Ex-Roanoke swimmer speaks out towards Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger for axing ladies’s sports activities safety

Former Roanoke College swimmer Lily Mullens, who helped lead a public stand towards a transgender athlete becoming a member of her ladies’s staff, is talking out after Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s administration withdrew a proposed regulation meant to guard female-only sports activities and personal areas.

Mullens was considered one of three feminine swimmers who formally petitioned the Virginia State Board of Health to enact the regulation, together with Hungarian Olympian Réka György and former Roanoke teammate Carter Satterfield.

“Up until recently, due to Governor Youngkin’s leadership, which was founded in truth, Virginia was making tremendous strides toward finally doing the right thing and protecting females by keeping men out of women’s sports and spaces for good. However, under the new ‘leadership’ of Governor Spanberger, that progress has come to a screeching halt,” Mullens informed OutKick.

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“By failing to be open with the public about her decision months ago, she is signaling to the people of Virginia that she does not care about the female athletes in this state and she is aware that she is going against what the people want. As a woman herself, I had hoped that she would understand the importance of this issue and the petition I signed a year ago, but I have been proven wrong.

“As I proceed to examine this failure and take into consideration the present state of Virginia, I discover myself questioning what sort of chief Spanberger desires to be. As somebody with private expertise of what this example can do to a staff, a program, a faculty, or any individual concerned, I need to ask her why she would select to be the kind of chief who cowers to gender ideology. The sort of chief whom folks depend upon, solely to be let down. The sort of chief who permits ladies to really feel insufficient and defeated, as my teammates and I as soon as did.

“The truth is, and always will be, that men and women are biologically different. Virginia had a leader who understood this fact and did everything he could to protect women. I am saddened and disappointed to see such hard work thrown away, especially by a woman.”

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Mullens and a number of other Roanoke College teammates attracted nationwide consideration in 2023 after they objected to a transgender scholar becoming a member of the ladies’s swimming staff. The transgender swimmer finally withdrew from consideration earlier than competing for the staff.

Mullens, Satterfield and György later filed a petition asking the Virginia Board of Health to forestall organic males from taking part on organized female-only athletic groups and coming into female-designated areas during which ladies and ladies could also be undressing.

The petition was filed in April 2025 and obtained greater than 2,300 public feedback. In August 2025, the Board of Health voted 14–0 to provoke a regulatory change.

The Youngkin administration subsequently permitted a Notice of Intended Regulatory Action to start growing the regulation. The discover was revealed in November 2025 and obtained one other 321 public feedback earlier than the remark interval led to December.

However, the State Board of Health withdrew the regulatory motion on July 30, roughly six months after Spanberger succeeded Youngkin as governor. The administration didn’t subject a information launch saying the choice on the time.

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“Upon review of statutory authority, the State Board of Health is not proceeding with this regulatory action,” the official discover acknowledged.

György has additionally criticized the administration’s resolution.

“It’s really sad for me because I had the petition filed a year ago, and Youngkin approved it and wanted to take the next step and protect female athletes and female spaces in Virginia,” György stated.

György competed towards transgender swimmer Lia Thomas on the 2022 NCAA Division I Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships. The Virginia Tech swimmer completed seventeenth within the preliminary spherical of the 500-yard freestyle, one place exterior the 16-swimmer finals discipline. Thomas superior and went on to win the nationwide championship.

György stated the expertise of competing towards Thomas and sharing a ladies’s locker room with the transgender swimmer motivated her to advocate for sex-separated sports activities and personal areas.

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During her 2025 gubernatorial marketing campaign, Spanberger stated Virginia beforehand had an efficient course of that allowed mother and father, faculties, principals and coaches to judge transgender athletes’ participation individually. She stated selections ought to account for elements together with a scholar’s age, the game and the extent of competitors.

Spanberger’s workplace has not responded to a request for remark.