Joe Kinsey
Videos by OutKick
Even after a Wednesday team meeting where a source says Penn administration “strongly advised” its swimmers to avoid talking to the media about the situation surrounding transgender Penn swimmer Lia Thomas, a second female Penn swimmer has stepped forward to speak out via an exclusive interview with OutKick.
The second female Penn swimmer to speak out, who was granted anonymity due to what is viewed as threats from the university, activists, and the political climate, wants people to know that Penn swimmers are “angry” over the lack of fairness in the sport as Lia Thomas destroys the record books and brings fellow teammates to tears.
The second Penn swimmer to come forward was at the University of Akron Zippy Invitational where she watched Lia Thomas beat fellow teammate Anna Kalandadze by 38 seconds in the 1650 freestyle. OutKick’s source described Penn swimmers on the Akron pool deck as upset and crying, knowing they were going to be demolished by Thomas.
“They feel so discouraged because no matter how much work they put in it, they’re going to lose. Usually, they can get behind the blocks and know they out-trained all their competitors and they’re going to win and give it all they’ve got,” the source said.
“Now they’re having to go behind the blocks knowing no matter what, they do not have the chance to win. I think that it’s really getting to everyone.”
After just five meets and the Akron Invitational, Thomas has not just destroyed opponents. The Penn freestyle records are being rewritten by a swimmer who was second-team All-Ivy league in 2018-19 — as a male.
Akron was an absolute beatdown by Thomas, but it wasn’t without disgust from fans who were in the building watching meet, pool, and school records drop one after the other.
“Usually everyone claps, everyone is yelling and cheering when someone wins a race. Lia touched the wall and it was just silent in there,” OutKick’s source said during a phone interview.
“When [Penn swimmer] Anna [Kalandadze] finished second, the crowd erupted in applause.”
Friday, Thomas set a new 500 freestyle Ivy League record. Saturday saw Thomas touch the wall in the 200 freestyle, which is now the nation’s fastest time in the event. And then there was the 1650 that left fans in disgust.
OutKick’s source said that after the 200 freestyle, Thomas could be overheard bragging.
“That was so easy, I was cruising,” Lia Thomas allegedly said.
According to OutKick’s source, Thomas was unhappy with her time after the 500 race, but while standing in front of teammates, made sure to mention, “At least I’m still No. 1 in the country.”
“Well, obviously she’s No. 1 in the country because she’s at a clear physical advantage after having gone through male puberty and getting to train with testosterone for years,” OutKick’s source said. “Of course you’re No. 1 in the country when you’re beating a bunch of females. That’s not something to brag about.”
Thomas’ current best times racing for the women’s team:
200 free: 1:41.93
500 free: 4:34:06
1650 free: 15:59.71
Thomas’ best times racing as a male the first three years at Penn:
200 Free … 1:39.31
500 Free … 4:18.72
1,650 Free … 14:54.76
NCAA women’s swimming records:
200 free: 1:39:10 (Missy Franklin)
500 free: 4:24:06 (Katie Ledecky)
1650 free: 15:03:31 (Katie Ledecky)
A team source who was at Wednesday’s meeting says the administration drew a line in the sand and announced that Thomas wasn’t going anywhere and it was non-negotiable.
That leaves disgusted teammates no choice but to either stay quiet or speak up against the wishes of the school and risk repercussions. The second swimmer to speak out says that it’s her belief that coach Mike Schnur is just staying quiet and going about his business.
“He is just following the NCAA rules and the situation is out of his hands,” she said.
After years of battling for Title IX and equal rights with men in college athletics, the biological women are pretty much being told to shut their mouths and move along by the school and the NCAA.
“While they say they care about all of us, our interests are in direct conflict with the interests of Lia in regards to fair competition and getting to compete. While we support Lia as a person to make decisions for her own life, you cannot make that decision and then come and impede on other people and their rights,” OutKick’s source added.
