16 Penn Swim Team Members Ask School, Ivy League to Refrain From Litigation To Allow Lia Thomas To Race At NCAAs
Less than two days after several members of the University of Pennsylvania women’s swimming team released a letter in support of Lia Thomas, 16 team members and their families responded with a letter of their own. This letter, directed to the University of Pennsylvania and the Ivy League, requested that school and conference do not engage in litigation following USA Swimming’s release of its new transgender-inclusion policy.
The letter was sent to the University of Pennsylvania and the Ivy League by three-time Olympic champion Nancy Hogshead-Makar, who is the CEO of Champion Women. Hogshead-Makar has been a longtime advocate of women’s rights and has fought for equal opportunity for women’s athletes. During the Lia Thomas debate, Hogshead-Makar has repeatedly noted the unfair advantages of Thomas as a transgender woman when competing against biological females.
Given the fact that team members have released statements both supporting Thomas’ inclusion and USA Swimming’s decision, there is a fracture among members of the Penn squad concerning how the situation should be handled.
Here is the full letter, shared with Swimming World, which was sent to Penn and the Ivy League.
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To: The University of Pennsylvania and the Ivy League
From: Nancy Hogshead-Makar, J.D., CEO of Champion Women, on behalf of 16 Members of the Penn Women’s Swimming Team and Their Families
Date: February 3, 2022
Re: We Request that Penn and the Ivy League Do Not Engage in Litigation to Alter the NCAA’s New Eligibility Guidelines for Transgender Athletes
We, 16 members of the Penn Women’s Swimming Team and our family members, thank USA Swimming, for listening to our request to prioritize fairness for biological women in our elite competitions. We ask that Penn and the Ivy League support us as biological women, and not engage in legal action with the NCAA to challenge these new Athlete Inclusion Policies.
Tuesday, USA Swimming released new “Athlete Inclusion Procedures” shortly after the NCAA acknowledged that each sport should determine how fairness and inclusion were to be accomplished. In particular, we appreciate USAS Guideline’s guiding purpose, to ensure that transgender women competing in the Female competition category “do not have an unfair advantage over their cisgender Female competitors in Elite Events.” (USAS, page 42, #6 (a))
We fully support Lia Thomas in her decision to affirm her gender identity and to transition from a man to a woman. Lia has every right to live her life authentically.
However, we also recognize that when it comes to sports competition, that the biology of sex is a separate issue from someone’s gender identity. Biologically, Lia holds an unfair advantage over competition in the women’s category, as evidenced by her rankings that have bounced from #462 as a male to #1 as a female. If she were to be eligible to compete against us, she could now break Penn, Ivy, and NCAA Women’s Swimming records; feats she could never have done as a male athlete.
The Penn Women’s Swimming Team has over 40 women, but only 18 of us are chosen to compete in the end-of-year culmination of our work: the Ivy Championships. Most important to us is that Lia’s inclusion with unfair biological advantages means that we have lost competitive opportunities. Some of us have lost records. But even those that swim different events than Lia or were not in contention to make the Ivy Championships, we stand by our teammates who have lost out. It has often felt like Penn, our school, our league, and the NCAA did not support us.
We have dedicated our lives to swimming. Most of us started the same time Lia did, as pre-teens. We have trained up to 20 hours a week, swimming miles, running and lifting weights. To be sidelined or beaten by someone competing with the strength, height, and lung capacity advantages that can only come with male puberty has been exceedingly difficult.
We have been told that if we spoke out against her inclusion into women’s competitions, that we would be removed from the team or that we would never get a job offer. When media have tried to reach out to us, these journalists have been told that the coaches and athletes were prohibited from talking to them. We support Lia’s mental health, and we ask Penn and the Ivy League to support ours as well.
We hope that sport will adapt; that swimming will find a place for Lia to compete. Lia is always welcome to train with us; the men’s and women’s swimming teams have always trained together with the same head coach.
