused to take any actions against Thomas.
Thomas is currently competing in the NCAA championship in Atlanta, where he has already set a record during the prelims.
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