Three former members of the University of Pennsylvania women's swim team today formally charged Harvard and other Ivy League schools with what they call a brazen conspiracy to force trans rights down American collegiate throats by letting a trans athlete compete in and win a women's race in a 2022 championship at Harvard's Blodgett Pool.
Not that the suit, filed in US District Court in Boston by lawyers from the right-wing Massachusetts Family Institute and an Indiana firm, deigns to refer to Lia Thomas by her gender; she is referred to as "a trans-identifying male" and "a lanky 6'4" male swimmer." That's because the suit alleges an Ivy-wide plot for trans triumphalism:
Behind closed doors a plan to strike a public blow for trans-identifying men competing in women's sports had long been in the works.
Ivy League Executive Director Robin Harris and members of the Ivy League Council of Presidents had labored for months behind the scenes to engineer a public shock and awe display of monolithic support for biological unreality and radical gender ideology by America's oldest and most storied educational institutions.
The 2022 Ivy League Championships would be the culmination of the Ivy League's public campaign meant to manipulate public opinion and change the NCAA Division I collegiate sports landscape for trans-identifying men who want to compete in women's college sports against women.
The Ivy League's plan was to crown a man as a women's champion in one of the most iconic swimming venues in America as scores of national and international journalists described the scene as a landmark civil rights accomplishment to be venerated.
The Ivy League's belief was that crowning a man an Ivy League champion in women's swimming would normalize cross-sex competition in previously sex-separated sports categories and render inevitable nationwide acceptance of a new set of gender norms for college sports.
In more legal terms, the suit alleges allowing Thomas to compete violated Title IX rights of UPenn swimmers Grace Estabrook, Margot Kaczorowski and Ellen Holmquist against discrimination based on their sex, by "depriving them of equal opportunities as women to compete and win, while being denied the opportunity to protect their privacy in separate and equal locker rooms."
According to their UPenn athletics pages, Estabrook finished seventh and ninth in her races at the 2022 Ivy Championships and Kaczorowski was part of winning teams in two relay races in the competition and finished sixth and seventh in two individual races. Holmquist did not even compete in the Blodgett Pool races.
Thomas won the women's 500-meter freestyle race. According to their pages, none of the plaintiffs competed in that event. Thomas finished fifth in the 200-meter freestyle, tenth in a preliminary heat for the 100-meter freestyle and then eighth out of eight in the finals for that race.
Complete complaint (1.1M PDF).
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Comments
"Separate but equal"? Really?
By Vicki
Tue, 02/04/2025 - 11:55pm
"Separate but equal"? Really?
one big reason we now have Trump and Musk
By deselby
Wed, 02/05/2025 - 12:42am
is the Democratic Party's institutional and policy support for this kind of thing. The Biden Administration's Title IX guidance to the Department of Education put "rights" to transgender access to whatever sports they choose into higher education policy, so the NCAA and universities were coerced into doing this.
But Title IX references "sex" not "gender," so the lawsuit has at least a kernel of merit there.
2023 Gallup polling showed 69% of Americans said biological sex should determine participation in sports, so the Trump campaign made its #1 TV ad buy in swing states on the issue.
So the people who will be screeching at me now: you're not only wrong, you're in the minority.
Consider the motivations of competitors like Lia Thomas. What was she (I will respect her pronouns) trying to prove? That a jacked 6'5" person with male musculoskeletal development can beat 5'7" females? Where was the shame?
That competition radicalized a lot of female athletes, the most prominent of whom was Riley Gaines, who ended up speaking at Trump rallies.
One extreme causes an equal and opposite reaction.
There was ways of talking
By Martin
Wed, 02/05/2025 - 5:41am
There was ways of talking this out, but the point of right-wing tactics is to foreclose real political discussion and cause ruptures through obstruction and political destruction. That you've put the blame at one doorstep speaks to a nativity about how right wing actors actually work to manipulate the political process to cause the radicalisation you have identified.
Even if we were to have a constitutional convention at the highest level. The idea that it would be broadcast in the media, or handled in a neutral way is absurd given how much bad faith actors have normalised breaking political machinery.
The destruction of functional political discussion is the point.
One big reason we now have Trump and Musk
By MattL
Wed, 02/05/2025 - 9:01am
is that Republicans voted for them. And now that they've got them, they want to blame everyone but themselves.
We have Trump and Musk
By Pete X
Wed, 02/05/2025 - 9:30am
Because people were trying to respect the fact that trans people exist? No.
Stop "screeching" like this. Trump and Musk campaigned on violent, fascist policies and fear of outsiders and enough people thought that was cool and voted for them.
Stop blaming trans people for the giant sickness in this country.