However, sport is competitive by definition, and Lia’s wins, records, and honors should not come at our expense, the women who have worked their entire lives to earn a spot on the Penn Women’s Swimming Team.
We just celebrated National Girls and Women in Sports Day. In honor of the Title IX pioneers who have worked so hard for women to have opportunities in sports and for educational opportunities for all women, we ask the University of Pennsylvania recognize the importance of providing fair competition and safe spaces for its biological female athletes. Further, we ask that Penn and the Ivy League refrain from suing the NCAA, or try to interfere with or weaken these new Athlete Inclusion Policies, that they be allowed to stand, so that we are able to finish our swimming season with distinction and pride.
I was a university swimmer.
Why should one man’s mind/ body disconnect be allowed to upend the lives of thousands of dedicated women athletes, as well as the rules of competition themselves?
Which other group gets to make their own rules?
Which other group successfully threatens suicide if they don’t get to compete with who they want to compete with?
This gender baloney is a men’s demands movement and it will not only destroy women’s sports, but the civil and human rights of every woman if it is not stopped.
<3
x1000
Penn is at fault heee and just this past week perpetuated a lie by pushing an article in the Philadelphia papers that was meant to give the impression that the team and all its members supported Lia…they are a disgrace and purposely put out a false narrative …happy these women stood up and confirmed what we all knew..Penn lied
100% concur #SexMatters #WomensSportsMatter
I grew up in a small town where swimming and ice skating were the only organized sports opportunities for girls in the 1970s. I swam for ten years at our local YMCA, and loved it.
I later married a college swimmer and our children swam in college – daughter, Division I (Ivy League) and son, Division III. Each child contributed to his or her team, and had meaningful experiences on the way to adulthood.
I have watched in disbelief as the saga of Lia Thomas has threatened to derail years of progress for women.
It is unconscionable and inherently unfair to allow Lia Thomas to compete against women. To do so undermines the last fifty years of ensuring an equal opportunity for women and threatens the entire purpose of Title IX.
Bologna
Absolutely!! I was a female competitive swimmer as well. This is setting women way back into the dark ages…Lia Thomas is simply taking advantage of the system…
Agree
Totally agree with Jill!
What satisfaction can he/she get from this? Lia is not so naïve as to not be aware of her overwhelming advantages. What does she say to herself when in a sport that is often determined by tens of a second, she wins by 36 seconds? If she is so determined, why did she not stay in the mens team? I think we ALL know the answer. This is someone who is not only exploiting the system, but playing with everyone’s irrational fear of being called transphobic. Shame on both Penn and the NCAA for allowing this travesty to continue
The satisfaction is explained in two words, or perhaps four.
Gender Euphoria.
Narcissistic Supply.
Amen
Exactly. Lia is an ethics nightmare.
He seems like a narcissist. When the team traveled they were told not to wear their Penn swimming gear and everyone complied except Lia. He also conspired to lose to a female to male trans competitor in a meet recently. Should have been kicked off the team for that but that won’t happen.
here here
question is, how is this even debatable?
Too true mate, they’re doing the same in Australia.
Absolutely!!
DO YOU LIA! JUST NOT IN FEMALE SPORTING EVENTS. IT’S NOT FAIR. GOD SPEED
Agree!!
Thank you! Well stated!
There’s only so far gender ideology can go. I only hope the end result is greater autonomy for members of the female sex. We are are being forced to play pretend- it’s gotta end!!!! If males identified with women instead of as women they’d know how misogynist gender dogma is!
You would be talking about the trans community not men . We have long known men and women should not and cannot compete on the same level physically. That’s why men are just laughing because the reverse will not happen to mens sports . A woman who thinks she a man will never come in and destroy all our records. It’s evolution but women are making crazy progress in the last 50 years except in one category. Financially supporting womens sports . I don’t know what it is and any of my reasons will seem sexist but here we go . Too many women want men to pay . Pay for tickets, drinks , jerseys they never wear etc and then we get told all you care about is sports . Well if women don’t care enough about sports to invest in womens teams what do you think will happen? Do men rely on women to keep their sports alive ? No . Go after the trans community men didn’t make this mess we can’t say anything or risk getting canceled or metooed
Do men make more money than women? Are male sports supported and subsidized more than women’s? Women’s sports pulls in tons of money, but it does’t trickle down to the athletes.
