Following a Feb. 11 ruling from the NCAA, Penn swimmer Lia Thomas, a transgender woman, will be able to compete at the NCAA’s women’s swimming championship next month, overruling a USA Swimming policy that required stricter hormone level regulations for transgender athletes.
If adopted by the NCAA, USA Swimming’s policy could have prevented Thomas from competing in the Ivy League swimming championships, which began Feb. 16 and will continue until Feb. 19.
Thomas became the subject of controversy after registering top times in multiple events over the course of the swim season. Thomas had previously competed for Penn’s men’s swim team before coming out and transitioning.
Thomas had followed protocols to ensure her eligibility to compete in the women’s division, according to a fact sheet from LGBTQ+ advocacy group GLAAD, including undergoing over two years of hormone therapy and maintaining her testosterone levels below NCAA maximum thresholds.
On Feb. 1, USA Swimming announced in a press release that it would change its rules on the participation of transgender athletes, lowering the maximum allowable testostorone threshold. The organization also increased the period for which athletes had to maintain those lowered levels from 12 to 36 months.
The body’s changes came late in the NCAA swim season, which begins in September and ends in March. While USA Swimming is the national governing body for the sport of swimming in the United States, it does not govern collegiate swimming, which is instead under the jurisdiction of the NCAA.
The NCAA changed its transgender participation rules in early January to align all regulatory policies with the national governing bodies of individual sports. After USA Swimming announced its new policy, calls came from advocacy groups including GLAAD asking the NCAA not to revert to USA Swimming’s stricter policy change. Both the Ivy League and Penn swimming affirmed their support for Thomas’s participation.
But in an open letter distributed to media outlets by Champion Women, a nonprofit legal advocacy organization for women in sports, 16 of Thomas’s teammates at Penn anonymously asked Penn and the Ivy League not to engage in legal action that would challenge the policy and allow Thomas to compete.
“Biologically, Lia holds an unfair advantage over competition in the women’s category,” the letter read. “Most important to us is that Lia’s inclusion with unfair biological advantages means that we have lost competitive opportunities.”
“It was really, really frustrating to hear” about the letter, said Claire Pisani ’23, a member of the Brown women’s water polo team. “The fact that this is a (part) of her team banding against her — I can’t even wrap my head around it.”
Pisani explained that, while she didn’t know members of the Penn team personally, Thomas’s story felt close to home given that they had been at some of the same meets and competed with a similar community of swimmers. Thomas has even competed at Brown’s own pool, Pisani said.
“If this is a team right at UPenn — which is probably a pretty liberal university — that’s treating one of their teammates that way, I think it makes me a little scared,” Pisani said. “I worry for younger, queer athletes who are just coming to college and hearing this.”
The signers of the anonymous letter also stated that they made their comments “in honor of the Title IX pioneers who have worked so hard for women to have opportunities in sports.” But whether or not Thomas’s case is protected under Title IX remains to be seen, according to Ebony Manning, Brown’s Title IX coordinator.
“The legal question of whether the term ‘sex’ in Title IX and for purposes of how equal protection principles are applied is to be interpreted as biological gender or gender identity will depend on how the courts resolve this issue,” Manning wrote in an email to The Herald. “We understand that regulations and policies are constantly evolving and will continue to monitor these changes as they take effect.”
Penn Athletics and the University of Pennsylvania did not respond to requests for comment from The Herald.
Still, despite her 16 teammates opposing Thomas’s participation, over 300 NCAA, Team USA and Olympic swimmers signed a letter indicating their support for her right to compete. Among the signees were a number of current and former Penn athletes.
The letter said that “all transgender college athletes … deserve to be able to participate in a safe and welcoming environment.”
Ultimately, the NCAA decided to part from USA Swimming’s regulations and not change its guidelines, clearing the way for Thomas to compete at the final few meets of the season, according to reporting from The Philadelphia Inquirer.
The NCAA’s uncertain policy with regards to transgender athletes is a setback for the LGBTQ+ athlete community, according to Joanna Hoffman, director of communications for Athlete Ally, an LGBTQ+ advocacy organization working to create inclusive spaces in sports for LGBTQ+ athletes, according to its website.
“We are deeply concerned with the way in which political pressure prompted the NCAA to change its decade-long policy midseason,” Hoffman wrote in an email to The Herald regarding the NCAA’s initial decision to align transgender inclusion policies with those of sports’ national governing bodies.
In an email to The Herald, Barbara Simon, head of news and campaigns at GLAAD, wrote that Thomas’s case is part of a broader trend of rules and regulations limiting participation of transgender athletes. This year so far, she wrote, at least 170 bills targeting the LGBTQ+ community have been introduced in state legislatures nationwide. At least 43 of those bills have attempted to ban or restrict the participation of trans children in sports, she added.
“A transgender child is doubly targeted — not only might their participation in school sports be in jeopardy, healthcare to affirm their eligibility may also be unavailable,” wrote Simon. “These are attacks on vulnerable children who just want to belong, play with their friends and be themselves.”
