A former College of Kentucky swimmer claims transgender swimmer Lia Thomas ‘dropped her pants’ and uncovered ‘male genitalia’ within the ladies’s locker room at a meet final yr.
Riley Gaines, 23, claimed feminine swimmers weren’t ‘forewarned beforehand that we’d be sharing a locker room with Lia.’
‘We didn’t give our consent, they didn’t ask for our consent,’ Gaines informed Fox Information’ America Experiences. ‘In that locker room, we rotated and there’s a 6’4″ organic man dropping his pants and watching us undress, and we had been uncovered to male genitalia.’
Thomas, a former College of Pennsylvania swimmer, has begun hormonal therapies, however has not obtained gender reassignment surgical procedure.
Gaines – who has delayed dental college to proceed combating for organic feminine athletes – is now asking the Nationwide Collegiate Athletic Affiliation (NCAA) to create separate locker rooms for transgender athletes.
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Riley Gaines, 23, claimed feminine swimmers weren’t ‘forewarned beforehand that we’d be sharing a locker room with Lia’
Lia Thomas pictured with Riley Gaines on the NCAA Swimming & Diving Championships final March
‘Not even most likely a yr, two years in the past, this could have been thought of some type of sexual assault, voyeurism. However no longer even are they simply permitting it to occur, it’s nearly as if these massive organizations are encouraging it to occur,’ Gaines mentioned.
‘That to me was worse than the competitors piece.’
Gaines, who’s a spokesperson for the Impartial Ladies’s Discussion board, mentioned the NCAA failed to guard ladies and their sports activities and that they’ve celebrated transgender athletes.
‘The NCAA then nominated Thomas for NCAA Lady of the 12 months, so we [they] are celebrating this motion,’ she informed America Experiences. ‘This isn’t one thing that occurred by likelihood on a one-off foundation. They’re encouraging [biological] males to compete in ladies’s sports activities.’
Gaines, a 12-time All-American athlete, additionally attended the State of the Union this week as Michigan Republican Consultant Lisa McClain’s visitor. The younger athlete, who graduated in 2022, mentioned the White Home has solely promoted ‘gender ideology propaganda’ by permitting transgender athletes to compete in opposition to organic ladies.
‘Individuals are terrified, particularly talking from my expertise of speaking to different NCAA swimmers particularly. Lia Thomas’s teammates even,’ the Kentucky athlete mentioned. ‘They’re informed in the event that they really feel uncomfortable seeing male genitalia within the locker room, they need to search counseling sources. They’re informed they may by no means get into grad college in the event that they communicate out.
‘They’re informed, in fact, that they are going to be known as a bigot and hateful and transphobic, but it surely doesn’t make you any of these issues to acknowledge that there are two sexes, you can’t change your intercourse and girls deserve alternatives.’
Gaines – who has delayed dental college to proceed combating for organic feminine athletes – is now asking the Nationwide Collegiate Athletic Affiliation (NCAA) to create separate locker rooms for transgender athletes
Earlier this yr, Gaines slammed President Joe Biden for proposing to alter the definition of ‘intercourse’ in a federal civil rights regulation to incorporate ‘gender’ and ‘gender identification.’
The modifications to Title IX, the 1972 regulation that prohibits sex-based discrimination in any college or every other schooling program that receives funding from the federal authorities, would enable transgender feminine athletes to compete in opposition to organic ladies in sports activities.
By doing so, Gaines wrote in an essay, organic ladies could be positioned at an obstacle when competing in opposition to transgender ladies.
Gaines used the chance to recount how she was pressured to share a locker room with Thomas on the NCAA Championships again in March.
The athlete additionally revealed in a tweet earlier this week that ‘elite athletes’ have privately thanked her for her public stances in opposition to transgender athletes, however she slammed them for refusing to go public.
The previous College of Kentucky swimmer wrote: ‘At first, I felt honored when elite (each feminine and male) athletes thanked me for taking a public stance on having male-bodied athletes in ladies’s sports activities and locker rooms.’
She didn’t identify any of the athletes who had thanked her, however went on to demand they break their silence.
‘Now I understand these personal thanks make them chargeable for this persevering with and advancing because it has,’ Gaines added.
THE RULES ON TRANSGENDER ATHLETES AND WHEN THEY CAN COMPETE FOR THE GENDER THEY ARE SWITCHING TO
Thomas beforehand competed on UPenn males’s swim staff for 3 years earlier than transitioning in 2019 (pictured in 2016 and 2017, respectively)
Lia Thomas began taking hormone remedy whereas she was nonetheless competing as a male again in Could 2019.
Below USA Swimming guidelines, athletes needed to have recorded low ranges of testosterone for 36 months to compete within the feminine class.
That meant that Thomas did not qualify for the NCAA championship in the event that they adopted USA Swimming guidelines – as they initially mentioned they might.
However the NCAA mentioned she could be allowed to compete as a result of they had been refusing to undertake the brink in 2021.
The NCAA committee mentioned: ‘The subcommittee determined implementing extra modifications presently might have unfair and doubtlessly detrimental impacts on colleges and student-athletes meaning to compete in 2022 NCAA ladies’s swimming championships.’
It’s unclear what they may do subsequent yr.