Transgender swimmer Lia Thomas has made waves across college sports, sparking an intense debate over whether transgender athletes should be allowed to compete on the team they were not biologically born as.
Thomas has been smashing records competing against women, despite having previously been a male swimmer on the men’s team. One former teammate has come forward and said the University of Pennsylvania used threats and bullying against members of the women’s team.
The athlete would not reveal her identity as she had her image and voice obscured while doing an interview with Matt Walsh for his Daily Wire documentary “What is a Woman?”
“They’ve made it pretty clear that if you speak up about it and you say anything negative, that, like, your life will be over in some way,” the female told Walsh. “You’ll be blasted all over the internet as a transphobe if you come out and then you’ll never be able to get a job,” she said. “Anyone who wants to hire you will look you up and see that you’re transphobic and your life will be over.”
“If you even brought up concerns about it, you were transphobic,” she told Walsh. “If you even bring up the fact that Lia’s swimming might not be fair, you were immediately shut down as being called a hateful person or transphobic.”
Walsh asked, “But there’s never any conversation? The coaches don’t sit everyone down and acknowledge what everyone is really upset about?”
“So Penn actually brought in people high up in the athletic department to talk to us,” the swimmer said. “They brought someone from, like, the LGBTQ center. They brought in someone from the psychological services.”
Walsh followed up by questioning “So you’re upset what’s happening and so you need psychological help?”
“They told us in this meeting, they said, ‘Look, we understand there’s an array of emotions, but Lia’s swimming is a non-negotiable. However we can help you make that OK, that’s what we’re here for.’”
The swimmer said many things concerned the women of the team, but they were not allowed to talk about them. Earlier this year a teammate anonymously explained the girls have seen Tomas’ penis during “a decent amount of nudity” in the locker room.
The swimmer told Walsh the team’s victories were no longer satisfying with him on the team. “The feeling of winning doesn’t feel as good anymore because it feels tainted.”
Thomas, who is 6-foot-, said he has plans to compete in the Olympics after winning the NCAA women’s championship in the 500-yard freestyle in March.