Three former College of Pennsylvania ladies’s swimmers alleged they suffered emotional trauma by having transgender swimmer Lia Thomas as a teammate as they referred to as for the Ivy League to expunge Thomas’ data, in accordance with a lawsuit.
UPenn alum Grace Estabrook, Margot Kaczorowski and Ellen Holmquist filed the go well with on Tuesday, a day earlier than President Donald Trump signed an govt order banning organic males from competing in ladies’s sports activities.
The three graduates allege their former faculty, Harvard College, the NCAA and the Ivy League Council of Presidents harassed, abused and violated federal legal guidelines after they allowed Thomas to compete on their group, in accordance with the lawsuit obtained by Fox Information.
“The UPenn administrators told the women that if anyone was struggling with accepting Thomas’ participation on the UPenn Women’s team, they should seek counseling and support from CAPS and the LBGTQ center,” the lawsuit alleges.
Kaczorowski and Holmquist, who graduated in 2024, and Estabrook, a 2022 graduate, claimed they had been “repeatedly emotionally traumatized” as a result of Thomas was allowed to compete with them, a violation of Title IX.
They declare faculty officers pushed their pro-trans ideology on the ladies all through the time Thomas was on the group.
Directors allegedly invited the swimmers to a chat titled “Trans 101” the place they believed if they’d an issue with a “trans-identifying male” on their group, they’d psychological issues and wanted to see a counselor.
The swimmers accused faculty officers of warning them in opposition to talking out on Thomas or they’d be branded as a transphobe and threat not discovering jobs sooner or later.
The lawsuit additionally accuses the 4 defendants of making a tradition of intimidation that compelled younger ladies to disclaim biology.
Thomas was not listed as a defendant within the submitting.
Including Thomas as a member to the ladies’s jeopardized the swimmers’ alternatives, privateness, and security, the go well with claims.
Thomas, who competed for the UPenn Males’s Swimming and Diving group from 2017 to 2020 was launched to the ladies’s group as their incoming teammate in 2019.
Thomas got here in first within the 500-, 200- and 100-yard freestyle races, setting pool and Ivy League data,
Thomas broke a number of ladies’s data on the Ivy League Championship meet in 2022, which was hosted at Harvard College.
The lawsuit asks the decide to declare Thomas was ineligible to compete within the ladies’s races and to vacate the data, The Nationwide Information Desk reported.
The previous Quaker swimmers accused faculty directors, the NCAA, the Ivy League of coordinating collectively to make sure Thomas was eligible to compete on the ladies’s group for the 2021-2022 season.
Initially, the ladies had been reportedly assured they wouldn’t be sharing a locker room with their new teammate, however the faculty modified coverage and Thomas modified alongside them.
“When UPenn’s women’s swimmers returned to school in the fall of 2021 they were shocked to discover that Thomas was being allowed to use the women’s locker room at UPenn and would be allowed to use the women’s locker room at swim meets,” the lawsuit alleges.
“Margot [Kaczorowski] only learned that Thomas had been authorized by UPenn to use the women’s locker room when she walked in the women’s locker room to find Thomas in front of her changing his clothing,” the go well with added.
Kaczorowski allegedly confronted her coach Mike Schnur after the locker room incident.
“I know it’s wrong but there’s nothing I can do,” Schnur reportedly instructed her, in accordance with the outlet.
The coach warned the ladies that he can be fired if he spoke out about Thomas’ use of the ladies’s locker room.
Trump’s govt order, signed on Feb. 5, pressures colleges to conform along with his order by threatening to drag federal funding.
“From now on, women’s sports will be only for women,” Trump stated in the course of the signing ceremony within the East Room of the White Home.
“If you let men take over women’s sports teams or invade your locker rooms, you will be investigated for violations of Title IX and risk your federal funding,” he added.
