Virginia college swimmers reveal fight to keep trans athlete from joining women’s team after competing as male

A Virginia college’s female swim team says it feels 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 said in a news conference Thursday.

The captains of the sophomore, junior, and senior squads — Kate Pearson, 19, Lily Mullens, 20, and Bailey Gallagher, 21 — 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.

“I never expected to be blindsided by a teammate from the men’s team who now wanted to compete against me and my fellow swimmers and shatter our records,” Gallagher said, noting she was initially supportive of the trans swimmer’s transition. 

“Why even try to swim when racing against a biological male?” Mullens asked. “Our defeat was written in biology.” 

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Mullens said everyone on the team was shocked and confused when their coach told them the trans swimmer would be coming aboard.

“We were all motivated to win this year after coming in second last year, and all that motivation disappeared when we discovered that a biological male would be joining the women’s team,” Mullens said. 

The three captains held a meeting with the rest of the swimmers, who all agreed that they did not want the trans teammate to compete with them. 

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The women claim they felt pressured to stand by the transgender swimmer because she felt suicidal because of the efforts to oust her.

She has since withdrawn from the team.

“Our experience was an emotional rollercoaster ride that I don’t want any girl to ever go through with,” Pearson said, calling on the NCAA to regulate how trans athletes can compete in college sports. 

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“We felt unheard and unseen by the NCAA, our school, and lawmakers who told us that we had to deal with it ourselves,” she added. “I was stressed every day about what was happening, unable to fall asleep or finish my homework. 

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 team.

They compared it to Thomas, who was 462nd as a male in her division, Division 1, before competing on the women’s swim team at the University of Pennsylvania and becoming 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.

When their coach did not help, it felt like “a betrayal” Pearson said, adding that team members burst into tears when they heard his response.

“We were told that even if our whole team stood against it and refused to compete, the swim coach would be able to compete with just that person on the team. They could just have a one-person team,” she said. 

The coach told the captains to write a letter about their concerns that he would read it to the trans swimmer, the swimmers said.

In their letter, Pearson told the Daily Mail that they expressed their support for the swimmer as a person.

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“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 letter, Pearson said.

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“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 team said. 

“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 Mail.

“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.

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“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.

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The trans swimmer quickly proved to be too much 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.

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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.

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“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 spokesperson said in a statement.

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“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.

“Swimming has been the most important thing in my life, and we need the NCAA and lawmakers to step up and address this issue,” she said. “Our situation was resolved, but how many of these cases need to happen before something gets done. 

Paula Scanlan, a former teammate of Lia Thomas, joined the Roanoke swimmers in calling for change, saying the NCAA should have acted when she first called for action in 2021. 

“I’m heartbroken by these swimmer’s stories because it’s everything I heard and saw two years ago when it happened to me in the fall of 2021,” she said. “The NCAA and our lawmakers have failed us.”