‘Women don’t matter’: Former college athletes slam Lia Thomas’s NCAA nomination

Heather Hamilton

July 18, 12:02 PM July 18, 12:03 PM

Former female college athletes blasted the University of Pennsylvania’s nomination of transgender athlete Lia Thomas for the NCAA Woman of the Year award.

“The message all year long from Penn, honestly, the Ivy League, and the NCAA has just been that women don’t matter,” said Kim Jones, a former All-American tennis player and the mother of a daughter who competed against Thomas. “They’re not worthy of receiving access to fair competition. They’re not even worthy of dignity and comfort in their locker rooms. This nomination is just the embodiment of that message.”

Jones, along with former NCAA champion swimmer Marshi Smith, founded ICONS Women, or the Independent Council on Women's Sports. Together, they appeared on Fox & Friends First Monday, telling host Todd Piro that Thomas’s recognition as a top female student-athlete is “devastating.”

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“It’s humiliating. It’s devastating,” Jones said. “It’s really frustrating to understand where the current NCAA and Ivy League, and especially Penn’s stance is on the value of women in modern society.”

ICONS Women tweeted its condemnation of Thomas’s nomination: “Women deserve fair competition and acknowledgment that the best collegiate female athletes are not male.”

“There is a biological difference between men and women,” Smith told Piro. “If we can’t agree that that foundational truth is a reality, then how can we protect our girls and women? And you know, this nomination is not only affecting women swimmers at this point, but it encompasses all athletics.”

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Thomas is one of 577 athletes nominated for the award, according to a release from the NCAA.

The transgender swimmer, who swam for the men's team for three years in NCAA Division I competition, got first place in the women’s 500-yard NCAA championship in March.