“It's very fake”: Trans athlete destroying women's college records draws criticism from teammates
Should Thomas continue to compete in the sport, the athlete may surpass the records set by female Olympians who hold NCAA records.
The transgender athlete who is breaking women’s records in college swimming is now facing a backlash from teammates at the University of Pennsylvania, one of whom spoke to OutKick under the condition of anonymity.
The female swimmer told OutKick that she feared for her ability to find a job after graduating from college for sharing her honest opinion about the transgender athlete, Lia Thomas.
As the publication detailed on Fox Sports, Thomas’ latest round of dominance over women’s swimming records came at a three-day meet in Akron, Ohio, where numerous pool, meet, and program records were all broken to the point where no female swimmer may ever be able to surpass them.
Rebel News previously covered Thomas’ dominance in the college sport.
On Friday, the Ivy League 500 freestyle record was broken, and the next day Thomas broke the national record in the 200 women’s freestyle. The feat destroyed all existing college records. In the 1650 freestyle final, Thomas broke all the existing records. Thomas’ fellow competitor, Anna Kalandadze finished 38 seconds behind Thomas.
“Pretty much everyone individually has spoken to our coaches about not liking this. Our coach [Mike Schnur] just really likes winning. He’s like most coaches. I think secretly everyone just knows it’s the wrong thing to do,” the female Penn swimmer said to the publication. “When the whole team is together, we have to be like, ‘Oh my gosh, go Lia, that’s great, you’re amazing.’ It’s very fake.”
Under the NCAA policy on transgender athletes, transgender people with testosterone suppression can compete on a men’s team, but may not compete on a women’s team without changing to a mixed teams status under completing one year of testosterone suppression treatment.
Should Thomas continue to compete in the sport, the athlete may surpass the records set by female Olympians who hold NCAA records.
“The Ivy League is not a fast league for swimming, so that’s why it’s particularly ridiculous that we could potentially have an NCAA champion. That’s unheard of coming from the Ivy League,” Thomas’ teammate told OutKick. “On paper, if Lia Thomas gets back down to Will Thomas’ best times, those numbers are female world records. Faster than all the times Katie Ledecky went in college. Faster than any other Olympian you can think of. His times in three events are [female] world records.”
Olympian Kate Ledecky is one of the world’s fastest female swimmers.
“One year doesn’t mean anything. What about the years of puberty as a male, the male growth you went through as a man?” the anonymous athlete asked.
Given Thomas’ advantage one might think that female competitors would organize a protest over the lack of fairness in the sport with the inclusion of transgender athletes, however, as the anonymous female athlete told OutKick, it is basically impossible for individuals to speak out unless they’re willing to give up their entire athletic careers.
“When I have kids, I kinda hope they’re all boys because if I have any girls that want to play sports in college, good luck. [Their opponents] are all going to be biological men saying that they’re women,” Thomas’ teammate said. “Right now we have one, but what if we had three on the team? There’d be three less girls competing.”
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