A Virginia college’s female swim team says it feels cheated and abandoned at having to accept a transgender competitor who until recently had competed for the men’s team.

In a case being compared to the Lia Thomas controversy, the swimmer joined the women’s swim team at Roanoke College after sitting out the previous season during her transition, her teammates said in a news conference Thursday.

The captains of the sophomore, junior, and senior squads — Kate Pearson, 19, Lily Mullens, 20, and Bailey Gallagher, 21 — say it tore the team apart as they felt abandoned by the school and the NCAA.

Gallagher and Mullens said they both knew the trans swimmer — who was not identified — before her transition.
“I never expected to be blindsided by a teammate from the men’s team who now wanted to compete against me and my fellow swimmers and shatter our records,” Gallagher said, noting she was initially supportive of the trans swimmer’s transition.

“Why even try to swim when racing against a biological male?” Mullens asked. “Our defeat was written in biology.”