Ex-NCAA captain ‘100%’ worried how elections may reshape women’s sports in Virginia

A former NCAA swimming captain from Virginia, who alleged retaliation from university officials after she objected to a transgender student joining her team, said she is “100%” concerned about the results of the upcoming statewide election and the impact it could have on women in sports.

Former Roanoke College swimmer Lily Mullins She spoke to Fox News Digital ahead of the upcoming election in Virginia about her experience raising concerns at her college about a transgender classmate, who was born biologically male, and joined the school’s women’s varsity swim team.

Mullins said concerns about the issue fell on deaf ears and were ignored by college administrators, but she noted that Republican state officials came to her and her teammates’ defense.

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Former NCAA swimming captain Lily Mullins (center) says she’s “100 percent” concerned about what the upcoming statewide elections in Virginia could mean for women’s sports. (Photo by Christine Zeiss/Anna Moneymaker via Getty Images; ICONS)

“Governor Youngkin reached out to the leaders and me personally and asked how we were and how things went. That was huge, because even the president of my school wasn’t able to do that,” Mullins told Fox News Digital. “Seeing someone leading an entire country do that without the head of my school, who only oversees 2,000 people…it’s hard to describe. I was so shocked, and I was grateful at the same time.”

Virginia is preparing for several important statewide elections later this year, including races for governor and attorney general. Current Governor Glenn Youngkin has reached his term limit, so his lieutenant governor. winson earl sears, The baton was handed down to keep the governor’s mansion Republican. She is confronted Former Rep. Abigail Spanberger.

Incumbent Republican Attorney General Jason Miyares is also up for reelection, facing a challenge from Democrat Jay Jones, who is currently dealing with the fallout from resurfaced text messages showing him wishing death on a fellow Republican.

Earlier this year, Miyares said Found a reasonable cause to determine that Roanoke College discriminated against Mullins and her teammates on the basis of gender and retaliated after the girls spoke out. The college later disputed the finding, calling the allegations “baseless” in a press release the school issued at the time and sent to Fox News Digital when reached for comment.

The issue arose from a transgender student who previously swam on the school’s all-male swim team, but wanted to switch to the all-female team after hormone treatment and other transition measures in the fall of 2023.

A meeting of the swim team and its members, to discuss the new swimmer’s upcoming participation, was a moment when Mullins saw firsthand that her college administrators were unlikely to support her objections.

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“The purpose of the meeting was to bring all of us together with this individual, in some way, to talk through any feelings or opinions we have about this individual with the officials in the room.” Mullins recalls Fox News Digital Back in August. “At some point, it was discussed that this person, without moving on, had contemplated planning and carried out suicide. So that was something we were all told.”

Mullins, who described herself as a religious person, said her and her teammates’ first reaction was confusion after the swimmer shared specific details about their plan to kill themselves. “We were all emotionally overwhelmed. We didn’t know what to do,” Mullins previously shared with Fox News Digital.

Former Roanoke women’s swimming captain Lily Mullins. (Courtesy of Icons)

Meanwhile, school administrators present at the meeting said nothing, according to Mullins’ recollection of the event, and mental health professionals on campus were not notified of the situation until after Mullins and others announced the matter at a news conference. Following the news conference, Mullins and her classmates were subsequently denied opportunities to study abroad at locations of their choice despite good academic performance and a history of extensive extracurricular activities, according to Miyares’ findings.

Mullins told Fox News Digital that the explanations she and other swimmers got for their denials added to the confusion of the whole matter. “It basically said that the professor is not only responsible for the students’ academics, but also for their behavior,” Mullins said. “I had no idea what that meant. I never faced any kind of disciplinary action against me.”

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In additional conversations with Fox News Digital in the lead-up to Virginia’s November election, Mullins said she felt the college They simply ignored all of her concerns, while at the same time taking actions that indicated support for the transgender swimmer.

“Every email that was sent out in response to us Roanoke girls speaking — I remember our original press conference, and also when we spoke at the Trump rally in Salem last year — our president sent emails that said, ‘We love and support our LGBTQ students.’ So, it was like, ‘Okay, if you preach inclusion and diversity that includes the ideals.’ So, when people ignore that and then no “Anything else they say about him, it’s very hypocritical to me and I don’t do that. I’ve never understood how we can have one without the other.”

“We need leaders who are able to say: absolutely no, we will not let this happen,” Mullins said.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Winsome Earl Sears (left) and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger (right). (Pool/Getty Images)

About a week ago, Youngkin issued Executive Directive No. 14, which directed the state Board of Health to begin drafting new policies that would require private spaces, such as locker rooms and bathrooms, as well as athletic teams, to remain segregated by the sex of students assigned at birth.

Mullins said she fears that might happen, just as a new president might be able to oust the president Donald Trump With a slew of executive orders in place, a new Democratic governor could do the same in her state. During a gubernatorial debate Thursday night, the Democratic Party nominee, former Rep. Abigail Spanberger, did not definitively answer whether she would repeal Youngkin’s Executive Directive 14, but she said she did not believe politicians should set the rules for school districts.

Her GOP rival, Earl Sears, has said unequivocally that she will not repeal the directive.

Mullins also expressed concern in her interview about the upcoming state’s attorney’s race, pitting Miyares and Jones against each other. Recently, Jones came under fire afterward Text messages from 2022 have surfaced From him saying at the time that Virginia House Speaker Todd Gilbert should get “two bullets in the head.”

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“I think it’s crazy that someone who wants to be the top person when it comes to the law in the state would say there are people he wishes death on and things like that. This could turn on me. It could turn on my teammates,” Mullins fears. “There should be someone at the head of the law in the country who you know will stand up for every citizen, no matter what.”

A split between Democratic Party nominee for Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones (left) and Republican nominee Jason Miyares (right). (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images; Maxine Wallace/The Washington Post/Getty Images)

Meanwhile, Mullins described Miyares as “helpful” in supporting her and her teammates, including by helping to get their story out to the wider public.

“We were bullied. I mean I had death threats that came in my personal DMs Social media the accounts. “I have anonymous messages sent to me by people I would have sat next to in class, and things like that are hard to deal with,” Mullins said. “When District Attorney Miyares came out and said, ‘Look, we’re going to investigate what the school did to these girls.’ We were very grateful.”