“Your right doesn’t supersede everyone else’s right.”
So what’s the solution here? Thomas’ teammate doesn’t have a magical policy that the NCAA should follow to make everyone happy.
“I don’t know what the solution is, but I know this is not it. Because people talk about how the trans community might’ve been marginalized before and this is supposed to be helping, but you can’t help the trans community by marginalizing [biological] women.”
“I know no matter what, biological women will never be on an equal playing field with transgender females.”
During an interview published Thursday by swimming outlet SwimSwam.com, Thomas spoke out for the first time since destroying pool records and said, “I’m just thrilled to still be able to swim and I love to compete and I love to see how fast I can go. It’s sorta an ongoing evolution of what I think I can go.”
As for the records Thomas now holds, he doesn’t seem to have any regret in smashing biological female swimming marks.
“I’m proud of my times, my ability to keep swimming and to continue competing. And they’re suited up times. I’m happy with them and my coaches are happy with them,” Thomas added.
And that was that from Thomas. No shame. No mention of not claiming the records so that they can remain the property of biological women. Thomas is moving on — with the records.
As for the biological women, they’re left to battle it out for second place in the freestyle events and receive lectures from school administrators who want them to be good foot soldiers so the school isn’t attacked by an angry transgender community for speaking out against Thomas.
“Honestly, this is so upsetting to us because we want to be acknowledged for our hard work, but it seems like this just keeps overshadowing us. Put Lia out of the picture — we have a really good team this year. We have one of the best teams we’ve had in years, and that’s being overshadowed by [Lia],” OutKick’s source said.
“Even without Lia, we had the chance to win the Ivy League this year, which is a huge deal for us. We train every single day and give up so much for this sport. And I love swimming. I do it because I love it. It’s been a part of my life forever, and this is a slap in the face that the NCAA doesn’t care about the integrity of women’s sports.”
Here’s this morning’s hit with Fox News talking UPenn’s transgender swimming crushing all the women swimmers. pic.twitter.com/8y0dFsMDtt
— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) December 8, 2021
Penn returns to its home pool on January 8 with a meet against Dartmouth as Lia Thomas continues on a path that figures to turn into NCAA titles in March.
“This is such a cloud over everything. A cloud in the locker room, especially the last few days because we all know of how things have changed in the last week,” Thomas’ teammate concluded.
OutKick Exclusive: Penn Trans Swimmer’s Teammate Speaks Out As Lia Thomas Smashes More Records
It’s a damn shame administration and coaches are trying to silent women.
Maybe enough college kids will see that transgenderism specifically and leftism in general is incomprehensible mental illness and begin to turn against them. The entire Penn women’s team should quit in protest. That would get their attention. Penn should be ashamed, but leftist have no shame and the non-leftist administration are cowards.
Dude’s a sociopath. Scary that people encourage this
Where are the feminist groups? Not a word. I guess there isn’t any money to be made on this.
Women are now at the bottom of the left’s hierarchy of grievance/pyramid of victimhood.
I wonder … Is there a correlation between people who do NOT think this is simply STUPID and Wrong … and people who sincerely (?) believe “Abortion is not killing babies” ???
Any attempt to even try and understand the reasoning of such people will only end in a massive headache … and loss of faith in human evolution.
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This is twisted – and it’s only the beginning. This is happening at a relatively low level stage in a relatively low level sport. What happens when it grows to more mainstream events? Gotta fix it now before it’s too late.
There’s no way “the mainstream”, which I assume would include the WNBA and the USWNT, would allow this in my opinion. Gatekeeping is a real thing.
I understand why Outkick is running this story into the ground but at the end of the day it’s still not my problem. It becomes even less of a problem for me when the people it actually affects literally do nothing to stop it.
This Glenn Williams-washington is one sick as puppy
This is what the left does…run down s specific racial group or gender so they can make advances. They know they don’t measure up (meritocracy Is gone) so they tear down and make demands and force you to capitulate. Otherwise, you’re a racist, misogynist or homophobe. Women in general need to take a stand.
