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A transgender swimmer at a college in New Jersey broke a women’s school record after having competed with the men’s team for the previous three years.
Meghan Cortez-Fields took first place and broke the Ramapo College school record in the 100-yard butterfly with a time of 57.22 at a meet this past weekend. She also finished first in the 200-yard individual medley and was second in the 200-yard butterfly.
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Cortez-Fields had competed on the men’s team at the school for the previous three years before transitioning for this season.
The school’s swim team congratulated Cortez-Fields on Instagram, but deleted the post after former NCAA swimmer-turned-activist Riley Gaines drew attention to meet results on X (formerly known as Twitter).
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“Those who choose to remain blind to the injustice of allowing mediocre male athletes to become record-breaking female athletes are either incompetent or misogynists. There is no in between anymore,” Gaines said in an interview with Fox News. “Women are being asked to smile and step aside and allow these men onto our teams all the while stripping us of opportunities, privacy and safety.”
Gaines, who previously faced a trans competitor herself, is an ambassador for the Independent Women’s Forum — an American conservative, non-profit organization focused on economic policy issues of concern to women.
“The incident at Ramapo College shouldn’t be a shock to anyone considering we’ve seen virtually the same story time and time again with no people in leadership positions willing to take a stand for women,” Gaines added.
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The college responded to Fox News, saying that the school “supports all of our student athletes.”
“The original post of Meghan’s achievement was deleted by a peer who wanted to protect their teammate from insulting comments on the post,” the school spokesperson said. “The College continues to post team and individual student-athlete achievements for all programs on our Athletics website.”
Last year, Cortez-Fields told The Ramapo News that she admired Lia Thomas, the trans University of Pennsylvania swimmer who controversially won an NCAA Championship in 2022.
Cortez-Fields said at the time that 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.”
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Originally posted 2023-11-21 17:44:11.
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