Penn swimmer slams school's handling of Lia Thomas saga: 'They don't actually care about women at all'

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EXCLUSIVE: A swimmer on the University of Pennsylvania women’s team says she feels the school’s decision to allow transgender swimmer Lia Thomas to compete has created an unfair balance within the sport that prioritizes Thomas' rights over that of biological female student-athletes.

The student, who spoke to Fox News Digital on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retribution, said she was "hopeful" after learning of the NCAA’s decision last week to update its policy of allowing transgender athletes to compete based on hormone levels. 

LIA THOMAS’ TEAMMATES REALIZING ‘THEY WILL NEVER, EVER BE ABLE TO BEAT THIS PERSON,’ PENN SWIMMER’S DAD SAYS 

"I'm a little bit more hopeful because I think that, at least as swimmers, we kind of realize that it's not just testosterone levels," she told Fox News. "It's testosterone levels from the last 20 years and how that affected, you know, the fact that [Thomas] went through male puberty and the way that built her heart and lungs and her hands and the way she circulates blood and the lactic acid and all that stuff." 

"Stuff that – it's not just the difference between two girls and how one might have slightly larger lungs and that gives them a slight advantage," she continued, "These are monumental advantages that biological males just develop through puberty, and it's not something that a year of [hormone treatments] can suppress because they still have all the muscle mass they had from the last 20 years."

The new approach to allowing transgender athletes to compete will follow a sport-by-sport model similarly adopted by the U.S. and International Olympic committees. The new NCAA policy, which takes