Paula Scanlan, Former UPenn Swimmer: How We’re Being Conditioned to Think It’s Normal for Biological Men to Compete in Women’s Sports
“In the fall of 2019, we were told that a member of the men’s team was going to be transitioning to the women’s team … And that’s when I started to dig deeper on what the NCAA actually allowed. And they did allow for men to become women only after a year of deciding that they wanted to switch.”In this episode, we sit down with Paula Scanlan, a former University of Pennsylvania swimmer and teammate of transgender swimmer Lia Thomas.“They brought in psychological counseling, advising us to make an appointment with them if we were uncomfortable with the situation. And they did say very clearly, Lia swimming is a non-negotiable. … Psychological counseling was scary because, in my mind, that’s almost equivalent to reeducation. That really showed me that they wanted us to think differently, not just help us be comfortable with the situation that we were in,” Ms. Scanlan says.Now, Ms. Scanlan is an outspoken advocate for banning biological men from women’s sports.