Reka Gyorgy, who swims for Virginia Tech, stood in defense of female swimmers on Sunday, something the NCAA has refused to do. Gyorgy wrote to the NCAA about the unfairness of bumping her from the finals so that Lia Thomas, a transgender swimmer with all the musculature, genitalia, and physical strength of a male swimmer, could compete at the NCAA Division I Swimming and Diving National Championships. Thomas went on to win the 500-yard freestyle and may have thrown the other races that s/he competed in at the championships.
Thomas, swimming for Penn, ended a collegiate career Saturday with an eighth-place finish overall in the final day of the championships, after competing in the 100-yard freestyle final on Saturday, finishing in 48.18 seconds, two seconds behind University of Virginia freshman Gretchen Walsh.
It’s not clear if Thomas was really competing in that 100-yard match. Thomas had set a record for Penn in that event earlier in the season in the 100 freestyle and had become the Ivy League champion in the 100 freestyle, the 200 freestyle, and the 500 freestyle. Thomas was the high point swimmer of the meet at the Ivy League Championships.
The Thomas record for 2021-22 includes: NCAA qualifier in the 100 free, 200 free, and 500 free; Ivy Championships qualifier; Ivy League champion in the 100 free; Ivy League champion in the 200 free; Ivy League champion in the 500 free; High Point Swimmer of the Meet at the Ivy League Championships; Part of Penn’s 400 free relay that won an Ivy title with a program record time of 3:17.80; Part of Penn’s 400 free relay that set a program record at the Ivy Championships with a time of 7:09.91; Set program records in the 100 free (47.63), 200 free (1:41.93), 500 free (4:34.06), 1,000 free (9:35.96) and 1,650 free (15:59.71).
Meanwhile, Gyorgy was ready to hit the send button on her letter to the NCAA, explaining that she is a two-time champion, two-time all-American, and three-time honorable mention all-American who was robbed of her opportunity to compete by Thomas, because without Thomas being made eligible due to hormone treatments over the past year, Gyorgy would have qualified to swim on behalf of Virginia Tech.
Gyorgy’s letter pulls no punches. Here it is in full:
Before you read any further, I’d like to ask that everyone who wants to disseminate my statement would agree to release my statement in full. I do not want any partial releases of my statement and do not with to make further comments.
Dear NCAA,
I would like to address this past week’s events and express my thoughts. First, I would like to remind everyone that I am a human being and that as a human being I experience feelings and emotions.
My name is Reka Gyorgy from Hungary. I am a 2016 Rio Olympian, represented Virginia Tech for the past 5 years, a 2 time ACC Champion, 2 time All-American and 3 time Honorable Mention All-American.
With all due respect, I would like to address something that is a problem in our sport right now and hurting athletes, especially female swimmers. Everyone has heard and known about transgender, Lia Thomas, and her case including all the issues and concerns that her situation brought to our sport. I’d like to point out that I respect and fully stand with Lia Thomas; I am convinced that she is no different than me or any other D1 swimmer who as woken up at 5am her entire life for morning practice. She has sacrificed family vacations and holidays for a competition. She has pushed herself to the limit to be the best athlete she could be. She is doing what she is passionate about and deserves that right. On the other hand, I would like to critique the NCAA rules that allow her to compete against us, who are biologically women.
I’m writing this letter right now in hopes that the NCAA will open their eyes and change these rules in the future. It doesn’t promote our sport in a good way and I think it is disrespectful against the biologically female swimmer who are competing in the NCAA.
I swam the 500 freestyle at NCAA’s on March 17th, 2022 where I got 17th which means I did not make it back to the finals and was first alternate. I’m a 5th year senior. I have been top 16 and top 8 before and I know how much of a privilege it is to make finals at a meet this big. This is my last college meet ever and I feel frustrated. It feels like that final spot was taken away from be because of the NCAA’s decision to let someone who is not a biological female compete. I know you could say I had the opportunity to swim faster and make the top 16, but this situation make it a bit different and I can’t help but be angry or sad. It hurts me, my team and other women in the pool. One spot was taken away from the girl who got 9th in the 500 free and didn’t make it back to the A final preventing her from being an All-American. Every event that transgender athlete competed in was one spot taken away from biological females throughout the meet.
The NCAA knew what was coming this past week. They knew opinions and minds will be divided and chose to do nothing. This week has been more about reporters, media and division in our sport than things like two women going under 21 seconds in the 50 freestyle, 3 women going under 50 seconds in the 100 butterfly and the first women IN HISTORY to go under 49 seconds in the 100 backstroke. Thursday was not a specific athlete’s fault. It is the result of the NCAA and their lack of interest in protecting their athletes. I ask that the NCAA takes time to think about all the other biological women in swimming, try to think how they would feel if they would be in our shoes. Make the right changes for our sport and for a better future in swimming.
