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.
“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.
“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.
“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 She has since withdrawn from the team.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.
The captains stressed that they had no problem with the trans athlete as a person, but were simply worried about her competitive advantage and the possibility that other schools would refuse to compete against Roanoke.
“Other teams are also in that same position of not wanting to have to compete against a biological male,” Gallagher said.
When their coach did not help, it felt like “a big, kind of stab in the chest for all,” Pearson said, adding that team members burst into tears when they heard his response.
“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?” she said.
The coach told the captains to write a letter about their concerns that he would read it to the trans swimmer, according to the report.
In their letter, Pearson said they expressed their support for the swimmer as a person.
“But when it comes to swimming and competition, there are just too many biological differences, basically,” she said. “And we repeated multiple times: this is not anything personal against you, as a person we support you in your transition.
“But it’s just solely based on the swimming aspect of things,” she added.
But the captains said they were blindsided when they found out later that the trans swimmer requested a copy of the note and shared it with student advocacy groups at the school.
The trans athlete told them on WhatsApp that she felt “sad” and “betrayed” – even though she didn’t even read the latter, Pearson said.
“She just saw that we were not supportive, I guess, of her and was like, shut down instantly,” she said. “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.”
Eventually, the coach called for a meeting that included the entire swim team, male and female, in which Pearson again addressed their concerns, the Daily Mail reported.
“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 told the outlet.
“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 the building of Trexler,’ which is one of our science buildings here,” she said.
“I was like, I don’t know how to respond to that,” Pearson said, adding that the athlete’s comments plunged the meeting into silence. “And I look towards the two coaches and the athletic director, waiting for them to say something, say something. And nothing happened.”
During the awkward meeting, the women said they also were asked to whip out their phones and vote in an online poll about whether to allow the athlete, who was present, to stay on the team.
The team members ended up giving the OK but several later said they felt pressured to do so.
The trans swimmer quickly proved to be no match for her teammates.
“I have tied for our 50 freestyle record, which is 23.93,” Mullens said. “I did that time when I was suited up, in shape, tapered — everything I could be, to go that time.”
But during the first training session, the trans athlete almost beat her record without having trained, she said.
“The individual gets up on the block and swims a 50 freestyle and goes a low 24. Right on. So, best time ever,” she told the outlet.
The disheartened captains said they wrote the athlete another letter — signed by all but one of the 17 team members — at the advice of the athletic director.
But the trans swimmer told them that the AD claimed the trio had said “disgusting things,” leaving the women confused and furious.
Last week, the trans swimmer advised the group that she was withdrawing from the team – leading the coach to tell the captain, “You got what you wanted,” the Daily Mail said.
“None of us want a person to quit the sport that they love. We just want everyone to compete in a way that is fair. So the individual quitting was not what we all wanted, in a sense,” Pearson said.
“It was like, we just wanted everyone to have a fair shot at competing and swimming,” she added.
“It almost felt like that was being said to make us feel guilty, to make us not want to speak up,” Gallagher said.
Roanoke College officials told the outlet that they had never made any decision about allowing the trans athlete to participate.
“This fall a Roanoke College student who identifies as trans (male to female) requested consideration to join and compete with the women’s swim team,” a spokesman told the Daily Mail.
“While the College’s leadership was reviewing NCAA and national sport policies on eligibility, the student withdrew her request before any decision had been made,” the rep said.
But the captains said the college’s position was news to them because they had been told the swimmer was a member of their team.
Pearson said they are calling on the NCAA and other colleges to be proactive in handling similar situations.
“There’s no blueprint for this, which is also why we want to stand up and get our voices heard,” she said. “Because there should be, there should be a blueprint for this kind of thing.”