The captains of an elite Virginia college swim team say they feel
cheated and abandoned at having to accept a transgender competitor
who until recently had competed for the men’s team.

In a case being compared to the Lia Thomas controversy, the swimmer
joined the women’s swim team at Roanoke College after sitting out
the previous season during her transition, her teammates told the
Daily Mail.

The captains of the sophomore, junior and senior squads — Kate
Pearson, 19, Lily Mullens, 20, and Bailey Gallagher, 20 — say it
tore the team apart as they felt abandoned by the school and the
NCAA.

Gallagher and Mullens said they both knew the trans swimmer — who
was not identified — before her transition.
“The swimmer last year informed us of their transition. OK. And all
very supportive. We were like, ‘Yes, do what makes you happy,’”
Pearson told the Daily Mail.

“And then later in the summer … we had a Zoom call with our coaches
and other members, like our men’s leadership as well. And we were
told the swimmer wanted to compete as a woman for the women’s team,”
she said.

Bailey GallagherRoanoke College Swimming
“And that was when kind of everything started,” she added of the
controversy at the private, liberal arts school in Salem.

Mullens said “everyone was stepping on eggshells” when their coach
told them the trans swimmer would be coming aboard.

Lily MullensRoanoke College Swimming
“Nobody knew what to do. Nobody thought that it would honestly get
here. A lot of people, knowing this individual, thought that it
wouldn’t get to the point of competition,” she told the outlet.

The three captains held a meeting with the rest of the swimmers.

Kate PearsonRoanoke College Swimming
“Everyone basically was like, ‘We do not want this to happen,’”
Pearson said. “And you could tell people were getting kind of like,
amped up about it. And we were all emotional. Just like, ‘No, no,
what, what the heck?’”

The women claim they felt pressured to stand by the transgender
swimmer because she felt suicidal by the efforts to oust her. She
has since withdrawn from the team.

“We kept getting put in these situations, and it was so stressful,
and every single night we were discussing this through, discussing
that,” Pearson said.

“I was going to bed at 3 a.m. just thinking about it, thinking what
could happen, what couldn’t happen, constantly stressed, crying just
all the time. Every single day. We just could not get a break from
it — and we have studies,” she said.

As a male, the athlete finished ninth in the 500 freestyle in their
conference, Division 3, Old Dominion Athletic Conference, and eighth
in the 100 fly, according to the outlet, which noted that Thomas was
462nd as a male in her division, Division 1.

Thomas, who competed on the women’s swim team at the University of
Pennsylvania from 2021 to 2022, became the first openly trans
athlete to win an NCAA Division I national championship.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nba/virginia-college-swimmers-
fight-to-stop-trans-athlete-joining-women-s-team-after-competing-
as-male/ar-AA1hJYIQ