U. Penn Reportedly Told Female Swimmers That Lia Thomas Competing on the Team Was ‘Non-Negotiable’
“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.”
According to a member of the women’s swim team at the University of Pennsylvania, the team was told that their concerns about transgender teammate Lia Thomas did not matter and that Lia’s presence on the team was non-negotiable.
She says various officials were brought in to talk to the team, but not to address their objections.
The clip below is from the Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh, who has just created a documentary on related topics. Isn’t it telling that the student needs to remain anonymous?
From Real Clear Politics:
Swimmer: UPenn Sent Someone From LGBTQ Center To Make Us Understand Lia Thomas Swimming Is A “Non-Negotiable”
An anonymous swimmer on the women’s swim team at the University of Pennsylvania said the school made it clear to the team that Lia Thomas swimming as a woman is a “non-negotiable.” In an interview with Matt Walsh, the swimmer said UPenn sent representatives from psychological services and the school’s LGBTQ center to meet with the team and “help make that okay.”
“There’s a lot of things you couldn’t talk about that were very concerning, like a locker room situation,” the swimmer told Walsh. “If you even brought up concerns about it, you were transphobic. 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.”
“But there’s never any conversation? The coaches don’t sit everyone down and acknowledge what everyone is really upset about?” Walsh asked.
“Penn actually brought in people high up in the athletic department to talk to us,” the anonymous swimmer said. “They brought someone from the LGBTQ center, they brought in someone from the psychological services.”
Watch below:
GMA interviewed Lia Thomas today. Great timing. Our film features one of Thomas's teammates. She told me that women on her team were silenced and referred to psychological counseling if they objected to having Thomas on the team. More in the full film: https://t.co/xibkNa4oHW pic.twitter.com/YRRf2S712a
— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) May 31, 2022
As that tweet mentions, Lia Thomas was just interviewed by Good Morning America. The interview was rather enlightening. Kylee Zempel writes at The Federalist:
Lia Thomas Is ‘Happy’ To Force Everyone Else To Deal With Transgender Narcissism
Transgender-identifying swimmer Lia Thomas — a man who claims to be a woman and recently dominated his NCAA female competitors — finally broke his silence with an interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” and here’s what he wants you to know: “I’m happy.”
Thomas was thrust into the limelight after the lackluster male swimmer took wrong-sex hormones for a year and subsequently the women’s Division I swimming title, causing quite a stir. When ABC interviewer Juju Chang asked about his competitive advantage — the question Thomas’s teammates, opponents, and critics can’t get past — Thomas shrugged it off.
“There’s a lot of factors that go into a race and how well you do, and the biggest change for me is that I’m happy,” Thomas said in an undeniably male pitch. This “happy” theme permeated the whole interview, interspersed with an air of entitlement from the swimmer.
“I also don’t need anybody’s permission to be myself and to do the sport that I love,” Thomas declared, adding later, “Trans people don’t transition for athletics. We transition to be happy and authentic and our true selves.”
No one is saying Lia Thomas can’t pursue the ability to be happy. People simply object to a biological male competing with biological females in sports.
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
Well, it all depends on if he made the cut or not.
heh heh I see what you did there
Whereas, the rest of the locker room sees what he didn’t there.
Some important dangling variables to be considered….:
Jeffrey Toobin, who is entitled to capital gain treatment on his own member (since he has been holding for over a year) has commented that this case comes down to a question of heightened scrutiny.
At what price dignity?
That and their ability to fairly compete should be non-negotiable, also.
Quit en masse. Penn can find more gender pretenders to swim with their new darling.
If you were born with a dick, you are not a chick.
I expect they can. Pen State wanted to win, and was willing to do anything to achieve that.
And that is exactly what they did.
Penn State (Pennsylvania State University) is NOT Penn (University of Pennsylvania); they’re two different universities.
At this point, if they quit and stay at Penn, the harassment by the trans and other radicals will force them to leave – or I would not put it past the radicals to beat them to death.
Wasn’t UPenn the university that had a coach grooming and abusing male athlete for years? Sounds like they have long had this “win by any means necessary” attitude.
