Women’s sports advocate Riley Gaines criticized the NCAA for not establishing separate locker rooms for transgender athletes competing in female sports. The professional swimmer said she and her teammates were obliged to undress in front of University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas after a meet last year.
In an interview on “America Reports” Wednesday, the 12-time All-American and five-time SEC champion urged the National Collegiate Athletic Association to make separate locker rooms for transgender athletes. She talked her own discomfort when she was exposed to Thomas’ “male genitalia” in a women’s locker room after a meet.
“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.
“That to me was worse than the competition piece,” Gaines said. “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.
