Trump's policies restore fairness in women's sports

In a move many conservatives hailed as an enormous victory, the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) recently reversed course on its policies that allowed transgender women (men pretending to be women) to compete in women’s sporting events.

Though the debate about men competing in women’s sports has been ongoing for decades, the issue was brought to the forefront of national discourse during UPenn’s 2021-2022 swim season.

Reversal

At the center of the controversy was Will Thomas, a male who joined UPenn’s men’s swim team in 2017 and competed as a male for three seasons until he “transitioned” to a female and joined the women’s team for the 2021-2022 season.

Thomas, who changed his first name to Lia, set program records in the 100, 200, and 500 freestyle events, and became the first openly transgender athlete to win a title in an NCAA Division 1 championship after clinching the women’s 500-yard freestyle win in 2022.

Though UPenn defended allowing Thomas to compete at the time, the Ivy League school has now done an about-face.

However, the University’s decision should not be perceived as a change in principle but rather a change motivated by profit.

Realignment

On February 5, President Trump signed “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” an executive order that would revoke federal funding from public educational institutions found in violation of Title IX.

The next day, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights launched an investigation of UPenn and subsequently released a statement in April that revealed the university was in violation of Title IX provisions by “allowing a male to compete in female athletic programs and occupy female-only intimate facilities.”

As a result, the Trump administration froze $175 million in federal funding and proposed a Resolution Agreement that would allow UPenn to voluntarily resolve its noncompliance.

On July 1, the Department of Education (DOE) announced UPenn entered into the Resolution Agreement and consented to bring its policies into alignment with current Title IX rules, including stripping Thomas of his titles and awards. (See sidebar.)

Responding to the agreement, U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said, “Today is a great victory for women and girls not only at the University of Pennsylvania, but all across our nation.” She pledged that the DOE would “continue to fight relentlessly to restore Title IX’s proper application and enforce it to the fullest extent of the law.”

Resolutions

In a July press release, the Department of Education outlined
the following actions the University of Pennsylvania agreed to take to resolve its Title IX violations. UPenn will …

• Restore to female athletes all individual UPenn Division I swimming records, titles, or similar recognitions which were misappropriated by male athletes allowed to compete in female categories.

• Issue a public statement to the University community stating that it will comply with Title IX, specifying that UPenn will not allow males to compete in female athletic programs or occupy Penn Athletics female intimate facilities.

• Specify that UPenn will adopt biology-based definitions for the words ‘male’ and ‘female’ pursuant to Title IX and consistent with President Trump’s Executive Orders “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism” and “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports.”

• Post the statement in a prominent location on its main website and on each of its websites for women’s athletics.

• Rescind any guidance which violated Title IX, remove or revise any internal and public-facing statements or documents that are inconsistent with Title IX, and notify all staff and women’s athletics of all such rescissions.

• Send a personalized letter of apology to each impacted female swimmer.