Penn State, not Penn.
doh, I stand corrected. Thank you. Is has been a number of years since that story and I should have googled it before I posted. No excuse.
It is notable that the leftists can say whatever they want without a thought of retribution, but if someone even has a conservative, or dare I say, scientific thought, they are ostracized and attacked, frequently physically.
That says a lot about the true party of hate and violence: the Democrat socialists.
Secondly, isn’t it ironic and pathetic that the normal students are the ones referred to psychiatric help? So it is “crazy” to follow the science now? Didn’t the Soviets, and likely the ChiComs, send “nonconformers” to psychiatric facilities, likely never to come out?
I am transnauseous, not transphobic. Just quit, ladies; it isn’t worth the hassle. Let “Lia” have the team to himself.
I think a lawsuit is in order. This is a war on biological women.
The (real) women have four choices:
a) Quit the team
b) Transfer to another program
c) File a lawsuit (and probably get harassed and beaten)
d) Realize that they supported all this LGBT stuff and are now stuck with it.
Or realize that none of that would make one bit of difference to an ideologically driven Univ Admin who would gleefully tar them as phobic ‘ists full of hateful isms’. Publicly pushing back would have gained nothing. They would likely lose their scholarship, be subjected to kangaroo Univ courts, be branded as full of hate, have reduced academic and career prospects for life.
Realizing the utter futility of resistance by engaging in a fight they could not win, they made a very rational choice based on the relative incentives and disincentives; they kept their scholarship to an Ivy League school and kept their mouth shut as part of the price. Their academic and career prospects remain intact.
Correct, until one of them gets raped somewhere. Then the whole situation changes. The idea of a school forcing a naked man on possible minor girls in a locker room is appalling.
“…they made a very rational choice…”
They sold their souls, they sold out to evil, they enabled the marxists.
Nothing rational unless you ignore the truth.
Their only options in reality were to stay in the program (which means not objecting loudly) or to become Martyrs for the cause of biological women’s dignity and rights. It takes a very strong individual to choose martyrdom, and I won’t blame any of them for not going that route.
AND they’d probably still be competing against the same guy.
In reply to JB and Barry – See my note below
In reality, the female swimmers had very few viable options. They certainly had a lot of options, but not viable options.
If the transferred to a new school, they would have lost a year of eligibility and possibly received a lower quality scholarship. Again, none of which were viable.
And the new school is as likely to be transinfected.
Gotta love all the brave internet heroes that risk their anonymous user handles every day to figuratively die on the hill for their cause.
I suspect their viable options are far more limited
Issues with degree programs, transfer of credits , possible loss of year of eligibility, or red shirt for one year, qualifying for various meets , age& peaking etc
The existing swimmers on the team have far fewer viable options
I would be curious about the incoming class &the recruitment of higher/lower ranked high school swimmers choosing penn.
Other issue is how many remaining years of eligibility he has. If Thomas has completed his 4 years eligibility, then the crap only lasted only was year.
Though the girls will have to endure the crap in events sanctioned outside the ncaa competition
His age is 23 – so he should have used all his eligibility
The NCAA instituted a one time transfer rule just a couple years ago where any D1 athlete in any sport can transfer once without penalty as long as they are in good academic standing.
They did this because they were buried in lawsuits and legal challenges from those that wanted to transfer right away, particularly in big money sports like football.
healthly guy – thanks for the update – though the viability of transfer mid season I would think is out of the question.
For all practical purposes, the female swimmers were screwed for the season.
I doubt if any group protest – even with swimmers from other schools would have helped – absent a complete boycott of a meet. For example all the swimmers showing up at a meet, intentional group false starts or group walking off the blocks at the gun for all events.
Oh, you want to be happy?
How about the happiness of your biological female teammates, you narcissistic little man who was never told no by his parents?
That is the point. Only the happiness, futures, rights, etc. of the most favored groups matter. Individual rights and an objective standard that applies equally to all is white supremacy.
Hmmm. I wonder who those swimmers (and their families) voted for in the last election and who they’re planning on voting for next time?
