Lia Thomas made history last night when she won the 500m swimming NCAA title. Thomas had beaten out Emma Wayant, Olympic silver medalist from Tokyo in process and robbed her of her last chance for triumph on the stage.
After the race, Thomas gave her interview saying she was focusing on herself.
“I tried to focus on my swimming and block out everything else. It means the world to be here and be able to compete,” Thomas said in the post-race interview on deck.
Suspiciously no other swimmers commented on the controversial matter.
Now a parent of a swimmer has come forward claiming that they were intimidated into silence.
he mother told the Independent Women’s Forum that the league’s schools urged their female swimmers to not speak to the press regarding Thomas.
“When their news started asking questions, the schools in each case across the Ivy League, pulled their swimmers aside and said, ‘you’re not allowed to talk about this,'” the NCAA swimmer’s mother said.
“And they’re frightened. They’re frightened of losing friends. They’re frightened of being kicked off their teams. They’re frightened of being told by their universities that they’re transphobic and hateful,” she continued.
In regards to the national media attention, she said: “Holy cow, we’re going to talk about a male swimmer — a full grown male — attempting to take down female icon records, and taking a spot on an Ivy team from one of the Penn swimmers, who have rightfully deserved it. And we’re talking about, this person’s gonna swim on every relay going forward at championship meets, is going to take the position of a woman on a travel team, is going to take a space in every finals.”
The mother in question was speaking out on the condition of anonymity considering her daughter could be affected if it were to be found out she spoke out:
“I don’t want my daughter to have any repercussions based upon my desire to speak out for sex-based rights and representation for women. She deserves to have a college experience unmarred by this issue, and she deserves to have the time and ability to process what’s going on with her in her own way,” she said.