Yes. Well said.
Absolutely perfect response. Thank you for so eloquently voicing the feelings of thousands! This is about equity, plain and simple. It has nothing to do with hate, and we must refuse to be bullied into conceding to the absurd accusations that it does. The public statement issued by Penn earlier this week was incredibly suspect, and I am so proud of the athletes and families that responded.
So well said. As a former swimmer and mom of female swimmers, thank you for speaking up.
This is just the latest instance of males making demands of females and females being expected to give in with grace. Transgender women are women, but as we’ve been told, not all women are female. Female athletes should compete against female athletes and male athletes can budge over and make room for inclusion.
What is wrong with these people who think that a man can “transition” into a woman? He cannot and should never be allowed to compete against women.
This is a difficult situation for both sides and I’m confident it will be resolved. What I find more concerning is there are 16 women at the University of Pennsylvania who are in fear for their future for not accepting the “PC” narrative and speaking out. Fear for their place on the team? In fear for their careers? That should be unacceptable to everyone Regardless of which side of the trans swimmer debate you’re on.
I hope we can all agree it’s ok to have differing opinions and allowing the “mob” to intentionally destroy the life of a 18-22 year old woman is unacceptable.
I can guarantee you one thing. Every one of those 16 women have higher levels of testosterone levels in their body than I. Probably 10-15 times as much.
Keep telling yourself that.
And did it get rid of the “equipment” dangling between your legs? No, it did not. Did it cause you to shrink in stature? Decrease the volume of your rib cage? Your shoulder breadth, your arm and leg length? No, no, no, and no. You were born as a male, developed as a male, still are a male, and still will be a male regardless of your testosterone level. If dropping the testosterone level changed a male to a female, why are you all crying out that the public should pay for all your surgeries? What would you even need surgery for, if the hormone dosages take care of all of it?
“Ms T”, as in Lia Thomas? May I ask you a question related to your training?
What new training technique did you discover that allowed you to jump from #462 to #1? It must be something really special!
Prove it
That is a load of rubbish and the fact you have made such a flippant comment like that shows you have no place in this debate
You absolutely can not guarantee that. This man has a man body, man cardiovascular system, and a very unfair advantage.
Women should not suffer and have their rights taken away so a man with mental health issues can feel better about himself.
Ms T, You are living in a fantasy world.
Women aren’t a hormone level.
@kris, no, it’s not difficult. He’s a man. He has no business being on the women’s team.
Thank you! So, so true!
This is not difficult at all. “She” is a biological male and should not be allowed to compete against biological women. “She” has an unfair advantage because of “her” biology. Its completely absurd that this is even a question. The misogyny is rife in this one.
Kris. It’s not a mob..itschanging the rules for one person. These girls have worked hard their whole lives to get to this point. Everyone wishes her well , but swimming in a women’s sport is unfair.
According to one of the girls on the team, who gave an interview about it, he’s exposing himself in the girls’ locker room, so no, I don’t wish a flasher well.
If your daughter were on the team would you want her to be forced to see a man’s male genitalia in order to use her own locker room?
Laws are being changed, in the US and all over the world, to allow any man, OR ANY GROUP OF MEN, to self-identify as women and access women’s locker rooms.
What happened to women (and children’s) privacy, dignity and safety?
Why should women be forced to expose our naked bodies to a man, simply because he claims to be a woman, in order to participate in athletics?
Well written letter, I especially appreciate that the authors address the gag order placed on them with regards to the subject. Unfair competition is bad enough, censorship of speech on top of it is outright unconstitutional.