My empathy bucket is pretty dry for these women. Typically, college women are the loudest supports of the LAKODIJONENFO agenda and generally, I’d say these women are getting exactly what they’ve been screeching for – or at least silently agreeing with.
Walk off the team ladies. Sue the school. Or just suck it up. I’m tired of your whining.
BTW, I have to say that the idea that the WTA and WNBA and women’s soccer will be taken over by second-rate men’s players does kind of warm my heart. The thought of Venus and Serena, et al. never making the second round of a major tournament brings a smile.
Did you invest the cost of a stamp and 15 minutes of your time to compose a letter listing your objections to the University? Ho about a letter to the editor of any national newspaper; NY Times, LA Times, WSJ, USA Today?
Casting blame on a handful of college students because they didn’t do what you failed to do; stand up and be counted in public, risk your future earnings, your reputation and peaceful existence in a futile act doomed to fail to achieve the objective of removing this individual from competition seems harsh.
The down votes without comment which preserve your anonymity, limit/eliminate you own downside risk of engagement and public discomfort are simply demonstrating the point I made.
If you are too complacent or don’t feel strongly enough to put your own skin into the fray by identifying yourself and making your case then why do expect college students to risk their present and their future to do what you clearly refuse to do?
Bullshit. People often use the downvote in lieu of responding to idiotic comments.
The college women are cowards, afraid to stand up against the marxists. Had all the women on the swim team resigned in mass, this would never have occurred.
What they need is the encouragement to do the right thing, not platitudes about how we understand they did the “rational” thing. Strength in numbers, standing alone will fail.
United we stand, divided we fall.
Barry,
Sure they need encouragement. Did we do that? Did we invest even minimal effort by sending a letter to the University admin? Write a letter to the editor? Take out ads in print, online or a billboard?
How many of us contacted our Rep and Senators? How many went further and searched out Penn Alumni to enlist their support? Set up a fundraising campaign to assist their potential legal expenses?
I didn’t do any of those things. Since I wasn’t willing to jump in feet first I refuse to display hypocrisy by condemning these young women because they didn’t stand up either.
I do appreciate your willingness to engage publicly and state your case. You are correct that we need less divisions and more unity. Calling these young women cowards for not meeting our expectations when we didn’t lift a finger seems less unifying than divisive.
Rationality has no home for some of the factions on this board.
I hope that one day they can be helped to think past the end of their rants.
You forget: the left viciously attacks those that disagree. Your skin would be flayed from your bones, literally and figuratively, if you put your actual mug out there.
The tolerant left is only tolerant of the left.
No, I did not and will not invest 15 minutes and the cost of a stamp.
1. I don’t give a rip about ANY college intercollegiate sports but especially women’s sports.
2. Let the professional leagues set up farm systems and eliminate the NCAA, let college be about education. And don’t bore me with crap about “student-athletes.”
3. This has a direct effect on the women involved. If they’re not willing to stand up and say “NO” I’m sure as hell not going to pick a fight that I have no business being in in the first place.
4. None of the women on that team are risking a penny of future earnings. They’re not moving on to be “professional swimmers.” Their risk is minimal. And life is not without risk. They should get used to it now.
5. You can GFY.
To be clear you demand that these young women act in ways you agree with or be castigated by you when you also agree that you don’t have a dog in the fight nor really give a rip about the sport or the potential negative consequences for these young women.
You then propose that they wouldn’t risk future earnings potential while simultaneously declaring that particular risk does exist.
I’ll pass on your suggestion to perform an anatomically impossible act. Why so hostile and animated about a topic you claim not to care about and admit were unwilling to get involved with when it might have helped?
I’d venture a guess that pretty much everyone on this board never had the rare opportunity to compete in high level college athletics (PA the state is a top state for the sport in general and Penn is a top swimming Ivy) or seize the rare opportunity to get a full ride to an Ivy.
I don’t know if you can reach them to understand their folly and complete lack of perspective on the fragility of life/career/future at the age of these women, but fight the good fight.
