Univ of Pennsylvania agrees to strip Lia Thomas of titles

[HelleneS]

Under an agreement reached on 1 June with the U.S. Dept of Education (DOE), the Univ of Pennsylvania has agreed to rescind swimmer Lia Thomas's wins and records, to prohibit transgender athletes from participating in women's athletics, and to restore the records and titles previously set by female U Penn swimmers.

U Penn has also agreed to issue personal letters of apology to all women athletes who were affected by Thomas's year-long participation on the women's swimming team.

The agreement will settle a DOE investigation into U Penn's violation of U.S. law against sex discrimination in education.

It wasn't going to happen under the Dems though.

So where does that leave us?

I agree this is a problem because it means something similar could happen again.

However I will take the win and I'm very happy for the female swimmers even the ones who bizarrely don't think they want or need it.

Funding that was under threat under the Biden administration in the first place. He threatened a loss of funding to schools and Unis that didn’t follow his TWAW mantra.

TIMs being banned from sports is a small win in a sea of losses, and women don't fare well under conservative rule. I will confess I'd rather have them there and someone smart in office rather than the orange man.

It's not just sports though. It's a complete hammer blow to the whole TWAW mantra and the implications that has for children's health and safeguarding, women's single sex spaces, legal ramifications, etc.

I don't like Trump either, but I think the significance of this can't be understated.

Money talks, clearly. It’s time our own government did the same!

This move will mainly appeal to conservatives and maybe those who secretly hold GC views; to everyone else, it's simply more bigotry from a super bigot.
The majority here (US) aren't really thinking of it as a pro-woman moment, they simply see an innocent trans girl stripped of her hard-won efforts.

Those that need to be convinced (reminded, rather) that TWAM are simply doubling down on TWAW and being vindicated in their world view, e.g. everyone's out to get them. It's a good thing and I'm happy about it, but it's not going to reach anyone who was already opposed to it happening (the young, the progressive, our leftists and our liberals, etc.).

@UnlockedXCX if all they see is an "innocent trans girl" then I think they're beyond hope tbh. It's not worth engaging with people like that and we don't need to convince them of anything. The people who matter are those who are somehow unaware. Publicity surrounding Lia Thomas is perfect for making people realise that actually there is a problem. He is very clearly a hulking great man competing with women. He's certainly not an innocent girl. Anyone can see that.

The majority here (US) aren't really thinking of it as a pro-woman moment, they simply see an innocent trans girl stripped of her hard-won efforts

67% of democratic votes don't want to see males competing in female sports. The figure will be even higher amongst Republican voters.

So a majority in the US do see this as a pro-woman movement.

In fact its probably the men in women's sports, especially college sports, that was a key factor in helping to undo the trans movement in the US and in electing Donald Trump. The trans issue was a key issue in deciding votes for Donald Trump amongst swing voters in the last election.

As a pp said, it's genuinely depressing the amount of people who handwaved away concerns about prisons and rape crisis services but decided that sports was a step too far for them.

What feels even worse is those who hand wave away all these things andtalk about 'innocent transgirls' in some sort of egregious attempt to frame 'Lia' Thomas as anything but the fucking hulking big six footer with a bulge in his costume that he is.

It's as if women don't matter at all. It's as it ever was.

And seriously with the 'well, because Trump did it, it must be baaaad!!'. The question should be rather 'why did 'the goodies' not fight for women's safety and dignity, instead pandering to men's hurty feelings?'

they simply see an innocent trans girl stripped of her hard-won efforts.

until they see the photos. This is why i want much more reporting with photos in the papers and on TV. Because so much of the talk makes it sound as you really can't tell the difference between (sore loser) Riley Gaines and (plucky trans girl) [Wil]Lia[m] Thomas.

When the pictures are out. When people read that it takes women 20 minutes to get those swimsuits on, and all the time [Wil]Lia[m] is walking around (possibly with an erection? it's never been clear to me).

In other words: Show, don't tell.

@Waitwhat23 it is depressing but I can see why. With prisoners and rape victims a disturbingly large percentage can dismiss those women as "having it coming to them" or being undeserving of any sympathy or concern. Plus they are hidden. It's easy to say to yourself "that's not me or mine, never has been and never will be" whereas sports is totally different. Sports is very visible and it's easy to look at the women and girls competing and seeing yourself or your loved ones in their position.

also with very few exceptions (eg Isla Bryson) we don't tend to see the prisoners. There are usually pictures of the sports things.

"but it feels coercive"

He has the same problem we do.

You say "that's against the law" and they say "we're going to do it anyway"

This shows the importance of doing things because they are ethical or pro-social or scientifically proven or just or rational or whatever, instead of doing things because they play well to some gallery or another.

It was wrong for Lia Thomas to be competing in female sports. Anybody who seriously thinks otherwise is, as a PP said, probably beyond hope of convincing anyway, so let's just get on with restoring balance, righting wrongs, giving women back their sporting achievements, re-establishing women's rights as human rights, and so on, without worrying too much about how it plays to that particular gallery.

“This move will mainly appeal to conservatives and maybe those who secretly hold GC views; to everyone else, it's simply more bigotry from a super bigot. The majority here (US) aren't really thinking of it as a pro-woman moment, they simply see an innocent trans girl stripped of her hard-won efforts.”

Happily, UnlockedXCX, this is not accurate, at least according to May 2025 polling. Gallup began polling Americans on trans in sports in 2021. (Lia/William Thomas's wins were in 2022.) There's been a steady increase in opposition to allowing males to compete in female sports. Currently, 69 percent of Americans believe sports participation should be tied to biological sex.

