‘The statement for women is you do not matter’: USA Swimming official who resigned in protest of trans athlete Lia Thomas says she is ‘destroying women’s swimming’
- Cynthia Millen resigned last week over transgender athletes competing in sport
- Thomas, who previously competed as man, is dominating women’s swimming
- ‘Little girls are going to be thrown under the bus by this,’ Millen said last night
- ‘Bodies compete against bodies. Identities do not compete against identities’
A USA Swimming official who resigned in protest at trans athlete Lia Thomas has said she is ‘destroying women’s swimming.’
Cynthia Millen stood down last week after working for the presiding body for more than three decades saying she could ‘no longer participate in a sport that allows biological men to compete against women.’
Thomas, 22, who previously competed as a man at the University of Pennsylvania for two full seasons, is now dominating the women’s field and smashing records. NCAA rules mean she can participate because she takes testosterone suppressing drugs.
‘It’s horrible,’ Millen told Fox News last night. ‘The statement for women then is you do not matter, what you do is not important, and little girls are going to be thrown under the bus by all of this, he’s going to be destroying women’s swimming.’
Cynthia Millen (left) who stepped down last week over Lia Thomas (right) who has wiped the floor with her female opponents after previously competing for the University of Pennsylvania as a man
She explained that from a young age girls and boys do not compete against each other because males have physiological advantages which are only accentuated through puberty.
‘The fact is that swimming is a sport in which bodies compete against bodies. Identities do not compete against identities,’ Millen said. ‘Men are different from women, men swimmers are different from women, and they will always be faster than women.’
‘Boys will always have larger lung capacity, larger hearts, greater circulation, a bigger skeleton, and less fat,’ she added. ‘Girls go through puberty and they have a double whammy, they not only grow breasts and hips, but they have periods, and they often have a totally different sense of gravity and have to learn to swim over again.’
Millen said that ‘no matter how much testosterone suppressing drugs he (Thomas) takes he will always be a biological male and have this advantage.’
Thomas recently wiped the floor at the women’s swimming event at the Zippy Invitational at the University of Akron, smashing two US records.