We should absolutely be supporting them because they risk cancellation and much worse for even leaking the things they have about the program. You’d think conservatives would be a little more empathetic to what that gauntlet of progressive death cult likes to throw at any opposition whatsoever. You’d also think that conservatives would be smart enough to play the long game and lend support when others are ostracized by the leftist loons (building rapport and common ground against a disgusting cesspool of humans with political capital to infest the world with their sick and twisted form of totalitarianism)….but no, then you realize that we have a bunch of idiots, too.
I’m not “demanding” anything you stupid fucking jackass. You’re the one doing the demanding.
In fact, if the women did have the chutzpah to stand and fight I’d be happy to support them financially if they got hit. But since they’re not willing to do anything, neither am I.
Once again, GFY.
mbeck,
I asked questions, those aren’t demands and I don’t exclude myself from scrutiny. I didn’t do a damn thing when the these young women were faced off v an Ivy League School, their coaching staff, their Univ admin, the NCAA, scolds on the left declaring any reluctance to embrace Thomas as trans phobic, the MSM and Social media ready to jump in to amplify the condemnation.
Instead we seem to conclude that these young women should walk point in the culture war and importantly use the tactics we collectively dictate like a bunch of armchair Generals.
When they didn’t choose to engage a much stronger, better funded, better equipped group of opponents we didn’t do anything constructive to offer aid. What real resources did the right offer to them to assist the fight? We, collectively, seem to be upset they didn’t engage in a futile last stand sort of affair. IMO, we left them twisting in wind. Again I include myself, I didn’t do jack either.
How about we remedy that? Lets figure out a way to help out the next time because there will be a next time. Maybe supporting FIRE, maybe other right wing lawfare orgs. Maybe do some simple things I discussed above that we all failed to do last time.
We are definitely in a culture war. I just don’t think we should be depending on a group of young women to fight our battles for us nor castigate them when they look around and find none of us willing to watch their six.
I’ve stopped trying to export democracy. I’m done wasting my time standing up for people who refuse to stand up for themselves. The damn horse just won’t drink. I’ll happily fund a cadre of fighters, and I do often.
I agree with most of that. Before we condemn folks for not fighting we should ask whether these folks know that we, collectively, have their back. Not just in a comment section but with funding and a lawfare operation.
That’s the missing element for the right. We lack a robust lawfare network that folks know about and that has the resources to take up challenges Nationwide.
These girls are in a Leftist fishbowl….if they make a stand they will be. ostracized socially…and maybe scholastically by woke professors. The University is against them if they protest. This is the goal..crush dissent. This was dumped on them….future athletes now know the score.
I did not get the memo – what the hell is LAKODIJONENFO?
Pick bunch of letters, I’m sure they’ll fit some progressive group. I just punched a bunch in because I can’t keep up with the flavor du jour.
He’s happy and that’s all that matters. His answer that others are paying for his happiness by being denied their own respective happiness, “Tight Sneakers, ladies.”
Lia Thomas is happy because he’s a sociopath.
How about you? Are you happier than you were four years ago?
You don’t matter to Democrats. You’re not enough of a freak.
Keep women appointed, available, and taxable. Tell girls to go to the back of the bus.
Political congruence (“=”) with The Twilight faith, Pro-Choice “ethical” religion, and progressive liberal ideology. Was it worth sacrificing millions of human lives annually, globally? One step forward, two steps backward.
With a conflation of sex and gender, the progressive hook is that conventional standards of discernment (e.g. hormone) are ambiguous. Now what!?
University representatives might as well have worn black uniforms and carried truncheons, that way the “conversation to make it OK” could have begun immediately. In the Fascist U Penn “psychological services” aren’t there to help the guy who thinks he’s a woman, but are used similarly to mental hospitals in the Soviet Union.
Ya beat me to it.
UPenn is run by dirty people. An expensive place no doubt.
I am tired of the absurd deference being paid by corporations and society at-large to the obnoxiously totalitarian demands of GANS (Gender-appropriating Narcissist Sociopath) individuals.