An earlier poll this year, January 2025, found even greater opposition—79 percent opposed to trans women participating in women's sports, including a majority of Democrats at 67 percent (New York Times / Ipsos poll.)

My feeling is that, when initially polled, many responders just didn’t really know what transgender meant. Lia Thomas may have been many people's first inkling about male athletes competing against females at the college level, and what that really meant.

I saw the news this morning, along with a photo that highlighted his massive shoulders.
Wonderful news. I am so sorry for all the women he affected.

Possibly this photo. FFS

His shoulders look about twice the width of mine!

So OT but TRAs will see this and claim that saying women can't have shoulders that wide is also discriminating against "cis" women with wide shoulders or masculine features and it drives me nuts. I'm a woman with wide shoulders -- they could never be THAT wide, that's not even typical for the extreme end of women with wide shoulders.

Americans overall are against trans women in sports. Here are two recent polls from Gallup and Pew, both prestigious polling orgs in the US.

Gallup, May 2025
A larger majority of Americans now (69%) than in 2021 (62%) say transgender athletes should only be allowed to compete on sports teams that conform with their birth gender. Likewise, fewer endorse transgender athletes being able to play on teams that match their current gender identity, 26%, down from 34%.

Republicans, Democrats and independents are all modestly less supportive of transgender athletes playing on current gender identity teams today than two years ago. The result of these changes is that Democrats are now divided on allowing transgender athletes to play on either male or female teams, while in 2021 more were in favor than opposed. Large majorities of independents (67%) and Republicans (93%) remain opposed to giving transgender athletes a choice of competing on male or female teams.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/507023/say-birth-gender-dictate-sports-participation.aspx

Pew, Feb 2025
A new Pew Research Center survey finds that majorities of U.S. adults favor or strongly favor laws and policies that:

Require trans athletes to compete on teams that match their sex assigned at birth (66%)
Ban health care professionals from providing care related to gender transitions for minors (56%)
Compared with 2022, Americans have become more supportive of laws that limit protections for trans people – and less supportive of laws aimed at safeguarding them.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/02/26/americans-have-grown-more-supportive-of-restrictions-for-trans-people-in-recent-years/

Here are two other polls from this year that back this up

NBC poll, April 2025
75% of American adults say trans women shouldn't be allowed to play on female sports teams,

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/poll-americans-oppose-trans-women-competing-female-sports-2-3-gen-z-rcna203658

NYT poll, early January 2025
Surveying nearly an equal number of Republicans and Democrats, a poll taken by the New York Times and polling company Ipsos showed that the majority of Americans do not want transgender-identifying men in women’s sports.

Of those surveyed, 79% answered that men “should not” compete in women’s sports when posed with the following question: “thinking about transgender female athletes – meaning athletes who were male at birth but who currently identify as female – do you think they should or should not be allowed to compete in women's sports?”

This number has increased from a 2023 The Center Square Voters' Voice Poll that reported 67% of American voters were collectively against men playing in women’s sports.. . .

When the 2025 New York Times-Ipsos poll is broken up along political divides, 94% of Republicans, 67% of Democrats, and 64% of Independents or “something else” answered that men should not be in women’s sports.. . .

The results of this poll came just before President Trump declared there are only two sexes in America, male and female. The survey was taken from Jan. 2 to 11.

https://www.thecentersquare.com/national/articleb6537968-dff2-11ef-b274-9fbf7250bf7f.html

edit - fix format

Good luck to anyone planning to complain to the BBC about their report on this. It's by Max Matza, a BBC News reporter in the US, so presumably a true believer that dear Lia is indeed a female swimmer. 🙄😡

I don’t believe in photo-based campaigning because they’re easy to manipulate and because none of this should be about how people look, or tbh about who wins. I don’t care for transinvestigation and aim to stay off those threads. It takes the emphasis off where it should be, corrupt, misogynist and homophobic sports administrators making rules that screw women because they don’t give a shit that women’s sport is for women. It also negates the numbers - when you realise just how huge the disparity is in participation in sport by men compared to participation by women, and therefore the impact on women of male people stealing their resources, it makes you gasp, but it’s hard to show that.

And yet… The PP’s characterisation of ‘an innocent trans girl’ is of course how these photos are presented. Where was that article/post about the fact that male people aiming for women’s sports are always photographed alone…any height landmarks deliberately avoided… curls blowing in the wind… practically with a violin accompaniment… poor little thing.

Even I can’t deny the impact the Williams photos made, in a way that nothing else achieved. The absolute brazen unfairness of the photos showing a standard sized male college swimmer on the podium with standard sized (big, athletic) female college swimmers. The brutal reality of white nepo baby L Hubbard being an Olympian for life taking one of the 14 slots available for female weightlifters, who are disproportionately Black and from extremely poor countries. The podium being the one place the photos are harder to fix. I find it incredible that anyone is still fighting this battle, and incredulous that the Democrats don’t see that they need to stop handing this ridiculous misogyny to Trump like a fucking gift.

Are you sure about that? Because polling suggests that the vast majority Americans including Democrat voters don't agree with biological males in women's sports.

Lia isn't innocent. Lia knew full well that he had a huge physical advantage over the female swimmers. He competed against them anyway and has showed zero remorse or empathy for them, including the fact that he paraded around their locker room and showers naked. In any other context that would be considered indecent exposure.

I don't honestly believe that most or even a significant minority of Americans support Lia.

And had to get changed in fact of the cock waving cheat