A female swimmer at a Virginia university wrote a letter to the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) saying she was cheated out of a spot in the NCAA national championship 500-meter race because of biologically male, transgender swimmer Lia Thomas.
Reka Gyorgy, a senior student-athlete at Virginia Tech University, called Thomas’ participation in the event “a problem.”
She said in the letter:
“With all due respect, I would like to address something that is a problem in our sport right now and hurting athletes, especially female swimmers. Everyone has heard and known about transgender swimmer, Lia Thomas, and her case including all the issues and concerns that her situation brought into our sport. I’d like to point out that I respect and fully stand with Lia Thomas; I am convinced that she is no different than me or any other D1 swimmer who has woken up at 5am her entire life for morning practice. She has sacrificed family vacations and holidays for a competition. She has pushed herself to the limit to be the best athlete she could be. She is doing what she is passionate about and deserves that right. On the other hand, I would like to critique the NCAA rules that allow her to compete against us, who are biologically women.
“I’m writing this letter right now in hopes that the NCAA will open their eyes and change these rules in the future. It doesn’t promote our sport in a good way and I think it is disrespectful against the biologically female swimmers who are competing in the NCAA.”
Gyorgy reportedly finished 17th in qualifying for the championship event, in which the top 16 qualifiers can participate. Gyorgy is Hungarian, a country known for its conservatism.
Virginia Tech did not return a comment request.
Thomas’ participation in women’s athletics has been the subject of controversy for months.
In January, some of her teammates anonymously spoke out, saying that her presence in their locker room made them feel uncomfortable.
“Multiple swimmers have raised it, multiple different times,” one teammate said. “But we were basically told that we could not ostracize Lia by not having her 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.”
“It’s definitely awkward because Lia still has male body parts and is still attracted to women,” she said.
When Thomas won last week’s national championship, conservative commentators were quick to congratulate second-place finisher, University of Virginia (UVA) freshman Emma Weyant, who they said was the actual first-place finisher.
At the time, UVA did not return The Virginia Star’s comment request asking if it felt cheated out of a national championship.
Weyant has not commented on the matter publicly.
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Pete D’Abrosca is a contributor at The Virginia Star and The Star News Network. Follow Pete on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