We have Trump and Musk
By ScottB
Wed, 02/05/2025 - 5:28pm
Because the previous occupants of the White House did a piss-poor job. Biden's approval rating sank below his disapproval rating eight months into his term and never went back above. The voters were mad about being gaslit on issues like inflation being "transitory," the border being "secure" in spite of over 10 million migrants entering the U.S. during the Biden administration, a massive climate spending bill being called the "Inflation Reduction Act," etc.
Then you had the Trump-Biden debate where the sitting president was often incoherent in spite of many assertions that he was at the top of his game. When he left the race, Harris for whatever reason chose not to distance herself from any of the unpopular policies of the administration -- when asked what she might have done differently, the answer was "There is not a thing that comes to mind in terms of – and I’ve been a part of most of the decisions that have had impact, the work that we have done.”
People were gonna vote for something different because they didn't like the people already running the show. Trump is the result of the Democrats putting forward a choice that was even less palatable! And it ain't about Fox News, either, since maybe 2-3% of the public actually watches them if the ratings numbers are to be believed (their highest-rated program gets 5 million viewers).
And on the topic at hand, the Biden-Harris administration went way outside the Overton window with respect to trans rights. I think the vast majority of Americans support the right of trans people to exist, but things like gender transitions for minors (especially without parental consent) or people born XY to play on girls' or women's sport's teams don't have majority support in this country. We supposedly live in a democracy, but if policies like those without broad public support are imposed in an undemocratic way, there will be backlash.
U.S. v. Windsor would have provoked much more significant fallout if there hadn't been a long-running campaign by the LGBTQ community for acceptance and normalization.
The Harris campaign outspent Trump by $2 billion to $1.45 billion when accounting for dark money, where Trump had an advantage. She had a generally favorable news media and tons of support from influential people -- i.e. celebrities. She still lost to Trump because her campaign couldn't convince people she was a better choice.
i'm sorry but this is such baloney
By berkleealum
Wed, 02/05/2025 - 7:30pm
according to five thirty eight, Trump ended his first tenure with a 58% disapproval rating - higher than any modern president. besides Biden, only Carter even sniffs that.
there's a bunch of other stuff that i'm too lazy to respond to here, mainly because Why The Democrats Lost been talked about to absolute death on the internet.
And Trump got voted out with that abysmal approval rating
By ScottB
Thu, 02/06/2025 - 1:31am
So why would it surprise anyone that Biden's anointed successor would lose when her public position was that she thought his policies were right?
he also got voted back in
By berkleealum
Thu, 02/06/2025 - 8:19am
which contradicts the spirit of your post, does it not?
Approval rating
By ScottB
Thu, 02/06/2025 - 9:55am
Is something of a proxy for whether the voters will want change. Biden's low approval rating was a clear indication of a desire for change and Harris couldn't articulate how she would provide change. So they voted for change, even if it was to the guy they voted out 4 years ago, because memories are relatively short.
And as James Carville pointed out 30+ years ago, "it's the economy, stupid."
Circling back to the issue at hand and the Clinton administration (thanks to the Carville reference) there's actually a relevant analogy. We got stuck with the "compromise" of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" for 20 years because Bill Clinton tried to move too early to repeal the ban on gays serving in the military. The country and the Congress were not ready in the early 1990s.
If we respect trans rights
By anon
Wed, 02/05/2025 - 9:22am
Then kids don't get thrown out of their homes and you won't have easy pickings as the "daddy who fixes it", right?
For someone who is so obsessed with trans people...
By Transphobia Watch
Wed, 02/05/2025 - 11:05am
...you don't even have your basic facts straight.
By the NCAA guidelines for those on hormone replacement, she qualified to swim as female.
Gallup polls are polls of people who answer cold calls. It's such ridiculous sampling bias. The poll also didn't explain the effects of hormone therapy and explain that trans women on HRT have poorer innate physical abilities than cis women and in fact have to train harder.
Not even going to get into how cis men, cis women, and intersex folks also have a variety of adult heights and physiques, and how most elite athletes have genes that result in a superior (meaning superior for their particular athletic pursuit; all bodies are of course good bodies) physique that people without these genes cannot attain via training.
Oh just listen to yourself
By lbb
Wed, 02/05/2025 - 11:31am
None of those "athletes" in the suit were ever going to be world-beaters. The participation of a trans athlete cost them NOTHING. And the only reason YOU are playing white knight now is not because you give a fart in a high wind for women's sports, but because you see a golden opportunity to take a shit on queer people.
We see you. We know you. The stench is all too familiar.
thanks for "affirming" me
By deselby
Wed, 02/05/2025 - 11:05pm
nothing convinces me more that I'm correct than the replies to my comment.
Red herrings, personal insults, irrelevancies like the tiny number of intersex people, hOrMoNe levels, "they were losers anyways," "this is right-wing," undisputed points like "trans people exist," this is a slippery slope for bathroom checks, etc.
