Lia Thomas’ UPenn teammate to Laura: I’m not scared anymore
Paula Scanlan: If we get a big crowd behind, us they can’t silence us anymore.
One of Lia Thomas' former University of Pennsylvania teammates has broken her silence, saying she is no longer scared to speak out against Thomas competing against females.
Former University of Pennsylvania swimmer Paula Scanlan joined "The Ingraham Angle" to discuss why she is now choosing to speak out, fighting for fairness in women's sports.
"I think one of the biggest things for me is just seeing how much this has changed in the last year," she told Ingraham Tuesday in her first cable TV interview.
"I thought maybe this won't continue to happen to other sports, maybe swimming is the exception. I've seen this blow up. There are cases of the track people in California. There is cycling, skateboarding, every single women's sport imaginable has been infiltrated by biological males competing on the women's team."
"I decided that… it's okay if I get some hate and I shouldn't be scared anymore because I need to use my voice and encourage other women to speak out against unfair competition," she continued.
She spoke with the Daily Wire last year anonymously in the documentary "What is a Woman?" where she detailed how she was silenced from speaking out against Lia Thomas.
University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas and Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines tied for 5th in the 200 Freestyle finals at the NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships on March 18th, 2022 at the McAuley Aquatic Center in Atlanta Georgia. (Rich von Biberstein/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
"There was a lot of things we couldn't talk about that were very concerning, like a locker room situation. If you even brought up concerns about it, you were transphobic," she said.
"If you even bring up the fact that Lia swimming might not be fair, you were immediately shut down, as being called a hateful person."
She spoke with the Daily Wire's Matt Walsh in a video posted to social media Monday night, saying she is ready to join former college swimmer Riley Gaines in "fighting for women and girls across the country."
Scanlan told Walsh that the UPenn athletic department informed the team in a meeting that Thomas’ spot on the women’s team was "non-negotiable" and that they would regret it if they spoke to the media.
"After that meeting, they really scared us. It was scary, and I was petrified," Scanlan said. "I went home that night and I called my brother and said, ‘Can I even talk about this with you? Is there something wrong with me for thinking that this is wrong?’
"It worked. The university wanted us to be quiet, and they did it in a very effective way. They continued to tell us that our opinions were wrong and that if we had an issue with it, we were the problem. And it’s frightening, and your future job is on the line."
Fox News Digital has reached out to University of Pennsylvania for comment but has not received a response.
Scanlan said she has had some support along the way, which she hopes will continue to inspire other women to speak out to protect the sanctity of competition between female athletes.
"I have had a few teammates reach out and thank me for what I'm doing," Scanlan said. "There is support and might be limited, but they are there and there are people that understand fairness and understand biological reality. So I do have hope and hopefully more girls can speak out not just on my team, but in other teams that have been affected by."
Meanwhile, Thomas joined Schuylar Bailar's "Dear Schuyler" podcast back in April, touting her accomplishments as a trans athlete.
She also noted anyone who thinks there is an uneven playing between biological males and naturally-born female competitors in sports is "transphobic."
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"They're like, 'Oh, we respect Lia as a woman, as a trans woman or whatever. We respect her identity. We just don't think that's fair.' You can't really have that that sort of half support there using the guise of feminism to sort of push transphobic beliefs," she said.
But Scanlan pushed back on her remarks, calling the differences between males and females just "basic biological realities."
"Frankly, before any of this happened, I would never actually have considered myself a feminist," Scanlan said. "I just thought that I understood basic biological realities and I believe in the truth, and I never thought any of that would be considered transphobic or feminism or non-feminism."
Regardless, Scanlan urged other girls to "speak out" in favor of protecting women's sports, urging everyone to "come together" to push back against unfair competition.
"Definitely speak out as early as you can about it," Scanlan said. "Raise concerns, make the environments that are letting this happen aware that you're not okay with it. I think we really need to come together and use our voices. Get as many people as you can talking about this."
"I think if we've really got the big crowd behind us, they can't silence us any longer," she continued.
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Fox News' Joe Morgan contributed to this report.
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