A group of female college swimmers in Virginia won their battle to prevent a male-born “transgender woman” from joining their team, according to multiple reports.
The trans student, whose name has not been released, had competed with mediocre statistics on the men’s team a year before trying to join the women’s team after supposedly transitioning to a woman.
Initially, Roanoke College officials told the women that this trans athlete would be joining their team whether they liked it or not, and according to the New York Post, even after taking a year off to “transition,” he had already begun closing in on beating record times earned by the women on the team in the first few practice sessions he attended.
But, the women were not willing to just bow down and accept the school’s proclamation that the trans athlete would be joining their team, and after repeated meetings with the team, the team’s squad captains banded together and presented their reservations to school officials.
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The three team captains — Kate Pearson, 19, Lily Mullens, 20, and Bailey Gallagher, 20 — said they felt utterly abandoned by school officials who just handed down decrees about the trans athlete without asking the women on the team how they felt about the issue.
Kate Pearson, for instance, told the media that all the women on the team were perfectly happy that the student, who was initially on the school’s men’s swim team, wanted to transition. “Yes, do what makes you happy,” she said.
But then the school held a Zoom meeting with the team and told them that he was also going to join the women’s team.
Pearson noted that everyone immediately began “walking on eggshells” over the issue.
“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,” Pearson said.
The team captain added that the women on the team nearly unanimously said, “We do not want this to happen.” Many started getting very agitated and emotional about the problem, worrying that their efforts would be diminished as a man beat their records and took their slots, and worried that other teams may decide not to compete against them over the unfairness of it all.
“We kept getting put in these situations, and it was so stressful, and every single night we were discussing this through, discussing that,” Pearson added.
“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 explained.
Eventually, the team cooperated in writing a letter explaining that they did not have any issue with trans people but felt a man joining their team would not be fair, so they opposed it.
But school officials and coaches maintained that their feelings didn’t matter, and Pearson said the stonewall they faced was “a big, kind of stab in the chest for all.”
“They were like, that just makes us feel so unheard by the school and unsupported, that they would allow all a whole entire women’s team to quit for one individual, and still just let like them make their own season. Like as a one-person team, right?” Pearson said.
Pearson also alleges that the trans student trying to join their team used their letter to try and ramp up hate crimes accusations against the women by sharing the letter with the college’s radical LGBTQ activists. And then, the trans activists accused the women of trying to make him commit suicide because being rejected made him feel bad.
The attempt to strong-arm the women without even acknowledging that they were not standing against transgenderism in total angered the swim team.
“She just saw that we were not supportive, I guess, of her and was like, shut down instantly,” Pearson explained. “So that was the first kind of straw. Not even hearing us. And it continues throughout the whole period of just not even listening to what we had to say at all.”
The school also held a meeting with both the male and female team in attendance so that everyone could air grievances and vote on the matter.
“I was giving how the whole women’s team felt, like, ‘We support you,’ this person. But when it comes to the athletic side of things, we just think it’s biologically unfair. And we were giving true statistics,” she said
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“And after I was done speaking, the individual immediately jumped to saying, ‘I was suicidal, I wanted to kill myself, I wanted to jump off'” a building, Pearson said.
Eventually, the school’s “vote” favored allowing the trans athlete to join the team, even though many said they felt pressured to vote “yes.” And in early practices, the trans athlete proved that he would probably blow all their records out of the water.
“I have tied for our 50 freestyle record, which is 23.93,” team captain Lily Mullens said. “I did that time when I was suited up, in shape, tapered — everything I could be, to go that time.”
“The individual gets up on the block and swims a 50 freestyle and goes a low 24. Right on. So, best time ever,” Mullins said of one of those early practices.
The resistance to his participation eventually drove the trans athlete to decide not to join the team.
Ultimately, the school claimed it was “still evaluating” the student’s request to join the women’s team, but the individual settled the issue by deciding not to do so. Pearson said this was news to them because they were told the man was already part of their team, and the matter was settled as far as administrators were concerned.
Pearson added that colleges need to be proactive to protect women’s sports.
“There’s no blueprint for this, which is also why we want to stand up and get our voices heard,” Pearson concluded. “Because there should be, there should be a blueprint for this kind of thing.”
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