Thank you for reading,
Reka Gyorgy, Virginia Tech swimmer
Is the NCAA so cowardly and/or so “woke” that they have to let a biologically female athlete argue for common sense against pitting an intact male athlete who “identifies as a woman” against all the biological women competing at the college level in the sport? What nonsense passes for equity now! Level the playing field and let transgender males or transgender females compete only with their own kind. I suspect there are so few they will have no one to compete against. There is a common-sense reason for that too.
Totally agree with all of what you said thank you Glenn!
Here we go again. The author of this article says, “Gyorgy’s letter pulls no punches.” Really?
Gyorgy says she “fully stands” with the guy. Then she repeatedly refers to him as a female (she, she, she, her, her, her) and says she is “convinced that she (he) is no different than me.” Can you readers see how we lost this debate before it began? I repeat: the guy is not the problem; he is merely a symptom of our collective problem…. our nation-wide denial of reality to patronize narcissists and pseudo-victims. In a nutshell, its political correctness run amuck. Or more simply put, we’re being stupid. As long as we refer to the guy as “she” or “her” we must logically let him compete with women. The solution is to simply muster the backbone to truly stop “pulling punches.”
I agree, when we use their language we’ve already lost the argument.
Absolutely correct! Lia Thomas is not a girl. He is not (and never will be) a girl. End of story.
We live in a freak society where women are no longer protected by Title 9. They are being robbed blindly by chicks with d*cks. Truly disgusting!
what is the difference between East German women Olympic swimmers’ steroid doping and US men competing in women’s collegiate sports? The former was cheating; the latter is woke?
I’m ashamed to have to explain to my daughters why women must fight for these rights all over again. Or why we must share the pedestal with a biological male because someone didn’t want to hurt their feelings. My great grandma would be turning in her grave. My great grandfathers would be coming out of their graves ready to fight the battles they already won. Why must women be robbed at every point and there always be such an uphill battle? Nothing is ever easy for a woman. Why should it be easy for the Thomas science project?
We support Reka. Thank you for having the backbone to stand up for yourself and all the real women who will come after you.
It could be that sports itself is broken. Rather than have participation based on sex in a dual track (man’s / women’s) sports system, an alternate approach would be to have participation based entirely on levels of ability. Top levels of all sports would be almost entirely men, with few, if any women. Lower levels of sports will have increasing percentages of women participating. Today, in most sports we have multiple levels of sports broken down by ability ranging all the way from professional to club / recreational levels.
I know the trans stuff is simply the latest victim mongering by the left. But it might have highlighted something we on the right have been ignoring for over half a century. Fix sports and you fix this problem. Yeah, this means that men’s and women’s sports as they exist today both disappear, particularly women’s sports. Cheers –
This might make me unpopular but “feminists” deserve this. Their kids don’t but they do. This is the fruit of their divisiveness.
Dino, I am not sure that is a fair assessment. Back in the 60’s and 70″s true feminists really wanted nothing more than a choice and an even playing field. They did not hate men and understood that there were differences between the two. Enter the radicals. These women told everyone that women could have it all and any women not in line with them was a traitor. Sadly the angry and hate filled Gloria Steinems of this world simply screeched louder.
The leftist democrats believe boy babies can actually grow up into women so long they sincerely believe the lie
To be true. Last week i came across in little free library three gender books written for the audience of parent with young kids how to understand genders. Well! I know what was on that readers mind. I didn’t leave it at the library box for someone else just as innocent as the donator for them to find. These liberals are passing on their lies they believe onto their own children that they can be less than how God made
them. You know what absolutely embarrasses me is gender neutral dressed kids. I been embarassed more than once, several times, calling a he a she and a she a he only to be mistaken. There is nothing wrong embracing your birth gender, m or f, and looking like it. Boys looking like boys. Girls looking like girls with a corresponding appropriate name.
The gender talk has
been going on for a very long time under the surface. Its finally reared its ugly head. I see men-women are going to be part of women sports for how much longer this nation is a nation.
If the biological women don’t like fake women playing among them they can always hang up the towel and forfeit.
Apparently the fellow also parades around nude in the women’s locker room. In any other context, that would be illegal, and I’m not sure why it isn’t in this context. You can be sure that any man who does that to my daughter would find out right quick why it wouldn’t happen again.
I hate to tell my daughter that she will have to take steroid therapy during puberty if she wants to be competitive in sports.
This is proof that liberals hate women, even though most women are liberal…
Kudos to this woman who had the courage, when others would not, to state the obvious truth: Men competing in women’s sports is ruining Women’s sports. How far will the ‘traditional feminists’ allow this insidious destruction of Women’s age old universal identity to continue without violent objection? They seem obsessed with steadfastly clinging to ‘virtue signaling’ their support for the correctness of current transgender dogma. The scores of decades of work that feminists fought for to illuminate for all the unique role women have in society be damned. Transgender ‘wokeness’ must be allowed to transcend it all! Their deafening silence in not speaking out is tragic. In time however, it will be the Reka’s who speak out when it counts who will the true heroines. The others who chose the madness of transgender orthodoxy will be scorned for not protecting the true “feminine mystique”.
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