The Trump administration is taking action against the University of Pennsylvania for forcing female swimmers to compete against biological males.
The White House is reportedly halting $175 million in federal funding to the school over the matter, according to The Wall Street Journal.
A senior White House official said Penn permitted the athlete to compete in the team, overturning records won by women. It also gave the athlete access to the women’s locker room, the official said.
Neither the administration nor the school named the athlete. Lia Thomas, a transgender swimmer, competed on the women’s swimming team at Penn in 2022. That year, she became the first openly transgender athlete to win an NCAA Division I championship, winning the 500-yard freestyle. Thomas came out as transgender in the summer of 2019 and soon began hormone therapy.
During the 2024 campaign, Trump repeatedly promised to prevent educational institutions from compelling female athletes to face off against biological males. In February, he signed an executive order titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” which bans trans-identified males from participating in women’s sports in K-12 schools and colleges.
UPenn has a history of pushing progressive ideology in sports. Lia Thomas presents the most prominent example of the controversy over the matter, which played heavily into the 2024 presidential race.
Thomas garnered national criticism after he began competing in women’s swimming events. Several female athletes at the school spoke out against Thomas, arguing that he held an unfair advantage over them because he is male. They also complained about having to share locker rooms with him.
To recap, Thomas is a biological male who identifies as a “transgender woman.” He competed on the UPenn men’s swim team for three consecutive seasons before deciding to compete as a woman and go by “Lia.” Women were forced to share a locker room with Thomas and felt uncomfortable doing so, which Townhall covered. And, Thomas robbed women of opportunities and took home a Division I Title at the NCAA swimming championships.
One female athlete described the effect of having a man in their locker rooms.
Regarding the locker room situation, Scanlan said that the school never spoke to the girls to inform them that they would be sharing a locker room with a male. She shared that she tried to avoid Thomas and “change as fast as possible.”
“It [the locker room] was uncomfortable. I did notice a few girls – there’s a few bathroom stalls in the bathroom – and I did notice some girls changing in the bathroom stalls for practice, which I’ve never really seen that before,” Scanlan said. “For me personally, the biggest thing was, when you’re changing, there’s all these people talking in the background, all these women’s voices, and then all of a sudden you hear a man’s voice. I’d always kind of jump a little bit [hearing Thomas’ voice].”
A teammate of Lia Thomas appeared in What Is A Woman anonymously. A few days ago she came to us and said she is ready to come out publicly and tell her story. I had a longer conversation with Paula where she revealed a number of details that weren't covered in the film. Watch: pic.twitter.com/wlknGmslJC
— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) June 5, 2023
This development comes after the Trump administration used a similar tactic against Columbia University in New York. The White House stated it was withholding $400 million in funding for the institution because of its refusal to address the rise of antisemitism on its campus.
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