Joe I enjoy your work but you refer to the swimmer as she that is not correct it is he,referring to the swimmer as she is only supporting his insanity.
Right? I was thinking the same.
Well, the left kicked and screamed about equality. This isn’t quite all the way equality but it’s almost there. The next step is full co Ed sports where the woman will be dominated even more. Obviously I’m kidding, this is crazy town. I totally feel for the girls that would be winning if not for a dude in a one piece on their team. The libs call this progress, I call it insanity. Hopefully once the pushback gets so fierce this whole “transgender “ thing will be gone. There is no such thing as being “transgender “. It’s a made up word. It’s a made up condition. It’s actually just mental illness. Pretty simple. Just like schizophrenia or multiple personality disorder. They are illnesses that need to be treated not enabled.
Transgenderism is a mental illness. And this dude is a douchebag. Penn administration is a bunch of puscators. Their attitude is women be damned. Fuck them.
There should be two categories: (1) an OPEN category that allows ANYONE to participate, and (2) a biological female category that respects their systematically unique bodies and hormones.
There are a lot of aspects of this story that are disturbing, but perhaps the most difficult is the fact that college students need anonymity to express their views on the subject for fear of punishment by their school. The lack of ability to articulate dissenting views on a college campus is ironic and shameful. This suppression of opinions is a stain on U Penn and a negative reflection of the university as a whole.
Get ready for ESPN to give Lia an ESPY ‘for Courage’ next summer…. seen this movie before. There is still plenty of ‘male douchebagery’ left over in this ‘recently minted female’ given the level of arrogance.
I feel terrible for the real female swimmers/teammates that have to sit and watch this when they deserve the success and accolades in a real Team oriented sport at the College level. This isn’t a Swim Team. It’s a sideshow stunt that Penn is milking. I’d transfer out and take as many teammates as I can with me. Bury the program before it buries itself.
Atleast Bruce became Caitlin after his Olympics career was long over for decades.
Someone asked “Where are the feminists?” One often hears and sees this question asked by men, especially on the Right.
Mainstream media does not cover women’s news to any great extent and rarely covers news feminists make and then only to obscure or misrepresent the issues at hand. And almost all men, and very few women either, read about feminism or the work of feminists scholars not just with respect to sex but in any field of endeavor.
First, trans people are worthy of respect. They are entitled to the same rights as everyone else. Adults must be allowed to do what they wish with their own bodies, however unfortunate that seems to others, with caveats with respect to surgeons being allowed to remove healthy limbs and blind and deafen people who are suffering from a mental health condition that convinces them they need to live as disabled individuals (a condition separate from trans). There is even a movement now of people who want to identity as animals. Although there are cases of individuals of both sexes finding a better life for themselves after transition, many do not. Our children need safeguarding, however. See more on this below.
Due to this movement, women and men have been fired for expressing gender-critical views in colleges, universities, corporations, and media. All have been hounded on line and many off line, a few have been physically attacked. Others are hounded by name calling (think of the worst names women are called), rape and death threats, threats of torture, relentlessly. Ordinary women, professional women, and women of the stature of a JK Rowling have been set as examples to all women: Speak out at your peril. Women have lost their jobs, a few their houses, some their friends, their family members, their honors at the instigation of trans activists. Someone claims a gender-critical woman is transphobic and she is silenced or out on her ear. Free speech is ignored as well as the decisions made by adjudicating institutions (in the UK for instance) that have found that gender-critical ideas are acceptable and worthy of respect. The UK and other countries in Europe are at different places in the infiltration of trans ideology into all aspects of their societies but the trans lobby has achieved a number of successes that are very difficult to walk back. Even so-called conservative governments have acquiesced to the trans lobby and certainly most Left governments have. It has been easier for critics of gender theory to speak out in the UK due to the size of the UK and its governmental structure. It is much more difficult in the US due to our federal system and the size of the country and the media setup. The US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand have gone far down the trans road, unfortunately. The UK is where the most vocal fightback is occurring but they have a long way to go before this movement can be rolled back. Joyce (see below) has said that the people on the other side of this fight won’t change their minds so that it is necessary for those fighting the movement win. We may be able to protect vulnerable women and children, but we won’t change hearts and minds.
