As a recently retired All-American swimmer, my transition from athlete to champion for fairness was driven by an unfair competition that changed the course of my life forever. During the 2022 NCAA Division I Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships, my teammates, fellow competitors, and I encountered a fundamentally unfair situation that no student-athlete, let alone a teenage girl, should ever have to face. 

The NCAA did not simply make my teammates in the 100-, 200-, and 500-yard freestyle races face a biological male swimmer in the pool. The NCAA also decided that Lia Thomas, a 6-foot-4-inch, 22-year-old transgender swimmer with a male body and full male genitalia, would be undressing with us.