University of Pennsylvania erases records set by trans swimmer as part of resolution to civil rights investigation.
A top university in the United States has agreed to bar transgender athletes from women’s sports and erase records set by a prominent trans swimmer following pressure from the administration of President Donald Trump.
The University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) and the US Department of Education on Tuesday announced the agreement to resolve a federal civil rights investigation focused on transgender swimmer Lia Thomas.
Thomas, who was born male and came out as a trans woman in 2018, won a National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I title in 2022, becoming the first trans athlete to accomplish the feat.
Thomas, who began hormone replacement therapy in 2019 as part of the transition from male to female, also set UPenn records in five women’s events, including the 100-metre and 500-metre freestyle competitions.
Thomas’s accomplishments became a focal point in the debate about fairness in sport, with LGBTQ campaigners hailing the swimmer’s participation as a victory for inclusion and critics, including some of Thomas’s teammates, casting it as an attack on women’s rights.
Larry Jameson, UPenn’s president, said in a statement that the university recognised that some student athletes had been disadvantaged by the NCAA eligibility rules that had been in place at the time of Thomas’s participation.
The NCAA changed its eligibility rules to limit participation in women’s events to female-born athletes in March, following Trump’s executive order denying funding to educational institutions that allow trans girls and women to compete.
“We recognize this and will apologize to those who experienced a competitive disadvantage or experienced anxiety because of the policies in effect at the time,” Jameson said.
“We will review and update the Penn women’s swimming records set during that season to indicate who would now hold the records under current eligibility guidelines.”
UPenn later on Tuesday removed Thomas from its website’s list of “All-Time School Records”, and added a note stating that Thomas set records during the 2021-22 season under “eligibility rules in effect at the time”.
UPenn’s move comes after the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights in April announced that it had determined the university to have violated Title IX by “permitting males to compete in women’s intercollegiate athletics and to occupy women-only intimate facilities”.
US Education Secretary Linda McMahon called the agreement a “great victory for women and girls”.
“The Department commends UPenn for rectifying its past harms against women and girls, and we will continue to fight relentlessly to restore Title IX’s proper application and enforce it to the fullest extent of the law,” McMahon said in a statement.
Human Rights Campaign and GLAAD, two of the biggest LGBTQ advocacy organisations in the US, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
UPenn’s announcement is the latest in a series of moves to limit trans people’s participation in sport in the US and elsewhere since Trump returned to the White House in January.
In March, World Athletics said it would require participants in women’s events to undergo DNA testing to prove their biological sex.
Opinion polls have pointed to growing public opposition to trans women and girls competing against female-born athletes.
In a New York Times/Ipsos poll published in January, 79 percent of Americans said that trans women should be barred from female sports, up from 62 percent in 2021.