When you're on the other side of not only the grand majority of the American people, but of Martina Navratilova and of the original feminist TERFs like Germaine Greer and our own late BC prof Mary Daly, maybe question you priors at least as much as this trans woman runner does in this NYT video.
i legitimately have no interest in debating this with you
By berkleealum
Thu, 02/06/2025 - 8:27am
but just a note—the majority of Americans have been wrong about a lot of things. see: Jim Crow, women’s suffrage, interracial marriage, same-sex marriage.
I’m sure that helped break
By Frelmont
Thu, 02/06/2025 - 7:42am
I’m sure that helped break the spell and the monopoly of the narrative. It was also milquetoast defense of Israel by elected Dems, which was actually a tacit endorsement of Hamas and Iran in that we daren’t deign offend the sensibilities of the anti-Western marginal voter we we so desperate to stretch the big tent over lest be spoilers in their rightful third Party. Joke’s on us, they spoiled it anyways.
Sometimes the Gordian Knot can’t be untitled. I believe we are all “Free to Be You and Me,” but I worry that it’s bad medicine the ideology that to attain self actualization it comes at a zero-sum proposition that subverts and necessarily comes at the cost of the First Amendment and demands the dogmatic denial of the reality held by others.
What was she trying to prove?
By TownieTrash
Wed, 02/05/2025 - 6:42am
Perhaps she was an athlete who wanted to compete against other athletes and her own personal best.
She won one race and lost a few others; turns out the sex your gamete flipped to in the first couple weeks in the womb has little to do with how you perform in the pool two decades later.
What?
By Starluna
Wed, 02/05/2025 - 8:46am
So, three women either did not compete against Thomas or were not in a position to have won any event even if she had not competed are blaming Thomas for their poor performance?
People need to understand that the 1st Circuit is not the 5th Circuit. Facts actually matter here.
thin edge of the wedge
By bird
Wed, 02/05/2025 - 8:55am
Unfortunately, suits and media about these issues are being used as part of an effort to push transgender people out of participation in public life in general, including harassing, attacking, or arresting people for using bathrooms, and including explicitly permitting discrimination in housing, hiring, etc.
In 2018, about two thirds of this state's residents voted for transgender people to be permitted in locker rooms, bathrooms, and other public accommodations on the basis of their identified genders (look up Massachusetts Gender Identity Anti-Discrimination Initiative).
This is not going to stop with students or swim teams.
It's not going to stop with trans people, in case any of you were hoping to "drop the T" and preserve LGB rights to marriage, adoption, reproductive rights, etc. I don't believe the right even plans to stop at cisgender heterosexuals' access to contraception, given the comments they've made about no-fault divorce.
No dignity or autonomy for me might not mean much is available for you, either.
This
By lbb
Wed, 02/05/2025 - 12:15pm
How soon they forget. Remember the red states' bathroom bills? Remember when the NCAA boycotted, and then in true to form cowardly behavior, quietly rolled that back in a less public way?
Cishet people may say "what's the big deal if transwomen can't compete in women's sports?" Well, some of y'all got outraged enough to bring lawsuits when nobody was banning you from competition -- no, your sole issue was that you didn't like who you were competing against. But let that go, it's typical for entitled people to get outraged when other people want the same things that they themselves are entitled to. Small, hypocritical, selfish and mean-spirited...but very very typical.
So never mind sports, how about using a bathroom? Imagine that you were banned from using bathrooms in businesses, schools, workplaces, public buildings. Think through the course of a day. Note every time you use a bathroom that isn't in your own house. Now imagine that, guess what, you can't use it. How would you manage?
Okay, never mind bathrooms, how about buying clothes? Or eating dinner? Or going to a movie? What if a women's clothing store decides that only "biological females" (what a stupid bullshit term) were allowed to shop there? What if a restaurant or a movie theater decided it could refuse service to trans people?
Still no big deal? Okay, how about medical care? Suppose you've got pneumonia and you need treatment. Now suppose every hospital, every doctor's office, every individual working in the healthcare industry down to the people who process payments, are given the "right" to refuse you service. What now? You go to the doctor and you're turned away, you go to the hospital and you're stuck in a corner and conveniently forgotten.
None of this is exaggeration. All of this has happened in these United States, to people whom are deemed undesirable. This is history, and if certain people commenting in this thread have their way, it is also our future. And these people want it that way.
Cool, ladies
By Will LaTulippe
Wed, 02/05/2025 - 2:16pm
What prize money were you not awarded from losing a college swimming race? I'll wait.
There's no defense or teamwork in swimming. If the competition isn't fair, assign handicaps like it's golf or bowling. The content of the Speedos can and should be wholly irrelevant, but, of course, that wouldn't permit anybody to bleat about (expletive) nonsense.
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