A University of Pennsylvania women's swim team member recently spoken out about the awkwardness of having to share locker rooms with transgender athlete Lia Thomas, who still has male sexual organs despite identifying as a woman, and has even broken several women's swimming records.
The unnamed teammate at the University of Pennsylvania women's swim team said that while Thomas' male genitalia are often covered by a towel, there have been instances where the transgender athlete's nudity has been revealed, which meant that his female-born teammates have been exposed to his male body parts, making them feel uncomfortable, the Daily Wire reported.
The anonymous female swimmer also indicated that while the locker room feels "definitely awkward" with the biologically-male swimmer around because he "still has male body parts," it also feels that way because the transgender athlete "is still attracted to women."
Several biologically female team members have raised these concerns to their coach, Mike Schnur, but their complaints fell on deaf ears.
"Multiple swimmers have raised [the issue], multiple different times. But we were basically told that we could not ostracize Lia by not having [him] in the locker room and that there's nothing we can do about it, that we basically have to roll over and accept it, or we cannot use our own locker room," the unnamed swim team member told the Daily Mail.
"It's really upsetting because Lia doesn't seem to care how it makes anyone else feel," she said. "The 35 of us are just supposed to accept being uncomfortable in our own space and locker room for, like, the feelings of one."
The unnamed University of Pennsylvania women's swim team member added that the school was "so focused on making sure Lia was okay" and accused them of failing to consider the biolgical female members of the team, claiming that Thomas' presence on the team has "affected us way more than it's affected [him]." She added that the transgender athlete doesn't "seem to be bothered by all the attention....[he] seems like [he] enjoys it."
The University of Pennsylvania continues to racically stand firm on its stance on allowing transgender athletes to compete in women's sports teams. According to Breitbart, a dozen of the university's law groups have even come to the defense of Thomas, who the report said "has undertaken only the bare minimum to 'transition' to a woman." This includes taking hormones to lower testosterone levels.
In a column published in the student newspaper The Daily Pennsylvanian, the university's law groups argued that Thomas' success and breaking of women's records was not because the transgender athlete was male-born, but because he worked hard to earn the medals. The column said, "Thomas did not succeed because [he] is transgender; [he] succeeded because of the hard work [he] has put in throughout [his] long swimming career, and because [he] is finally able to authentically be [himself] and race in a sport that [he] loves."