Gender-critical women and men accept the legitimacy of men and women to live as trans, who have come to their decisions because of their life experiences. Most of us consider this belief system akin to a religion, at least among the activists, and a result of mental health problems which may include autism, other mental health issues, sexual, psychological, and/or physical abuse, and lack of conformation to gender stereotypes. We see it also as a result of social contagion and on-line grooming. On the part of trans activists, it seems akin to a experiment in social engineering. What we oppose is the destruction of women’s and girls’ rights in the process of supporting trans rights. And we oppose the grooming of vulnerable children and adolescents into transitioning. Studies show that these young people if they are allowed to go through puberty come to some acceptance of their dysphoria and become lesbian, gay, bi, or straight, most of them homosexual. So transitioning of these young people is a kind of conversion therapy for homosexual leanings. This is why critics of trans ideology recognize this movement as both homophobic and misogynist. It is not a progressive movement, but regressive, and it is built on stereotypes of what it is to be a man or a woman, most especially a woman. We should not be affirming the beliefs of children and adolescents without first exploring their family, health, and school background and experiences and how they have come to this belief system about themselves and what they want for their lives. At the end of such treatment and upon reaching maturity, some few persons will opt for transition. Most will not. Critics of trans ideology believe that clinicians and surgeons who treat dysphoria affirmatively are guilty of malpractice. We see it as a medical scandal involving the castration of vulnerable young people due to the administration of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, both of which are harmful to human health and well-being with known and unknown consequences and result in life-long medicalization, which is also assured as a result of mutilating surgeries. Most individuals given puberty blockers then go on to cross-sex hormones and many of them will eventually undergo surgeries. However, among older males, they are seeking to keep their genitals intact and transition through self-identification along without any other stipulations.
All of this, in response to the demands of trans activists, is resulting in crimes being attributed to women committed by men, the corruption of Census and other statistics needed for social planning, and the disruption of the lives of vulnerable women and gender-critical individuals who speak out against these demands.
Please note that gender-critical critiques I provide here are coming from the Left, Center Left, and sometimes from the Center Right.
If interested, first start with this interview:
An excellent critique of queer theory, an offshoot of postmodernism from which trans ideology descends, can be found in Derrick Jensen’s interview of philosopher Susan Cox at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWXHbrt3kvU
There is a wealth of analysis and research at your disposal. Look into Dr. Ray Blanchard’s view of autogynephilia and what that means, which he defines as men (heterosexuals) who are in love with themselves in the image of a woman. Both heterosexual and homosexual males may identify as trans, but for different reasons.
The first book you should read is American Kara Dansky’s The Abolition of Sex: How the “Transgender” Agenda Harms Women and Girls. It is one of the newest and is presented in a style that is accessible and makes it easy to understand what is at stake for all of us in the attempt to change sex into gender and remake society to the liking of the trans lobby. Feminists have called this movement a men’s sexual rights movement and to a great extent it is. It does not fit neatly into the social justice niche. It’s a men’s rights movement but it is much else as well. You decide for yourselves after dipping into these materials.
Sports fans should be interested in Canadian Linda Blade’s and Barbara Kay’s book Unsporting: How Trans Activism and Science Denial Are Destroying Sport. Also, check out American Beth Stelzer’s organization on line Save Women’s Sports.com.
