Amid Trump Administration Pressure, US University Bans Trans Athletes From Women’s Sports (image-pixabay)
Due to the surmounting pressure from the US administration, a top university in the United States has agreed to bar transgenders from participating in women’s sports and to erase records set by a prominent trans swimmer. This new decision came following the federal rights investigation on transgender swimmer Lia Thomas. The University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) and the US Department of Education announced the agreement.
Thomas, born male, came out as a trans woman in 2018. In 2022, she won the National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I title and thereby became the first trans athlete to accomplish the feat. Thomas had also set UPenn records in five women’s events, including the 100-metre and 500-metre freestyle competitions.
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However, Thomas’s accomplishment had become a focal point in the debate about the fairness of sports. While LGBTQ campaigners hailed the swimmer’s participation, critics, including some of her teammates, cast it as an attack on women’s rights. Larry Jameson, UPenn’s president, in his statement, said that some of the students were disadvantaged by the NCAA eligibility rules that had been in place at the time of Thomas’s participation.
Due to the pressure from Trump’s government, they have now changed the NCAA eligibility in March. Only female-born athletes can now participate in women’s events. The Trump administration has been 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.
UPenn on Tuesday removed Thomas’s name 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.”
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.”
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US Education Secretary Linda McMahon called Tuesday’s agreement “a great victory for women and girls.” UPenn’s move had come as the latest in a series of moves to limit trans people’s participation in sports in the US ever since Trump returned to the White House.
In March, World Athletics said it would require participants in women’s events to undergo DNA testing to prove their biological sex.
