Five former collegiate swimmers told Georgia senators on Tuesday that competing against a transgender woman in a 2022 national championship in Atlanta caused them emotional damage and urged lawmakers to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
That year, General Assembly Republicans effectively banned transgender girls from high school sports when they encouraged the Georgia High School Association to change its policy on the topic. Shortly thereafter, the organization passed a policy that requires athletes to compete based on the gender on their birth certificate.
That rule doesn’t go far enough, said Republican Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, president of the Georgia Senate and a likely candidate for governor in 2026.
“We ended up punting the matter to the Georgia High School Association, which is unfortunate and I think it was the wrong move for us to do,” Jones said during Tuesday’s Senate committee hearing on the subject. “We’re not here to marginalize any one group, but we’re here to protect female sports, and we’re here to protect female athletes and that’s what we should be doing as legislators.”
Jones said he will prioritize passing a bill that put into law the policy implemented by the GHSA. Lawmakers and advocates said they are unaware of any transgender athletes playing in public high schools before or after the rule took effect, but partisans often push through legislation on the possibility something “could” happen.
Jones announced the creation of the “Special Committee on the Protection of Women’s Sports” the day after Algerian boxer Imane Khelif’s gender came into question after she easily defeated an Italian boxer in the second round of the women’s welterweight competition during the Paris Olympics.
The incident spurred Republican politicians across the country — from former President Donald Trump to U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia — to assume Khelif is transgender and decry her participation in the Olympics. Khelif, who went on to win the gold medal in her division, was born female.
Noël Heatherland, statewide organizing manager at LGBTQ rights organization Georgia Equality, said transgender people are being targeted for political gain. Republicans often cite polling to support their efforts, such as a 2023 Gallup poll that determined 69% of those surveyed believe transgender athletes shouldn’t compete in women’s sports.
“It’s really hard as a sexual abuse survivor and a domestic violence survivor to hear transgender human beings being equated to anything other than trying to live their authentic lives,” Heatherland said. “We are all God’s children. We are all human beings and there is nothing perverse about people who are simply existing as their authentic selves.”
The former swimmers from colleges in Kentucky, North Carolina and Virginia who testified Tuesday in Atlanta are among the athletes suing the NCAA and the University System of Georgia. Georgia Tech hosted the 2022 championships that allowed transgender swimmer Lia Thomas to compete. Thomas finished first in the 500-yard freestyle. She did not place in any other events.
The swimmers told senators they still suffer emotional damage because they had to “compete against a man” and because Thomas exposed “full male genitalia,” in the locker room. Former University of Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines said she equated that to “sexual harassment.”
“Let me be clear, I label this as sexual harassment because me and the four witnesses you heard from today and the hundreds of other 18- to 22-year-old college girls were not asked for our consent,” said Gaines, who’s spent much of the past two years traveling the country speaking against allowing transgender athletes to compete in women’s sports. “And we did not give our consent to being exploited and exposed to a 6′4″ fully naked man. Because (Georgia Tech President Ángel Cabrera) did nothing, that man walked into our women’s locker room … and saw me undress down to full nudity.”
Gaines and Thomas tied for fifth place in the 300-yard freestyle race. Former University of North Carolina swimmer Grace Countie, who also testified before the committee on Tuesday, said she placed seventh in the 100-yard freestyle and Thomas placed eighth.
Allowing “unisex” bathrooms and locker rooms, “to be totally frank — not saying this is what Thomas is — but it allowed for any pervert who wanted to use that locker room to have full access,” Gaines said.
The former swimmers also cited what they call the natural physical advantages biological males have even if they’ve undergone hormone replacement therapies to reduce their testosterone levels.
“We all knew that even mediocre male swimmers could beat the best female swimmers,” said Kaitlynn Wheeler, a former University of Kentucky swimmer. “It simply was not a fair contest.”
Cait Smith, director of LGBTQ policy at the liberal-leaning Center for American Progress, said those who support banning transgender athletes from women’s sports typically rely on anecdotal evidence.
“The trans community is actually underrepresented in sports,” she said. “While the Olympics has allowed trans women to compete since 2004, no trans women have medaled. ... Many here today are focused on one student who won one final at one championship two years ago. If trans women have such a clear advantage in sports, why do we not see them winning many more championships and filling team rosters at the college level?”