Janice G. Raymond wrote an early prescient book, well researched and reasoned, on this phenomenon in 1979: The Transsexual Empire: The making of the she male. In recent years, many other books by women have been published, including another by Raymond: Doublethink: The feminist challenge to Transgenderism; Helen Joyce’s Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality; Kathleen Stock’s Material Girls; Why Reality Matters to Feminism; Kara Dansky’s The Abolition of Sex: How the “Transgender” Agenda Harms Women and Girls; and Abigail Shrier’s Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters. All of these books are must reads for anyone, man or woman, and those as well among our young who believe they may be trans.
The first Raymond book may be found in PDF form on her website. Reading the first Raymond book will allow you to chart the progress of Raymond’s predictions about the movement in the subsequent books. They are each different, but bring different nuances of the movement to the fore, and all are necessary to read to achieve a well-rounded grounding in the movement. Joyce, Stock, and Shrier have been most interviewed about their books and you can find them on YouTube, but the others have as well. Shrier has a Substack site as well. You will also find on You Tube the groups I list below.
Genevieve Gluck of Women’s Voices, researches the origins and history of some of the main proponents, ideas, practices of this movement, can be found at genevievegluck.substack.com;
Jennifer Bilek researches the intersection of transgenderism, technology, and capitalism at The11thHourBlog on Facebook and at http://www.the11thhourblog.com.
It is on the latter Bilek sites that you can learn about the billionaire funders of this movement.
Each woman presents and analyzes the issues that are rarely if ever available to a wider public.
Canadian feminist Meghan Murphy at her site Feminist Current reports news about women and girls from around the world, including issues relating to trans ideology. At her Patreon page she writes on the trans movement as well as other issues affecting women and children. Her videos are on You Tube and others exclusively on her Patreon site.
Julian Vigo on her site SavageMinds.substack.com comments on trans issues as well as a wide variety of other issues affecting all of us weekly.
The trans movement is actively training lawyers, the judiciary, civil/human rights organizations, the educational establishments, government, corporations, media and other groups in trans ideology and what they expect from all of them and they have dutifully responded overwhelmingly in the positive to the detriment of women and children of both sexes. Even the churches have been affected. Organizations ostensibly working for the rights of women have responded positively as well, perhaps mostly out of fear, including fear of loss of funding, such that there is a spit between these groups and feminists who are speaking up for women and girls. Even Girl Guides in the UK and Girl Scouts in the US have bent to the cause of trans, as well as groups set up for midwives and doulas, incredibly.
Activist and everyday feminists are remaking their movement at home and abroad to help people understand the movement and the threat it poses to women, girls, young boys, as well as men. In the UK, check out sites on line such as
The Women’s Declaration/Women’s Human Rights Campaign, which hosts Zoom conferences every Saturday hosting women from around the world;
TransgenderTrends;
Sex Matters;
FiLiA;
Mumsnet (a site for mothers that allows comments on the trans movement);
Woman’s Place UK;
Unherd in the UK regularly publishes gender-critical feminists (who are not published on the Left) as well as mostly men on other issues on a wide variety of topics; and
Women Are Human is an excellent source of news reports about trans criminal activity, mostly sex and other crimes against women, girls, and boys. Some of these men may be opportunistically identifying as trans in order to be housed among women in women’s prisons. Some of these men and other trans-identified males are in prisons in the UK and other European countries, Australia, New Zealand as well as California, Washington, and other US states. In response to Freedom of Information requests, most prison authorities answer that they keep no stats on such prisoners. Some trans-identified male prisoners have raped, assaulted, harassed, humiliated female prisoners. Canada has supplied female prisoners with morning after pills! California has provided female prisoners with birth control pills. All in the service of trans-identified males. Female prisoners are women the majority of whom have been raped, assaulted, domestically abused, and involved in crimes at the behest of their male partners. Others of course have gotten there on their own. In the UK many women are there for the crime of not paying their TV fees. Yet all are subject to the abuse of some of these male prisoners and all must put up with the indignity of showing with males and sharing a cell with a male.
