A renowned former North Carolina State University swimmer blasted NCAA league policies over biological men being allowed to compete in women's sports after she addressed lawmakers on the divisive issue.
Kylee Alons, considered the most decorated swimmer in the university's history, told Fox News Digital she felt "powerless" after being forced to compete against and change in locker room with a biological man.
"That’s really how I felt throughout this whole thing," Alons said after meeting last week with House lawmakers who passed the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act, which would ban athletic programs from allowing individuals whose biological sex at birth was male to participate in programs that are for women or girls.
"I felt like they had made a decision, and they had power over everyone and accountability from no one," she added. "So I felt powerless to even speak out about my feelings, even though I knew that there were so many girls in my corner. Sadly the support from the NCAA wasn't there to help me share my voice."
Alons, a 31-time All American, 2-time NCAA National Champion and 5-time ACC Champion competed in 2022 against transgender star athlete Lia Thomas. Alons said she felt so "violated" and "unsafe" changing in front of Thomas in a locker room. Alons changed in a utility closet.
"I have been a competitive swimmer for probably about 15 years, and the past 10 years of that has been, a majority of my time has been swimming," Alons said. "I have sacrificed a lot of social outings. I’ve sacrifice vacations in order to be able to swim and get to the level that I was at."
"I was able to reach so many of the goals that I set for myself in high school in college as I continued to improve… I was able to be at the most prestigious meet in collegiate swimming," Alons explained.
Alons said the preparation leading up to that meet was "very intense…I’m talking five plus hours a day of swimming," noting that training took place year-round, not just during the swimming season.
"When I was at the meet, I tried to use my usual preparation. I like to focus completely on my one race that I have to perform, sometimes two if I’m in a relay. And athletes need to be in the zone, they need to be locked in," she said.
"And what I experienced at the 2022 NCAAs was that I was all I was having I was having an added level of stress and uncomfortableness when I was going to the locker to change before my races," she recalled.
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"And I had this because I knew that at any moment a biological man could walk in and see me naked changing into my swimsuit," Alons said.
"At first I just tried to cover myself mostly with my parka or my towel to avoid the amount of me that was exposed. But after even a couple times, I needed to find a different way. And I resorted to changing in a storage closet that was right behind my team’s bleachers."
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Alons is now an ambassador for the activist group Young Women for America, one of the leaders in pushing for individual states to pass similar legislation passed by House Republicans earlier this year in Washington, D.C.
Alons says voices of female athletes need to be heard, "because right now we are being silenced by the NCAA."
"What the NCAA is doing currently by allowing men to compete in women's sport is completely eradicating the purpose that was behind Title IX, she said. "And it makes me sad to think that we're back to the position that I feel that we were in 50 years ago, where we were having to fight just to be able to have fair competition and have our right to privacy."
Alons, who graduated this year, said she is asking that the NCAA apologize to her and other women at the meet who felt their right to privacy and safety was violated.
"They need to revise these policies," she said.
