NEWNow you can listen to Pak Gazette articles!
This story discusses suicide. If you or someone you know you have thoughts about suicide, contact the suicide and crisis lifeline at 988 or 1-800-273-Talk (8255).
The former Swimming Captain for Women of Roanoke College, Lily Mullens, remembers the first weekend in September of his Junior season in 2023. He had just taken his teeth out of trial, but something much more painful was to come.
That weekend, a team meeting was convened to discuss a biological transgender swimmer who wanted to compete with the team. Mullens was at the zoom meeting.
CLICK HERE for more sports coverage at Foxnews.com
Captains of the second year squadrons, Junior and Senior Kate Pearson, Lily Mullens and Bailey Gallagher. (Outkick)
“The purpose of the meeting was to meet everyone with this individual to somehow make the feelings or opinions we had to people with administrators in the room,” Mullens alleged. “At one point, it was discussed that this individual, without the transition, had thought and had been carried out with the planning of suicide. So that was something that was told to us all.”
Mullens, who described herself as a religious person, said that her teammates’ first reaction was confusion.
“We all feel emotionally confused. We didn’t know what to do,” he said.
Mullens claimed that the athlete even went into details about the details of the supposed plan.
“The plan was really detailed to us,” Mullens said. “There is a building on the campus that said they had planned to go to the top and throw themselves.”
School administrators allegedly “said nothing” during and after the alleged suicidal suggestion of the athlete, according to Mullens. Then, the team was told to vote on a virtual survey to determine whether to let the Trans athlete score with the women’s team until mid -season, according to Mullens.
Mullens said she and another teammate voted, while the rest of the team voted yes. Mullens said that this was not the result he expected before the meeting based on his conversation with his teammates.
“However, when we entered that meeting, they all agreed that that was not going to be one thing. So, the immediate change that happened, blames the emotional stress that they put, passing, listening to listening to mental health struggles and not knowing what to do and then planning something harmful and so devastating, telling us that and then ask if it is or is not right if this person is screaming,” Mullens said.
“I stayed with my weapons and said ‘no’ … but leaving that meeting and may my friends call me later and they told me how, alone, they were not fine.
The Virginia Attorney General, Jason Miyares, concluded an investigation into the situation that involved the Trans swimmer of Roanoke, and the findings, published by the plaintiffs on Monday, went to the alleged suicidal claim, referring to the athlete as “Swimmer A.”
“The swimmer then told the team with a vivid detail about regularly contemplating suicide before undergoing medical treatment and wanting to commit suicide every time I swimming the blocks for swimming. Swimmer, expressed a desire to ascend to the top of Trexler Hall, the highest building on the campus and” go to the concrete. ”
Upenn’s former swimmer reflects on being teammates with Lia Thomas
Mullens claimed that the other swimmers were already told that “none of the mental health or health and advice was reported on the situation” until the swimmers held a press conference to speak against school on October 5, 2023.
“After our press conference, the Head of Health and Student Advice, as well as one of our counselors at the Campus summoned a meeting with us,” Mullens said.
“We tell you everything for what we happen, and they, at that time, were bewildered regarding what we have happened … that first initial meeting we had with the chief of advice and one of our advisers, they had no idea. And when we told them, they were horrified in our name.”
Later, in the semester, after the swimmers held a press conference and made the situation public, Mullens and their companions expected to take a travel course in spring. She said she was looking for a change in the environment after the situation that involved the swimming team.
Mullens and some of their teammates list Japan as the best option and believed they would be chosen for the course based on academic performance and extracurricular activities.
However, other swimmers were finally denied many of their first options and some were completely refused to travel. Mullens said that only two swimmers were selected for any course, and did not obtain their first option, and one of them was accepted before the press conference occurred.
Former Women’s Swindmer Roanoke Lily Mullens (Courtesy of the icons)
Mullens recalled an email he received when his mother asked why he was not accepted.
“When he sent an email, the answer he received was, I don’t remember the exact writing … but basically said ‘not only the teacher is responsible for student’s academics, but also for his behavior,” Mullens said. “I had no idea what that means. I have never had any disciplinary action for me.”
Miyares’s investigation addressed accusations that swimmers were rejected from travel courses as a means of retaliation for talking about the trans athlete.
“The evidence has established a reasonable cause to believe that the policy of the surveyed Roanoke College discriminated against the swimming women based on sex, if the university in fact denied them accommodations, advantages and privileges on the basis of sex and if the university took reprisals against them for their related protection activity,” said the results of Miyares.
Miyares concluded that the university denied the accommodation, the advantages and privileges of the swimming women based on sex, caused emotional, physical and dignatory damage and violated the Virginia Human Rights Law (VHRA).
Miyares also suggested that the swimmers who were discriminated against are eligible to seek financial damage because the school policy violated VHRA, according to the state code.
Roanoke issued a statement on Monday denying the findings of Miyares.
“The University categorically denies the accusation without foundation that their trusts, teachers, staff, coaches or administration violated the human rights of any student or retaliate against them in some way,” part of the statement is read, and added that “the transgender student never competed in the women’s team.”
The statement continued: “The report alleges that our faculty retaliates against the members of the female swimming team by rejecting their requests to the courses of May terms. That accusation is obviously false. Our faculty acted in good faith and followed our usual process with respect to the selection of students for the courses of May terms.”
Mullens described the school’s response as “lie”, regarding the claims that the athlete “never competed in the women’s team.”
“It’s a lie. This individual was in the team. There is no other way to say it. You can say everything you want to be a request. But it is a lie. This person was in the chats of our group. This person was in our women’s costumes. This person was in practice. This person did all things with the team. That seems to me a member of the team. [Frank] Shushak had the impudence of sending that. Reading that made me so annoying because it is one more test than we were happening, “Mullens said.
Mullens’s lawyer, Bill Bock of the Independent Women’s Sports Council (icons), condemned Roanoke for his statement.
“Unfortunately, President Shushak’s letter does not deviate from the constant two -year pattern of Roanoke College to deny misconduct, blame the victims and discriminate against women,” Bock said in a statement to Pak Gazette Digital.
“Before the report of the Virginia Attorney General, which describes strong evidence of women’s freedom of expression and that the athletic opportunities of women are reduced, the tone tone response of President Shushak again takes out the tired phrases of the public relations consultant of the school, claiming again that” they celebrate the rights of the person to the person the support of all who and all members of the community and “.
The members of the Swimming Team for Women Roanoke College attend a press conference. (Outkick)
Roanoke has approached Mullens and Bock’s responses to his statement in another statement proportionate to Pak Gazette Digital.
“Roanoke College supports our statement. We will continue to cooperate with the Office of the Attorney General, as we have done from the beginning,” reads the statement.
Roanoke has not addressed the alleged suicidal claim of the trans athlete or the supposed management of the school of that situation in any of his statements.
