Earlier this year, Townhall reported how “transgender” swimmer Will “Lia” Thomas had been engaged in a “secret” legal battle in hopes of overturning a rule established by World Aquatics prohibiting males who think they’re “transgender” from competing against women. Previously, Thomas robbed women of awards and made women feel uncomfortable in their locker room when he joined the women’s swim team at the University of Pennsylvania, after he competed as a man for three years.
Athletes like former University of Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines were forced to compete against Thomas in the women’s division. Gaines, as Townhall covered, tied against Thomas at the NCAA championships. After taking photos, Thomas was permitted to take the trophy home while Gaines left empty handed.
Now, Gaines, and many other athletes, are suing the NCAA over its policies that permit athletes like Thomas to compete against women. The lawsuit, filed Thursday by more than a dozen former and current college athletes, sued the NCAA, the University System of Georgia and others in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia on Thursday over these policies.
According to a report from Fox News, the lawsuit sought an injunction against the NCAA and the universities hosting championship events in 2025 and 2026 from implementing the NCAA’s inclusive transgender athlete policies (Fox News):
"… The NCAA has simultaneously imposed a radical anti-woman agenda on college sports, reinterpreting Title IX to define women as a testosterone level, permitting men to compete on women’s teams," the complaint says, "and destroying female safe spaces in women’s locker rooms by authorizing naked men possessing full male genitalia to disrobe in front of non-consenting college women and creating situations in which unwilling female college athletes unwittingly or reluctantly expose their naked or partially clad bodies to males, subjecting women to a loss of their constitutional right to bodily privacy."
The complaint adds the "NCAA has aligned with the most radical elements of the so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion agenda on college campuses, facilitating the NCAA’s effort to shore up its flagging on campus approval ratings in furtherance of the NCAA’s relentless drive to monetize collegiate sport, and diverting attention from the financial exploitation of college athletes by NCAA colleges and universities, all at the expense of female student-athletes."
The SEC Swimming and Diving Championships are scheduled for Feb. 18-22, 2025 at the University of Georgia. The NCAA Division I Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships will take place at Georgia Tech in 2026. Other events, like the NCAA Division 1 Women’s Tennis Championships, will be held at schools in Georgia in the coming years, as well.
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“The NCAA continues to explicitly violate the federal civil rights law of Title IX. About time someone did something about it,” Gaines wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
🚨it's official!🚨
— Riley Gaines (@Riley_Gaines_) March 14, 2024
I'm suing the NCAA along with 15 other collegiate athletes who have lost out on titles, records, & roster spots to men posing as women
The NCAA continues to explicitly violate the federal civil rights law of Title IX. About time someone did something about…
Previously, Independent Council on Women's Sports (ICONS) sent a demand letter to the NCAA in 2023 to keep women's sports exclusive to female athletes.
"This lawsuit against the NCAA isn't just about competition; it's a fight for the very essence of women's sports," ICONS co-founder and former national champion swimmer Marshi Smith told Outkick. "We‘re standing up for fairness, for the rights of female athletes to compete on a level playing field. It’s about preserving the legacy of Title IX and ensuring that the future of women’s sports is as bright and as fair as its past."
