The policy, announced January 19 by the NCCA Board of Governors, voted to support what it calls a “sport-by-sport approach” that the Board claims preserve “opportunity for transgender student-athletes while also balancing fairness, inclusion, and safety for all who compete.”
Frustrated female athletes have witnessed the acceptance and defense of male “trans” athletes for years, from high school softball to Olympic-level weightlifting, but the NCAA was forced to respond to the record-crushing success of University of Pennsylvania swimmer “Lia” Thomas (pictured above). After swimming for three years with the men’s team, Thomas joined the women’s team as a six-foot-plus senior. To the anger and frustration of many, he is now demonstrating what a stronger, faster male athlete can do --- even with hormones --- to prestigious Ivy League swim records set by female swimmers.
American Family News reported in December that angry female swimmers and their parents demanded UPenn and the NCAA address Thomas’s jaw-dropping swim records that were leaving competitors --- and his own female teammates --- far behind in the pool. After weeks of pressure, the NCAA did so with its “sport-by-sport” policy that means a national group, such as USA Swimming, sets it own policy without guidelines from the NCAA.
Starting with the 2022 winter championship, transgender athletes must document "sport-specific" testosterone levels four weeks before their sport's championship selections, the NCCA said.
Steve McConkey of 4 WINDS Christian Athletics tells AFN the NCAA has announced a pointless policy that he likens to a scoreless football game where the ball is just punted back and forth.
“Nobody's scoring and there's no order in what they're doing,” he complains. “So what the NCAA is basically (saying) is, Well, if we can't solve the problem, we're just going to pass it up to the national body that's in charge of a certain individual sport."
Regarding the response of USA Swimming, AFN reported in a Jan. 5 story that Cynthia Millen, a 30-year swim official with the national organization, quit in protest after the group refused to take action when Thomas set unbreakable swim records at a December competition. “I told my fellow officials that I can no longer participate in a sport which allows biological men to compete against women,” Millen told Fox News. “Everything fair about swimming is being destroyed.”
Now, three weeks after she stepped down, Millen is witnessing the NCAA refuse to address Thomas directly and instead leave it to USA Swimming to handle the cultural hand grenade of transgender athletes. In defense of USA Swimming, however, to even call it a “controversial” issue is to risk backlash from ferocious LGBT activists and from cowering school officials and sports officials, such as the NCCA board of governors.
Tennis champion Martina Navratilova generated a fierce backlash in 2019 after she accused trans athletes of “cheating” biological females. The tennis legend, a lesbian and a gay rights pioneer, was called “transphobic” for sharing her views.
"It is important that NCAA member schools, conferences and college athletes compete in an inclusive, fair, safe and respectful environment," NCAA Board of Governors chairman John DeGioia said in a statement, "and can move forward with a clear understanding of the new policy."
According to The Washington Examiner, Thomas won the 100-yard and 200-yard freestyle races for UPenn in a Jan. 22 competition at Harvard University.
“Women,” an angry female swimmer told the Examiner, “are now third-class citizens.”
For its story, after the female swimmer complained, the Examiner looked at Thomas’s times compared to past seasons and concluded the male swimmer is, indeed, setting new records that are unlikely to be broken. That is especially true in long-distance competitions, such as the 1,650-yard freestyle that Thomas won over the weekend. The second-closest time is 38 seconds behind him, the Examiner said.
The female swimmer, who did not use her name for fear of losing her scholarship, said she was speaking to the Examiner because the NCAA failed female athletes.
“I’m trying to do everything I can without harming my future from stopping this from happening,” she told the Examiner. “I can’t just sit back and let something like this happen. I’m not just going to sit back and say, My rights are being taken away, too bad. It’s embarrassing that people aren’t speaking out more.”
