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Meghan Cortez-Fields, a trans swimmer from New Jersey Liberal Arts College, set a new record in the women's category by breaking the 100-yard butterfly event at Ramapo College. She secured the top position with a time of 55.72 seconds. Cortez-Fields even secured second place in the 200-yard butterfly. The record was broken at the Cougar Splash Invitational Championships, a two-day competition between six schools in Dallas, Pennsylvania.
Cortez-Fields, inspired by Lia Thomas, had previously swam for Ramapo College's men's swimming team for three years before transitioning to the women's team as a senior this year. Cortez-Fields stated her admiration for Thomas to the Ramapo News.
"Thomas is an inspiration to me in that way, but also I felt so bad for her because I know exactly what she was going through. Even going into this season, I had a fear of succeeding, because I don’t want what happened to her to happen to me," Cortez-Fields had conveyed.
Cortez-Fields received huge criticism after breaking records in the women's category. Fans expressed their resentment towards the incident calling it unfair and condemning it.
"A man breaking a women's record is a bad joke," wrote one fan.
"Some men are cowards; they have to go and compete against women in order to prove that they are strong, which makes them even weaker," wrote another.
A few fans even expressed that the trans swimmer who competed in the women's category was cheating as the athlete was incapable of winning in men's sports.
"One thing you notice about these guys playing women is they were losers competing against other men so they decide to pick on the girls. These are the guys no one wanted on their teams."
Here are a few other reactions:
Riley Gaines slams college after they delete a congratulatory post for the trans swimmer
Riley Gaines slammed Ramapo College after they deleted the congratulatory post for the trans swimmer, Meghan Cortez-Fields.
The college had shared a congratulatory post for the swimmer, which was taken down when the former NCAA swimmer brought the incident to light. Gaines then confronted for deleting the post, stating that the college hated the public criticism.
"The Ramapo College Instagram account that posted the photo of the male swimmer has now deleted the post," she informed. "They always hate the public attention after being called out for their discrimination and mistreatment of women," she conveyed.
Meanwhile, Brittany A. Williams-Goldstein, College Spokesperson, reached out to Sportskeeda to clarify the deletion of the social media post, stating that it was deleted by a peer who wanted to protect their teammate from insulting comments.
"Ramapo College supports all of our student athletes. As an affiliate member of the NCAA, Ramapo College Athletics follows all NCAA policies, including the NCAA Transgender Student-Athlete Participation Policy. The original social media post of Meghan’s achievement was deleted by a peer who wanted to protect their teammate from insulting comments on the post. The College continues to post team and individual student-athlete achievements for all programs on our Athletics website," Williams-Goldstein said in a statement.
