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.

And those self same people would probably declare of themselves that they really care about women and women's rights.

They're utterly contemptible.

I am delighted by this news, however I mainly feel furious.

The women that were put in this position, and gas lighted by everyone around them, will not get back their time and will not have come away from this undamaged.

None of this needed to happen to them, it’s an absolute travesty that it did.

I agree with you that photos can manipulated, either digitally (at least one photographer has claimed that her photos of Lia Thomas were edited by others in order to feminise his face) or by photographing alone etc.

But some of the photos really do show the very, very obvious difference in just sheer size

I keep a copy of that picture and the comments to bring out from time to time. The difference in height and size between the man and the women is astonishing, so much so that one person thinks the women are children.

And if course, the magnificent Terf face -.

'What the actual fuck?!'

The woman on the left always makes me smile.

It's nice to think I could be in the midst of a loud minority, but I don't know. I'm also curious what ages and what locations were polled. From my experience most under the age of maybe 30 (who aren't explicitly conservative) are very gung-ho about "trans rights", or otherwise passively support.

Here is how Pew polls:

How are people selected for your polls?
Most of our U.S. surveys are conducted on the American Trends Panel (ATP), the Center’s national survey panel of about 10,000 randomly selected U.S. adults. ATP participants are recruited offline using random sampling from the U.S. Postal Service’s residential address file. Respondents complete the surveys online using smartphones, tablets or desktop devices or over the phone with an interviewer.

How can a small sample of 1,000 (or even 10,000) accurately represent the views of 250,000,000+ Americans?
Two main statistical techniques are used to ensure that our surveys are representative of the populations they’re drawn from: random sampling and weighting. Random sampling ensures that each person has a chance of selection to participate in a survey and that the people selected into a sample are a good mix of various demographics, such as age, race, income and education, just like in the general population. However, sample compositions can differ. For example, one sample drawn from a nationally representative list of residential addresses may have a higher percentage of rural dwellers compared with another sample drawn from the exact same list. To ensure that samples drawn ultimately resemble the population they are meant to represent, we use weighting techniques in addition to random sampling. These weighting techniques adjust for differences between respondents’ demographics in the sample and what we know them to be at population level, based on information obtained through institutions such as the U.S. Census Bureau. For more on this topic, check out our Methods 101 video on random sampling.
Do your surveys include people who are offline?
Yes. For the online ATP panel to be truly nationally representative, the share of those who do not use the internet nationally must be represented on the panel. In the past, we did this by providing identified non-internet users with internet-enabled tablets to take their surveys. Now, those who don’t have internet access can take their surveys over the phone with a live interviewer. These individuals are representative of our non-internet population in the Center’s analyses.

https://www.pewresearch.org/u-s-surveys/frequently-asked-questions/#how-are-people-selected-for-your-polls

Per the poll itself, here is how they conducted their most recent poll on trans women in women's sport

Pew Research Center conducted this analysis to explore how Americans view certain laws and policies related to transgender issues and how these opinions have changed in recent years.
For this analysis, we surveyed 5,097 adults from Feb. 10 to 17, 2025. Everyone who took part is a member of the Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), a group of people recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses who have agreed to take surveys regularly. The survey was conducted either online or by telephone with a live interviewer. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other factors.

Here are the questions used for this analysis, the topline and the survey methodology.

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/02/26/americans-have-grown-more-supportive-of-restrictions-for-trans-people-in-recent-years/

This Pew poll, conducted in Feb 2025, found 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%)

At the same time, 56% of adults express support for policies aimed at protecting trans people from discrimination in jobs, housing and public spaces.

This information is provided in most reputable polls. You probably have to click some links to get the information.

edit typo

add: The other things to check is trends and consistency between polls done by various orgs. The trend in the US in the last few years is less overall support for many trans issues like trans women in women's sports or transition for minors. If you look on my post on the previous page, you can see that several recent polls have found that most American adults oppose trans women in women's sports. I did link the wrong Gallup poll. The one I linked was from 2023 but still found a majority opposed trans women in women's sport. The one from 2025 is here. https://news.gallup.com/poll/691454/two-thirds-prefer-birth-sex-ids-athletics.aspx

Support for trans women in women's sports has slightly decreased since 2023.

But why do they think male people have the right to compete in women's sports?

I think TRAs generally see man/woman as social categories defined solely by whoever identifies into them (TWAW because they say and "feel" like one). They also see it in the context of one's sex as a bunch of components that you can change via "transitioning" (secondary characteristics, chemical balances, appearance, etc.).

Beneath all that you have AMABs (assigned male at birth) and AFABs (assigned female at birth).

Therefore they think that if an AMAB transitions and/or decides they're part of the social category of woman, then they are. This is probably confusingly said but that's just how I understand it.

@MissScarletInTheBallroom

Also (because this has been pissing me off) 'transgirl'?

He's twenty fucking six!

Exactly.

Even if trans women were women and trans girls were girls - which they aren't - Lia has never been a girl because he was an adult when he decided to transition.

Why do they think we have separate sporting categories for men and women?

I don't know that much. But in their minds there's virtually no difference between a woman and a trans woman outside of what sex they were assigned at birth.

The answer to this seems to be that women have been forced into a segregated category because men are scared we will start beating them at sport. If all sports were mixed sex women would have the resources and the motivation to compete on a par with men. We are being held back in sport by oppressive structures of patriarchy and the sexed body has nothing to do with it at all.

Personally I think the trans debacle has disproved that theory over and over. Though I will concede that women's sport could be better resourced and funded but it's just not as popular with audiences in comparison so it isn't.

But in their minds there's virtually no difference between a woman and a trans woman outside of what sex they were assigned at birth.

Lol, yes, in as much as there's virtually no difference between me and a banana outside of what species we were assigned at birth.

No difference, aside from the difference.

😂

I do likewise with this photo of a transwoman playing women's Gaelic football; he later said that he wanted to 'leave a legacy' and I'm always more than happy to help spread his legacy around..

I posted about the media manipulating the idea of 'trans girls' as vulnerable, feminine and always pictured alone on a post about Emily Bridges, linked below. I can't remember, but someone, possibly Jan Hatchet, had made a post a few years ago highlighting it so that might be what you remember.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5321370-emily-bridges-on-itv-why-didnt-jkr-spend-her-money-on-womens-rights?reply=143791048&utm_campaign=reply&utm_medium=share

There were pictures on the thread showing Bridges' true physicality, but those images were a far cry from the carefully staged publicity shots. Especially the pictures used for the "I'm a vulnerable young woman" interviews.

In terms of Thomas, I remember there being photoshopped pictures of him in the pool, because they knew how bad it looked.

This.

Here's some more photos of massive blokes who we're meant to pretend are completely indistinguishable from women.

Brilliant news!

The thing is that I absolutely agree with TRAs that there is misogyny stopping women participating in sport, and reducing female participation in sport, and that women’s sports categories were restricted due to prejudice. I used to row at quite a high level, it really isn’t new to me to experience misogyny or a kind of breezy assumption among men that their sport is and always will be much more important. Where I differ from TRAs is in seeing male people taking places in female sport as just a new variant of exactly the same misogyny and assumptions - that what women’s sport really needed was more guys involved.

Yes OK, but when it comes to sport that is a major difference, and literally the only reason we separate men from women in sport!

Are they ever going to join the dots and realise that letting male people compete in women's categories is going to reduce female participation in sport?

Great news. Bet Riley Gaines is thrilled. Lia is the one who used to strip off in the open plan female changing rooms and walk around with his Willy on display isn’t he? And moan that the females were avoiding the changing room.