President Donald Trump’s administration has ramped up its crackdown on trans athlete inclusion in women’s sports, and many women impacted by the issue are speaking out in support.
After the administration paused $175 million in federal funding to the University of Pennsylvania over its inclusion of transgender athletes in women’s sports, which FOX Business exclusively reported Wednesday, many of the women who had to compete alongside former transgender UPenn swimmer Lia Thomas have spoken out in celebration of the funding pause.
Three of Thomas’ former UPenn teammates, Grace Estabrook, Margot Kaczorowski and Ellen Holmquist, provided a joint statement to Fox News Digital, via the Independent Council for Women’s Sports (ICONS) praising the Trump administration’s action.
“We are so glad that Universities are beginning to see that there is a cost to openly harming female students on their campuses and we hope the pressure only increases. Penn and other universities within the NCAA, under NCAA policy and their own rogue leadership, have violated federal law and hurt women,” the statement read.
“They have knowingly stolen opportunities and awards from women, placed women in physical danger, and facilitated the sexual harassment of female student athletes. Every woman on a college campus and under NCAA regulations should be assured of Title IX protections. Institutions that disregard the well-being of women have to understand they don’t get to rewrite or ignore federal protections that women rely on.”
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Riley Gaines, now a spokeswoman for the Independent Women’s Forum, famously tied Lia Thomas, left, for fifth place in the 200 Freestyle finals at the NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships. (Brett Davis-USA TODAY Sports)
In a statement to Fox News Digital, a university spokesperson said UPenn has not received any “official notification” of the funding pause, and added that the university was and is in “full compliance” with NCAA and Ivy League policies.
“We are aware of media reports suggesting a suspension of $175 million in federal funding to Penn, but have not yet received any official notification or any details. It is important to note, however, that Penn has always followed NCAA and Ivy League policies regarding student participation on athletic teams. We have been in the past, and remain today, in full compliance with the regulations that apply to not only Penn, but all of our NCAA and Ivy League peer institutions.”
Estabrook, Kaczorowski and Holmquist are all currently engaged in a lawsuit against UPenn, the Ivy League and the NCAA, citing their experience with Thomas and the handling of the institutions’ handling of the situation. The suit also seeks to have all of Thomas’ accolades in the women’s category rescinded.
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Former UPenn swimmer Grace Estabrook. (Photo courtesy of Grace Estabrook)
The women claim that by allowing Thomas to compete, the institutions “injured them and violated federal law.”
Thomas, a biological male, previously competed for the UPenn men’s swimming team from 2017-20 under the name Will Thomas. At the 2022 Ivy League Swimming Championships, Thomas came in first in the 500-, 200- and 100-yard freestyle races, setting pool and Ivy League records, and was ultimately the highest-scoring swimmer at the entire meet.
According to the lawsuit, Thomas was introduced by women’s swimming head coach Mike Schnur to the women’s swimmers during a team meeting in Fall 2019 as their incoming teammate. Schnur allegedly told the women’s swimmers that Thomas would not be sharing a locker room with them when they asked after the initial introduction.
That allegedly changed later.
Thomas officially began to practice and compete with the women’s swimmers in fall 2021. That was when the female swimmers said they discovered that Schnur’s alleged claim that Thomas would not share a locker room was not true.
“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 [Kaczorowski] walked in the women’s locker room to find Thomas in front of her changing his clothing.”
The plaintiffs allege that the university administrators pushed pro-trans ideology onto them throughout the process of accepting Thomas on the team and in their locker room. The former swimmers say that they were led to feel their concerns over being teammates with Thomas were rooted in a “psychological problem.”
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University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas reacts after swimming the 100 Freestyle prelims at the NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships on March 19, 2022 at the McAuley Aquatic Center in Atlanta. (Rich von Biberstein/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
“The UPenn administrators told the women that if anyone was struggling with accepting Thomas’s participation on the UPenn Women’s team, they should seek counseling and support from CAPS and the LBGTQ center,” the lawsuit alleges.
“The administrators also invited the women to a talk titled, ‘Trans 101.’ Thus, the women were led to understand that UPenn’s position was that if a woman on the team had any problem with a trans-identifying male being on her team that woman had a psychological problem and needed counseling.”
The Department of Education launched an official investigation into potential Title IX violations that occurred at UPenn in February, Fox News Digital previously reported.
Now, the consequences of that investigation are materializing.
Fox News’ Paulina Dedaj contributed to this report.
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