Team USA athlete says she was told to keep her 'mouth shut' about competing against trans athlete

Cynthia and Margaret Monteleone argue fairness is needed

FIRST ON FOX: Team USA World Masters track athlete Cynthia Monteleone said she was advised to keep quiet after she raised concerns over a fair playing field when competing against transgender athletes.

"Words can’t describe how I felt walking up to that starting line in Spain next to a biological male-bodied athlete," Monteleone told Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenns., in an interview first obtained by Fox News ahead of National Girls and Women in Sports Day. 

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Senator Marsha Blackburn, R-Tennessee., speaks during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. (Tom Williams/Pool via REUTERS)

The track athlete faced her first encounter in competing against a biologically born male during the 2018 World Masters Athletics Championships in Málaga, Spain, when she ran against Yanelle Del Mar Zape, a transgender athlete from Colombia in a 400-meter race. 

Monteleone asked officials on the field why there was a "male-bodied athlete" in her meet. 

"The European officials were actually very sympathetic, and they stopped the meet," she described. The track star said the officials conferred with one another but then advised her that she needed to address her concerns with Team USA after the meet.  

Monteleone beat Zape by a few tenths of a second, but immediately following the race she approached Team USA Track and Field to express her concerns.

"They told me: ‘For your own safety you should probably keep your mouth shut’," she told the senator in her Facebook Live show, "Unmuted with Martha." 

The track athlete questioned the "psychological trauma" that cisgender female competitors — females who