A few groups in the US and abroad have taken legal action with respect to trans ideology and few suits have been found in their favor. Some have, however, especially in the UK. Others are pending. Others have lost. Money is always a problem. Feminists scrape for money. Trans activists receive it as manna from heaven from billionaires.
Individual feminists have written on line and spoken up about the movement, including Julie Bindel and many others.
In the US;
the on line publication 4w.pub;
Women’s Liberation Group; and
the US Chapter of Women’s Human Rights Campaign now headed by attorney Kara Dansky.
Parents groups are working to bring understanding of trans ideology to the public’s notice and remove trans training from our schools, including PITT in the US.
A trans widows group has been formed (most people do not realize that a huge number of men who call themselves women (transvestites/cross dressers) are heterosexuals, often married, and fathers).
Benjamin A Boyce on his podcasts has interviewed gender-critical persons about the movement as well as trans people and de-transitioners of both sexes (an ever-increasing population), who are those who realize, many too late, that they have gone down the wrong road and ruined their bodies and have transitioned back to their natal sex.
There are many other groups: the list is long.
Graham Linehan deserves a special place of honor in the fight against trans activists. He supports the rights of trans to live their best life but has consistently spoken out for the rights of women and children. Graham is the well-known Irish comedy writer, located in the UK, who for several years has presented his “The Mess We’re In” podcasts at least once a week, usually on Wednesday with specials from time to time and these are available on YouTube. His Glinner newsletter is available free and to subscribers for wider content and he is on Substack as well. Check out recent editions. His regular co-hosts are Helen Staniland of the UK and Arty Morty of Canada, who has his own You Tube site. The team get into the nitty gritty of what is happening each week and most podcasts include one or more guests currently in the news regarding the fightback to the trans movement.
Professionals such as Lisa Littman, Sasha Ayad, and Stella O’Malley have been interviewed by a number of podcasters and are well worth seeking out regarding the treatment of trans individuals. Sasha and Stella have a joint podcast and you can find them on You Tube as well.
The BCC, a staunch supporter of everything trans, as is The New York Times and other media, recently allowed a breakthrough series of podcasts by a long-term BBC journalist who presents a series of ten podcasts on the trans phenomenon. Highly recommended. It is Called “Nolan Investigates: Stonewall” and can be found at https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p09yjp0d
In the UK, media such as GBN have done segments on trans issues and interviews;
State Media is an interesting source for eye-catching animated background and can be found on You Tube;
Sky News has done occasional interviews.
New on line magazines such as Quillette in Canada and The Critic [also in print] in the UK as well as Lesbian and Gay News are excellent sources for critiques of the movement.
A separate group in the UK to lobby for lesbians, gay men, and bi’s has formed: LGB Alliance, who are in opposition to the aims of Stonewall in the UK as the latter organization now exclusively lobbies for the trans movement. LGB Alliance has formed chapters in the US, Canada, and other countries.
Happy reading and listening. We need to accept one another, love one another, and somehow get along. We only have each other after all.
Lia’s interview is difficult to watch. It is evident that this person has nothing but contempt for women and therefore lacks the capacity to empathize with them.
“Woman” is not a gender. It is the specific word for a female human — nothing more, nothing less. Gender is masculine, feminine, and neither — and a concept which is entirely irrelevant to organizing sport.
The truth is that Lia is male and has no right to access women’s sports. In fact, Lia is exactly who women’s sports was created to categorically exclude. There is no human right to redefine another group in order to appropriate their provisions, civil rights and specific words because it supposedly aligns with your self-concept.
The public humiliation is the point — Lia see’s women and the future of women’s sports as nothing but tools for their own personal validation. Every self-respecting woman needs to stand-up for themselves and one another and say, “no”.
If any women college athletes see this, please know that there are literally thousands and thousands of women who have your back. You can find them on ovarit[.]com, Women’s Human Rights Campaign USA, Save Women’s Sports, Women’s Liberation Front — let’s start pushing back against this.