Olympic swimmer György criticizes Virginia governor for withdrawing female sports regulation

Réka György was seventeen places away from the NCAA Division I Women's Swimming and Diving Championships final in 2022 when the rulebook caught up with her. The Virginia Tech swimmer finished seventeenth in the preliminary round of the 500-yard freestyle—one spot short of advancing to the consolation final. Lia Thomas, a biological male who identifies as a transgender woman, qualified for the championship final and won the national title. György had devoted approximately eighteen years to competitive swimming. Her senior year in college, the year she was ready to retire from the sport, the year she had prepared everything she could muster for that single competition, ended with her watching from the stands.

That loss became the catalyst for György's turn toward advocacy. In April 2025, more than two years after the championship meet, she filed a petition alongside two other female swimmers—Lily Mullens and Carter Satterfield, both former Roanoke College swimmers—asking the Virginia Board of Health to adopt regulations preventing biological males from participating on female-only athletic teams or entering female-designated spaces where women and girls could be undressing. The board received more than 2,300 public comments on the proposal. In August 2025, the board voted unanimously, 14–0, to begin the regulatory process. The Youngkin administration approved a Notice of Intended Regulatory Action that November, moving the regulation forward.

Then, on July 30, 2026, after Abigail Spanberger took office as Virginia's governor, her administration withdrew the action. The withdrawal appeared quietly in the Virginia Register of Regulations without announcement from the governor's office. The official notice cited a review of statutory authority as the reason for abandonment. György learned of the decision only recently and expressed sharp disappointment. "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," she told OutKick. "I don't like to see that people are using their power, especially political power, to make decisions and hurt other people. And also, it's coming from a female."

György questioned why the Spanberger administration had not announced the withdrawal publicly. "I have a feeling that she's afraid of the backlash of people, what they're going to say or think," György said. "Other than that, I don't know what her motivation is." The Hungarian Olympian, who represented her country at the 2016 Rio Olympics and was a two-time ACC champion and two-time NCAA All-American, said she had not yet contacted the governor but planned to seek a conversation.

Her experience at the 2022 championship meet extended beyond the competitive result. György recalled sharing a women's locker room with Thomas during the meet. "You were in just constant fear," she said. "You had no idea when he was going to enter the locker room." She explained that putting on a high-level racing suit takes between fifteen and twenty-five minutes, preventing swimmers from changing quickly and leaving. "I was always looking behind my shoulder because I had no idea when my privacy was going to be robbed away," György said. "You try to cover yourself, which usually you don't do because you are surrounded by other females and you don't have that issue. But that competition was different."

The experience prompted György to become an outspoken advocate for sex-separated athletic competition and private spaces. She joined the petition effort after being contacted about the controversy involving Mullens, Satterfield, and the Roanoke College women's swimming team. In 2023, members of that team had objected when a transgender student sought to join the women's roster; the student later chose not to compete. György, who continues to live in Virginia, said she hopes Spanberger will reconsider. "I want to tell her that I hope she sees where I'm coming from," György said. "I hope she sees where other people are coming from when we are trying to protect little girls and females in sports and women-only spaces. Title IX was created for a reason. I really do hope that she is going to follow this rule, and she is going to stand up for women in Virginia."