Support women in sport. We deserve to have fair competition and feel empowered to be the best we can be, as women. There is no reason to pretend that a man can become a woman, and this is incredibly unfair to biological female athletes. Our rights cannot be erased for the benefit of men!
It has and always must be sex not gender
Bodies swim gender does not
You can not change sex no matter the drugs you take or the body parts you add or remove.
No man should ever be allowed in women’s sports no matter how he identifies or what level of testosterone he claims to have. All pf those tests can be beat by dosing on estrogen. It’s absurd that women are being forced to put up with this for a delusional male. Get men out of women’s sports. No man who has or hasn’t undergone puberty should be there.
This is how it begins. Female erasure is only getting worse and I am terrified for the future of women in sport and women’s rights generally.
I will not watch USA swimming or the Olympics if they allow transgender to compete against these women that work hard for years to be the best woman they can be.
We are working hard to build a perfect world in which all human beings are equal in every way. If we have to crack a few eggs to create this perfect world, so be it.
This is not difficult at all. “She” is a biological male and should not be allowed to compete against biological women. “She” has an unfair advantage because of “her” biology. Its completely absurd that this is even a question. The misogyny is rife in this one.
Complete equality is not possible because males and females are very different beings and to act like that isnt so is living in dreamland. Can I carry 200 pounds? No and I never will but many men can. Try to make that equal, you cant. This Lucefarian idea that we can all be equal and men and women are the same, Ill just identify out of my own biology, have a doctor play God, is just lunacy. Its the celebration of mental illness which pharmaceutical companies benefit from by putting you on meds for life. Ban all males from female sports.
Thank you! Well stated!
There is no perfect world and there will never be a perfect world because we are human beings. No human being is perfect so you might be waiting a long time for that As for Trans females in women’s sports is outlandish and unfair. “She” is a male no matter what “She” is physically a male.
“Crack a few eggs?” You mean run roughshod over the rights, freedom, safety, and lives of females in order to appease the feelings of males.
It is simple and medically sound. If you were born a male you are a male and will remain a male. Transgender swimmers and other sport figures will ruin Female sports. If this is truly necessary then create a third category for the transgender individuals to complete against others like themselves. It is not right for our hard working female athletes to have to complete against them.
This is a sad situation for us all, biologically speaking this is unfair period. Just look at the transperson who is in mma, that person broke a women’s jaw! Why would anyone let this happen, how long before a woman dies at the hands a of a transwoman?! We can have competition but let them compete amongst themselves. Truth be told… God is not mocked and not amused.
The transperson in question calls himself Fallon Fox, and he shattered a woman’s skull during a competition. Also look up the gigantic, hulking “Hannah” Mouncey, the rugby player who is exceptionally large and strong even for a man, and broke a woman’s leg during play. He had no qualms about it and continued to participate in the women’s team with zero concern for any woman’s safety until he was finally removed. A woman getting killed by being forced to compete against one of these delusional men is a matter of WHEN, not IF.
Bingo!
That there are only 26 comments on here so far is kind of sad, and sort of speaks to the whole matter. Most people have no idea about what’s going on, or even care.
It seems as though these girls have been failed at every level, coach, university, NCAA, IOC and media with the exception of some protesters. It’s pathetic and extremely unfair as the window of athletic eligibility is limited and I suspect this has detracted from their experience. No one is evidently taking into account the fact that elite athletes of both genders are at risk, i.e. Madison Holleran. As individuals, our right to do as we choose is limited by its effects on others. Female athletes have endured too much and worked too long to have to suffer this indignity.
As a former men’s collegiate swimmer and a lover of the sport I am appalled that this is even an issue. It should have never been allowed from day one. For people that may read this and do not come from an athletic background look at it this way. Many people spend their entire lives doing something they love and are good at to hopefully one day get to a level in which they have an opportunity to swim at a high level and possibly get a scholarship. Without this scholarship a good portion would never be able to even go to college. Now you have someone with a distinct advantage taking the spot and or money of someone whose life is drastically changed to an unfair biological advantage.
