University of Pennsylvania transgender swimmer Lia Thomas looks on before a meet at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on Saturday. (Josh Reynolds / AP)
The Western Journal | By Warner Todd Huston January 28, 2022 at 1:54pm
Members of the University of Pennsylvania women’s swim team are uncomfortable changing and showering in the locker room with transgender swimmer Lia Thomas, according to a new report.
The Daily Mail reported Thursday that one of the female swimmers is speaking out about the issues she and her teammates face after the school allowed a man who identifies as a woman to join the squad this year.
Thomas — who competed on the men’s team as Will Thomas for three years before taking a hiatus, after which he joined the women’s team as Lia — still has male genitalia, and while he sometimes covers himself with a towel, there has been “a decent amount of nudity,” according to the Daily Mail.
he unidentified female swimmer told the outlet that the exposure has made the women on the team increasingly uncomfortable.
In addition, she said, Thomas has admitted to his teammates that his attraction to women did not change with his “transition” — a fact that raises the creep factor tenfold.
“It’s definitely awkward because Lia still has male body parts and is still attracted to women,” the swimmer said.
This goes beyond the basic unfairness of a man competing against women in a sport. These women are being forced to disrobe and shower with a man who says he is attracted to women just to satisfy the school’s desire to bow to the radical transgender agenda.
The so-called #MeToo movement is truly dead if the sexual discomfort of 30 women on the team is being ignored so that one person can indulge a desire to pretend to have changed sexes. The situation is intolerable and should not be allowed to happen.
The female swimmer said that multiple teammates have raised the idea of having Thomas dress and shower in a separate facility, but the school has ignored their concerns.
She said that they “were basically told that we could not ostracize Lia by not having her in the locker room and that there’s nothing we can do about it, that we basically have to roll over and accept it, or we cannot use our own locker room.”
The woman said Thomas “doesn’t seem to care how it makes anyone else feel.”
She said the school has told the female swimmers to just stay quiet and take it. “The 35 of us are just supposed to accept being uncomfortable in our own space and locker room for, like, the feelings of one,” she said.
“The school was so focused on making sure Lia was okay, and doing everything they possibly could do for her, that they didn’t even think about the rest of us,” the woman said.
She also said that it “seems like Thomas enjoys” all the attention and controversy he has brought to the Penn swim team.
“It’s affected all of us way more than it’s affected her,” the woman continued, noting that many of the swimmers are afraid of speaking out for fear of being labeled “transphobic.”
“If this gets a little bit bigger, I might go on the record, but I’m definitely a little afraid,” she said. “What I’m afraid of is that potential employers will Google my name and see commentary about things I said and think, oh, this person’s transphobic.”
Thomas has been obliterating swimming records set by women since joining the team this season, but despite the obvious fact that he is more powerful than every female swimmer in college sports, the NCAA has done nothing to rectify the situation.
In December, several parents spoke out to have rules addressed to exclude Thomas from the women’s team.
That same month, USA Swimming official Cynthia Millen resigned in protest over Thomas, saying that allowing him to compete on the women’s team was “destroying women’s swimming.”
Last week, Rice swimming coach Seth Huston questioned the NCAA’s stance on Thomas and said the organization should consider setting up a “transgender division” for such athletes.
And in an interview posted Wednesday, a Penn swimmer’s father told Fox News the women on the team feel discouraged because they know they will never win with him around.
Thomas also has been heard bragging about how easy it is to beat his female opponents, a woman on the team told OutKick.