Haley Tanne is a female track athlete at Southern Utah University. She bravely speaks out here against allowing men to compete in women’s sports. And William Thomas IS a man, only posing as a woman named Lia for the opportunity to win trophies he did not earn fairly.
Where are the femininists on this? Where are the marches and the rallies? As one woman notes in the tweet below, even those harridans are too scared to speak out against this PC travesty. Such is America today.
I’m a democrat & feminist. Every one of my IRL friends I’ve spoken to thinks Lia Thomas competing on womens team is unfair to women.
Almost none feel safe to share this opinion publicly because they will get attacked, possibly lose their jobs, and be threatened with violence.
— Holley (@bcscienceiscool) March 5, 2022
Tanne: As a collegiate female athlete, I think I can safely say that I wasn’t alone in being utterly dismayed to see a biological male, UPenn’s Lia Thomas, trounce all the female competitors at the NCAA Women’s Swimming Championship 500-yard freestyle on March 17.
I am a runner for Southern Utah University. College competition has its share of difficulties, obvious and not so obvious. But eventually you find your groove—mentally and physically—making new friends among your teammates, placing in meets and setting new personal bests.
For female athletes like me, it’s all worth it—not just because you become a stronger, more confident person and competitor, but because of the pure joy that comes with working as hard as you can and doing your very best. Maybe you just won a medal or took a few seconds off your best time. Perhaps you pushed one of your teammates to run faster and place, too. There’s just no feeling like that.
The first sign that all of that might be changing came the day our coach told us that a Montana male student who first competed in the men’s division would soon be running against us in the women’s division.
We were shocked. It didn’t sound real, and I wondered how this could possibly be happening. After all, with a man’s build and strength, a biological male athlete would probably have a big impact on our races. And since I’d be running in most of the same races, I knew I’d be facing a particular challenge.
How much of a challenge became clear the first time we lined up against each other at a cross-country meet. As I looked down the starting line, this athlete’s six-foot-four frame seemed to tower over the rest of the competition. This athlete was a full foot taller than me! You’re crouched at the starting line, next to a half-dozen other girls about your size…and then you see a biological male athlete looming beside you, and those muscles.
And you know: This isn’t fair; this isn’t right. To me, this was the first reminder of many that, if things didn’t change, racing was never going to be the same.
None of the female athletes know quite what to say or how to respond to this, but almost all of us mention it among ourselves. And, almost to a woman, they agree that this isn’t right.
That became even more clear when, in one of our races, the biological male athlete’s time pushed one of my teammates out of an All-Conference title. My friend didn’t say anything, but it hurts badly to lose an opportunity that you’ll never get back because of something so obviously unfair…
My teammates and I are watching our records, our scholarships and our competitive opportunities slip away…wondering if anyone in authority is going to have the courage to step up and save women’s sports.
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