What would you do if it were your daughter missing out?
Penn does not have athletic scholarships or academic scholarships, so in this case your scholarship argument does not apply. But I agree that Lia swimming on the women’s team gives her an unfair advantage. Obviously she did not transition because she wanted to win races. She swims because she loves the sport and has been swimming her whole life. Trans persons should not face discrimination in any part of their lives, but I don’t see any logic in her competing against those who were born female.
These girls do compete to earn scholarships. This is from the Penn State website:
At Penn State, athletes are awarded private donor endowed or annually funded scholarships that provide their ‘Athletic Grant-in-Aid. … The minimum endowment level for an Award is $20,000.
It’s University of Pennsylvania, not Penn State
Glad these young ladies have stood up for themselves. This has gotten way out of hand.
How is a man a “she” – honest question?
A man claims some completely unverifiable, ineffable feeling of being a woman in his head (and what does that mean?), and, rather than tell him, very kindly, to seek professional help, we all suddenly not only have to take him seriously, but destroy women’s rights, women’s privacy & safety, and women’s sports.
These young women swimmers are being threatened and called “bigots” by their schools, by society, by corporations, by the government, and by gender activists, simply for standing up for themselves and their rights (and science and reality) against men who claim to be women, with, again, no way to prove it.
Madness. Orwellian madness.
This is a War on Women. And a War on Reality.
You said it well!
Why don’t we see biological women who take testosterone competing (to transition) in men’s sport and winning competitions and scholarships? Oh. Right. They wouldn’t win. In a few decades we’re going to look upon transgender surgery with the scorn we have for past lobotomies.
You can’t change the chromosome you were born with no matter how much estrogen or testerone you put in one’s body. The transgenders need a league of their own.
You cannot change the chromosome you were born with no matter how much estrogen or testosterone you put in one’s body to change it. I believe in all fairness. Why do real women have to be overlooked and fail at the sake of transgenders? Give them a league of their own.
DO YOU LIA! JUST NOT IN FEMALE SPORTING EVENTS. IT’S NOT FAIR. GOD SPEED
Does anyone know if organizations like the NCAA, USA Swimming, FINA, IOC, etc. allow female-to-male transgender athletes to boost their testosterone levels? And if so, what are the parameters?
Biologically born males should not compete w females no matter what they have done to their bodies. They simply are not the same. Allowed to persist could eventually end woman’s sports.
If all of this is true, shouldn’t the UPenn team be made to vacate any meet points, championships, and records attributed to Lia Thomas? And, in the sports where female athletes displaced men in mens sports, (ball players, wrestlers, kickers), cancel the same. Equality is supposed to be a two-way street. The narrative says women can do anything men can do.
“The narrative” is as ephemeral as gender, it seems. Humans have different strengths in all areas. The narrative has an agenda that attempts to force an over-riding of individual strengths to serve a specific group. We can’t make blanket decisions over all occupations, because different occupations require different strengths.
Who really knows, in this narcissistic society and I want to win at all costs…….possibly the entire reason and motivation for Lia to become transgender was to “WIN”. It does not take a male genius to look at his lap and event times and then compare that to the women’s times in the same events and realize that he would be setting world records and “winning”, even if it came at a high price. Who really knows what was in his head, but regardless, this should have never been allowed to happen and shows the lack of commons sense and myopic vision of our institutions of higher education.
You can’t change the chromosome you were born with no matter how much estrogen or testerone you put in one’s body. Biologically born males should not compete w females no matter what they have done to their bodies. They simply are not the same. Allowed to persist could eventually end woman’s sports.
The transgenders need a league of their own.