Solution:
1. Women quit the team to be replaced by perverted men.
2. Rename it to the Perverted Men’s Swim Team.
This is what happens when the inmates run the asylum
Then they should have said that all of the rest of them competing was non-negotiable and enjoy having a team of 1.
Absolutely.
The school can’t kick them out for resigning from the swim team unless swimming was a condition of their enrollment. That’s not the way it works.. Swimming might have been a condition of getting a scholarship, but if the whole team had resigned en masse, I bet money would have been raised to make them whole. I would have donated.
“There’s a lot of factors that go into a race and how well you do, and the biggest change for me is that I’m happy,” Thomas said in an undeniably male pitch.
Well then, as long as he is happy it doesn’t really matter the actual women whose swimming careers he is destroying, right?
The dude may think he’s a woman by claiming he’s a woman and change his name from William to Lia but in reality he is still a dude with a penis pretending that he is a woman, which he is not….The main differences between males and females are the X and Y chromosomes. Among humans, two X chromosomes make a woman, and an X and a Y chromosome make a man.
Someone needs to slap that bytch
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUJiEZv8Prc
I await the donning of the handmaid’s garb and the ensuing protest about the sacredness of their bodies and their choices. I’ll be waiting quite a bit I imagine.
How many men, in pursuit of happiness,would it take to win championships in contact sports like Basketball or Lacrosse? I can see this coming, and you can’t stop it, you racist sexist phobic so & sp!
I give the ladies a break. It’s a tough situation but they are attending an Ivy League School and getting an education. so stick with it unless it’s too stressful. That would be my advice.
“…they are attending an Ivy League School and getting an education.”
Well, that makes it all OK then. An Ivy League School.
I don’t care if they are attending kindergarten. If they will not stand up for theirselves don’t expect anyone else to do it.
This is pretty harsh, Barry. I do take your point, but we are living in incredibly strange times, and expecting a bunch of college kids to take a stand against all of our institutions from academia to media to government to entertainment to Big Tech is a bit callous. People have literally lost their livelihoods, homes, and families over leftist cancel culture. For God’s sake they got some random driver fired for giving the “white supremacist” “okay sign” (whatever the hell that is).
Speaking out kills careers, destroys lives, and that’s how the left likes it. Yes, someone needs to stand up and speak out, but how about not putting the weight of the entire culture war on a bunch of college kids? The people we need to speak up are actual adults, making bank, and cowering to the leftist cultural revolution, issuing disgusting confessions in the name of Maoist struggle sessions. Be disgusted THEY don’t speak up. Be disgusted that people who already have careers, have made their bank, and have lives aren’t speaking out.
Where are the heroes for these college kids to emulate? Oh, right, virtue signalling from literally every institution. Lashing out at college kids for not doing what actual grown ups are too afraid to do is not a good look.
“People have literally lost their livelihoods, homes, and families over leftist cancel culture. ”
And they’re going to keep right on losing until they stand up, in word and deed.
The reason we are losing is because you people keep losing.
You want to retain freedom and liberty? You’ll have to fight for it, in word and deed. That is the state of man.
I do. What do you do? Give us a list of things you personally do to help regain our institutions and to push back. When have you been caught in the cross-fire as these students have? Tell us how you fought back. (Posting comments on LI does not count.)
Barry, You seem to object to a lot of things. How about taking it easy once in a while or take a chill pill? Are you going to die on every hill or take your last stand on every issue? It must be exhausting typing so many replies. Your anger amuses me.
“When have you been caught in the cross-fire as these students have?”
Cross fire? They are the target at this level. If they do not fight back then they all lose. They cannot beat a man in their competition, even a man that is so bad he cannot compete with other men.
At the societal level, sure, they are in the crossfire. But it’s their level that counts to them and they are complaining (An anonymous swimmer…) about this. So, they should be encouraged to fight back, not sit and take it. Taking it is what the cowards do.
People fighting back are everywhere, in word and deed, and they are the ones that should be emulated.
What do I do? Well Fuzzy, you have my email and know who I am.
