Former collegiate runner Minna Svärd is demanding her “stolen” championship be returned years after placing second to a biological male in the 2019 NCAA Division II Women’s 400-meter hurdles.
“It’s time for us to speak up and actually tell people about how we feel and what we’ve been going through,” the track and field star said Wednesday on Fox News.
“Nothing about it is fair. It’s not okay that NCAA is allowing this to even go on. They absolutely need to be held accountable for what they are allowing female athletes to go through. It’s not fair.”
Speaking on “America’s Newsroom,” Svärd lamented that female athletes’ concerns have been ignored to “make other people feel better.”
CeCé Telfer, who placed first in the women’s championship, ranked 390th in men’s competition.
Telfer has been fighting to continue competing in track and field and hopes to make the Olympics despite being prohibited by World Athletics from competing in women’s world rankings competitions.
Telfer said last month that “anti-trans rhetoric has become louder” after President Donald Trump‘s election.
“I need some explanation as to why you want to completely eradicate us from society when we’ve done nothing wrong,” Telfer told CNN Sports.
Svärd reacted on Wednesday, arguing “no one” is trying to “eradicate” transgender athletes, and the only thing she and other women demand is “fairness.”
Svärd wrote about her experience in a Wall Street Journal op-ed published Monday, where she reflected on titles unjustly taken from biological women by male-born competitors and lauded Trump’s Feb. 5 executive order titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” for establishing “a clear policy protecting the integrity of female athletics.”
But that executive order came too late for women like Svärd. In her op-ed, the former East Texas A&M University athlete called for corrections to past injustices that she says deprived female athletes of titles they earned.
The NCAA’s new policy for athletes “assigned male at birth” states that biological males may not compete on the women’s team, but they “may practice on the team consistent with their gender identity and receive all other benefits applicable to student-athletes who are otherwise eligible for practice.”
An agency spokesperson told Fox News Digital last month that the governing body will not allow biological male athletes to compete in the women’s category based on changed birth certificates.
“The policy is clear that there are no waivers available, and athletes assigned male at birth may not compete on a women’s team with amended birth certificates or other forms of ID,” the spokesperson said.
Regarding trans athletes practicing on a women’s team, an NCAA spokesperson said the following:
“Male practice players have been a staple in college sports for decades, particularly in women’s basketball and the association will continue to account for that in the policy.”
Fox News’ Ryan Gaydos contributed to this report.
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