The University of Pennsylvania vowed Tuesday to erase top swimming records set by transgender swimmer Lia Thomas three years ago and apologize to female athletes that were displaced by Thomas – a product of a voluntary agreement with the Trump administration.
The announcement surfaced on the same day Wyoming’s new ban on transgender athletes participating in women’s collegiate sports competitions took effect.
To critics of Wyoming’s new law, U-Penn’s agreement looks totalitarian and heartless rather than “voluntary.”
To its supporters, it’s a relief from real anguish that female athletes have been suffering for years.
Sen. Wendy Schuler, R-Evanston, was the leading sponsor of Wyoming’s first biology-based sports law, which banned transgender athletes from girls’ interscholastic sports in grades 7-12 starting in 2023.
She’s long spoken of the struggles she faced as a female athlete before the federal non-discrimination law Title IX was passed in 1972.
“All you have to do is see the pictures of Lia Thomas standing next to the biological girls and know that someone else didn’t get on that podium,” Schuler told Cowboy State Daily on Tuesday. “Some other girls lost the opportunity and that wasn’t right; that wasn’t fair, and the equity thing went out the door.”
She reiterated a point she’s often made: that she wishes she had a solution to accommodate everyone involved in these controversies.
“I’ve met a couple of trans athletes and I feel for them,” she said. But at the end of the day, she added, “fairness is the bottom line.”
Tuesday marks “a great victory for our women and girls, truly,” added Schuler.
Also on Tuesday, Schuler’s bill to expand the sports law to the collegiate level for Wyoming athletes took effect as law.
This followed months of controversy in which the University of Wyoming chose not to play women’s volleyball against San Jose State University – once it was revealed a top San Jose player then on the team was transgender.
Some of UW’s female volleyball players are now suing San Jose and the Mountain West Conference over the issue.
Public Apologies And Acts Of Fealty
Sara Burlingame, executive director of LGBTQ advocacy group Wyoming Equality, said the new agreement between Penn and Trump “stretches the meaning of the word ‘voluntary’ past the breaking point.”
The U.S. Education Department and the university announced the agreement Tuesday.
The department investigated the university from February to April, as part of President Donald Trump’s effort to keep transgender athletes out of girls’ and women’s sports, and concluded the school had violated Title IX.
“The precedent being set by President Trump and his administration should remind people of Mao Zedong, Stalin and other totalitarian leaders, who were not content with rolling back rights, they required public apologies and acts of fealty,” Burlingame told Cowboy State Daily on Tuesday.
Penn has agreed to send a personalized apology letter to each swimmer who lost out to Thomas, according to the Education Department.
The university must also announce that it “will not allow males to compete in female athletic programs,” said the department.
Burlingame said the time to break silence is now.
“Even people who disagree about transgender rights should speak out against this administration’s tactics,” said Burlingame. “Book bans, policing bathrooms, dehumanizing your opposition are not signs of a free society.”
Burlingame also touted what she cast as a superior system before the Schuler-led laws took effect, where the Wyoming High School Activities Association handled instances of transgender athletes competing on a case-by-case basis.
“Fair and inclusive. It didn’t create a witch hunt, but it also said trans athletes have a reasonable path to create a fair playing field,” said Burlingame.
Worked At The Time…
University of Pennsylvania President J. Larry Jameson said in a statement that Penn’s policies in 2021-2022 were in accordance with NCAA eligibility rules at the time.
Yet, “We acknowledge that some student-athletes were disadvantaged by these rules,” added Jameson. “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.”
Thomas in 2022 became the first openly transgender athlete to win a Division I title.
Converting her own loss to Thomas into an origin story, top swimmer Riley Gaines undertook a national activism campaign to bolster biological women-only measures across the competitive sports world.
She visited the Laramie-based University of Wyoming in 2023, where some students launched a quiet, simple protest against her message, but others celebrated it.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
