A USA Swimming official has resigned over the organization’s continued support of transgender University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas, who has been smashing women’s swimming records this season.
Thomas competed on the men’s team for the school for nearly three seasons before taking a year off to “transition” as a woman. This season, he joined the women’s team and has been smashing records, not by mere seconds.
But swimming official Cynthia Millen has resigned from her 30-year career in the sport over the essential unfairness of Lia Thomas’ record-smashing season.
Millen told the Washington Times that she could no longer honestly support a league that would allow Thomas to continue breaking records as a competitor in the women’s categories.
“I can’t do this, I can’t support this,” Millen told the paper in an interview published on Thursday.
Millen, who also told Fox News that Thomas’ wins are “grossly unfair,” added that she sent a resignation letter to the organization and told them that they are hurting women’s sports.
“I told my fellow officials that I can no longer participate in a sport which allows biological men to compete against women. Everything fair about swimming is being destroyed,” Millen said.
Millen added that if she had been called to officiate during a swim meet at which Thomas was entered, she would declare the U Penn athlete ineligible to compete.
“If Lia came on my deck as a referee, I would pull the coach aside and say, ‘Lia can swim, but Lia can swim exhibition or a time trial. Lia cannot compete against those women because that’s not fair,” Millen insisted.
Millen said she hopes other judges and officials will speak out and join her in her protest, saying, “This is not right because by doing this, we’re supporting this. There are no swim meets if there are no officials.”
The now-former swimming official is not the only woman to speak out against the unfairness of Thomas’ addition to the U Penn women’s swimming team. Some of the trans swimmer’s teammates have also recently spoken out against the situation.
One of Thomas’ teammates, for instance, told the media that “everyone knows” it is wrong for Thomas to be allowed to compete as a woman.
Another current U Penn swimmer who has commented anonymously about Thomas even revealed that Thomas has bragged about beating his natural-born female opponents.
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