‘Lia’ Thomas Exposed His Junk to Female Teammates
Will “Lia” Thomas made headlines during the 2021-2022 academic year for crushing his competition in NCAA women’s swimming, sparking widespread outrage. After years of being a mediocre swimmer on the men’s team, Thomas woke up one morning and identified as transgender, transitioned, joined the women’s team, and started breaking records against his female teammates and tournament competitors. Since robbing real women of opportunities wasn’t enough for him, he also disrespected his teammates by exposing his male genitalia to them in the locker room.
And now, Riley Gaines, a former teammate of Thomas, is calling for changes to be made by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA).
“We were not forewarned beforehand that we would be sharing a locker room with Lia. We did not give our consent, they did not ask for our consent, but in that locker room, we turned around and there’s a 6’4″ biological man dropping his pants and watching us undress, and we were exposed to male genitalia,” Gaines said.
Gaines, a 12-time NCAA All-American, five-time SEC Champion and record holder, and two-time Olympic trial qualifier, is now pushing the NCAA to require separate locker rooms for transgender athletes because what felt worse to her than a biological male competing with biological women was the humiliation and violation of sharing private single-sex spaces with Thomas.
“That to me was worse than the competition piece,” Gaines added. “Not even probably a year, two years ago, this would have been considered some form of sexual assault, voyeurism. But now not even are they just allowing it to happen, it’s almost as if these large organizations are encouraging it to happen.”
Gaines, a spokesperson for the Independent Women’s Forum, claims that the NCAA has become a champion of transgender athletes at the expense of women’s sports. The 22-year-old originally planned to go to dentistry school but is putting her career plans on hold to be an advocate for female athletes who are reluctant to speak out.
“People are terrified, especially speaking from my experience of talking to other NCAA swimmers specifically. Lia Thomas’s teammates even. They are told their school has made their stance for them. They are told if they feel uncomfortable seeing male genitalia in the locker room, they should seek counseling resources. They’re told they will never get into grad school if they speak out,” Gaines said.
“All of these terrible, awful things that are not true. They are told, of course, that they will be called a bigot and hateful and transphobic, but it doesn’t make you any of those things to acknowledge that there are two sexes, you cannot change your sex and women deserve opportunities.”