Let’s start with the basics. I’m a father that raised his children to be good people, to work hard, to get an education, and among other things, participate in athletics. Swimmers in fact, among other athletic pursuits. They will not back down from tyranny and they are raising my grandchildren the same way. Good kids, every one. And this is the most important thing any of us do. Thanks for asking.
You wish to back down from evil, from tyranny, from the despots that wish to do you harm? No, I know you don’t Fuzzy. So stop excusing the targets of this travesty, the girls that participate in athletics. All they have to do is say no. That’s it. Consequences? When are there no consequences? There are consequences to the choice to stay silent, including the loss of your sport.
Hey r2468, buzz off. You’re a mind numbing pathetic idiot.
So you would quit the team? Would you transfer to another school just because there is a total jerk on your team. Is swimming that important? Swimming is one part of their life at Penn. Most did what I suggested and some complainEd about the situation – not too publicly to avoid more sh*t coming their way. Sounds like a reasonable response by young adults.
The bio females should quit the team. I agree, swimming isn’t that important. Why stay?
Question: Are all of the team members at Penn on athletic scholarships?
My advice to these women, for what it’s worth, is don’t pick fights with people against whom you are powerless and that have tremendous power over you. Just go along to get along, put their names on a list, get your degree, obtain knowledge and influence, and if you ever do obtain the power, push back at a time and place of your choosing. Always pick your battles. It is always satisfying when one day, the worm turns.
Yea, that’s really working so well.
Perhaps you might note the state of things…
Any woman considering going to University of Pennsylvania for any athletics in the future needs to back off. The one cast iron solid truth that applies is that now and in the future trans-sexuals and any newly discovered flavors of the sexual alphabet will alway, ALWAYS have priority over any straight female, and most of the time over gay females. No matter what they say, no matter what they promise, the school will always penetrate you with an inclined plane wrapped around a helical axis.
It is what it is. Always check out a school before you start, no matter how inviting the scholarship discussed is, and see how super politically correct they are over other schools.
If nothing else, take comfort in the fact that you will always outrank straight, white, males who are not athletes. If they give you any trouble all you have only to claim sexual assault with no proof and you win.
Subotai Bahadur
Any guy who feels the need to pretend he’s a girl is sick and perverted.
Any guy who thinks he can actually become a girl is totally deranged and delusional.
Reality.
Super stupid women, there is no “team” if they refuse to swim with him. They have complete control.
There really is only one solution to this. All female team members of any sport should quit en masse if a male was to join their team. I don’t understand why they would put up with it. If they are on athletic scholarship, then play very very bad in order to lose for their school that demands the men play with the girls. This perversion must end.
Let me add something.
I and other commenters get to have an opinion. We don’t have to “prove” that we walk the walk or anything else. When you cannot make a cogent argument for your position you attack the person, and that’s what’s being done here.
Swimming: For those that do not know it takes an incredible effort to swim at a high level. My children were all swimmers. In high school my two youngest would wake up at 4am 3 days a week to be in the pool at 5am, often swimming up to 5 miles before they were finished. Then after school there was the club practice 3 days and the school practice 2 days. A serious swimmer has to be a club swimmer as well as swim for their school up until they get to the college level.
Their father also had to be up at 4am to get them to practice, and after to school. As long as they were willing then so was I.
These kids are driven by a desire to excel and win at their sport, male or female.
I have two granddaughters that are swimming, and one on the way (now practicing her stroke in the womb 🙂 ). If the young ladies now swimming do not stand up for their right to compete with other females, then all female competition will be lost and my grand daughters and your daughters/granddaughters will not have the opportunity to compete.
It’s only a matter of time before the other sports programs are infiltrated by the mentally ill pretending to be something that is impossible for them to be.
You make excuses for the young ladies but they are the only ones that can put a stop to the abuse. It is up to them. It is their sport and they have all put in thousands of hours in the pool. Stand up against the evil marxists or lose your freedom to compete with your fellow women.
I have a great deal of empathy for the girls being abused by the schools they chose to attend, but abuse it is. The fact of the matter is that allowing biological males to participate in women’s sports reduces the scholarship parity demanded by law. But, no one will do anything about for you, girls. You’ll have to stand up for yourselves.