Exactly! But notice how willing the rules bodies and universities are to crush women’s rights to fail competition. SOS
I swam on a university men’s team that was later dropped due to Title IX’s goal of increasing women athletes’ opportunities to a parity with men’s. The NCAA has now cruelly inverted Title IX’s supportive status of biological female athletes by permitting transgender women to compete against biological females. Tragically, the biological female athletes are losing back more than the decades of hard-fought gains that they made under Title IX: When men’s and women’s teams were separate, at least the women’s records came from their female ranks, whereas now their records may come from former male athletes and their unfair physical advantages. For example, the Penn women’s team records in fully four of the fourteen NCAA-recognized swimming events have been broken within weeks by a former male swimmer. No longer will biological female’s swim records in those events grace the walls of the Penn natatorium. I can’t reconcile this with the so-called “fairness” that Penn and the NCAA falsely preach. Fair to whom? This certainly isn’t fair to the athletes that the NCAA formerly protected and supported.
I am so mad. I am a centrist American democrat. I have watched the transgender movement hijack my party until they are the face of the party. If you want to do all that to yourself, fine- if it harms no other, do what you will. In this case Lia Thomas competing in Women’s Swimming is insanity. What did he think climbing out of the pool after winning by 38 seconds? Shame on him and the transgender community for forcing themselves on the rest of us.
If you want to “transition”, fine, great. But compete in your biological gender’s sport.
Exactly! I cannot believe how misogynist the democratic party has become. This is purely insane. I don’t care what Lia wants to wear or be named, etc but Lia is not allowed to stomp on every woman’s right to fair competition, privacy, & safety! In a world that scorned Lance Armstrong (as just one example) for unfair competiton, HOW can people any athletic organization be considering this as fair play. I will NOT waiver on this as I continue to fight for biological women’s rights & progress!
Thank you, women truly appreciate your support on this issue, as women are all supposed to cheerfully applaud these mentally ill men in frocks as they gleefully take EVERYTHING from us for their own gratification.
You absolutely can not guarantee that. This man has a man body, man cardiovascular system, and a very unfair advantage.
Women should not suffer and have their rights taken away so a man with mental health issues can feel better about himself.
I’m Margaret Thatcher
How does this all end when She/He is endorsed sponsored squashed records awarded medals and had the honor to represent the country. Then retires from the sport only to come out of the closet and renounce being a woman and again live as a man because his ideology has changed again.
This is the worst case of opportunitistic Capitalism and soon we will sit in the stand and watch the males and coed swimmers all the while the females will be sidelined as non binary ex sport persons discarded again to an era where they have no value.
This is a Government social issue that needs to be addressed in law. The sports have been placed into a tactical minefield of equity diversity discrimination and a war that cannot be one. All the while our political parties sit quietly on the sideline and allow women to become less valued than a biological male who thinks the are female.
Challenge your political parties to do what is right. Transgenders deserve their space in sport but not at the expense of biological females.
Hugely proud of these young women for speaking up in the only way they could – anonymously. It is insane, appalling, and so frightening, that we as a society are destroying sex-based rights, protections, and the rights, liberty, and lives of female humans for the sake of male feelings. We fought for decades for womens sex-based protections in sports, and they are simply being erased. And these women who are directly affected right now can’t even say anything for fear of losing their community and due to the threat (!!) of losing their place and future job prospects. Truly dystopian. They are brave indeed, though I fear their voices will be drowned out by those who claim to speak for women and instead seek to harm us. I fear for my daughters.
This has got to stop. Save women’s sports. Transwomen aren’t women.
correction : University of Pennsylvania
I know I’m gonna get a Tonna hate for this . I don’t know why anyone isn’t asking one question. In my opinion There is something wrong with Lia do you only care about herself and no one else because if she did care for anyone else she wouldn’t do this. Athletes are super competitive athletes have done some crazy things . What if Lia is only doing this to win and after college plans to become a guy again and I’m only asking because of how short of a period she just started taking the hormone drugs and hasn’t even had the surgery yet. Athletes have done crazier things than that to win. I also sing by staying in the same school just shows there’s something wrong I mean you just move over from the men’s team to the women’s team when will people know you