Topline
Sixteen female athletes filed a federal lawsuit against the NCAA for allowing transgender women to compete in college sports and use women’s locker rooms at events, legal action spurred by the success of swimmer Lia Thomas, who became the first openly transgender person to win a NCAA Division I national championship two years ago.
University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas swims during the 2022 Ivy League Women's Swimming and ... [+]
Key Facts
Riley Gaines, Reka Gyorgy, Kylee Alons and 13 other athletes on Thursday filed suit in the Northern District of Georgia against the NCAA, university system of Georgia and a dozen individuals, accusing the NCAA of discriminating against women, violating the right to bodily privacy and violating Title IX and the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution.
The plaintiffs, who are seeking other athletes to join the class action suit, are asking a judge to declare "any male” who has competed in NCAA women’s events ineligible, revoke and re-award any titles those athletes have won and stop the body from allowing transgender female athletes to compete in women's events going forward, among other demands.
A majority of the plaintiffs are or were swimmers whose experience "demonstrates the harm being done to women" by the NCAA by allowing Thomas, a then-senior swimmer from the University of Pennsylvania, to compete in the National Championships in 2022 despite having previously competed on the UPenn men’s swimming team (the suit heavily focuses on Thomas but does not include her as a defendant).
The suit also argues female athletes do not have "equality and equal opportunity" without sex-separated sports teams, competitions and locker rooms.
Four non-swimming plaintiffs in the case represent the sports of track, volleyball and tennis, all of whom say they have competed against "biological male" athletes in women's sports to their extreme disadvantage.
The lawsuit accuses the NCAA of imposing “a radical anti-woman agenda on college sports, reinterpreting Title IX to define women as a testosterone level, permitting men to compete on women’s teams and destroying female safe spaces in women’s locker rooms.”
Marshi Smith, co-founder of the Independent Council On Women’s Sports, which funded the lawsuit, said in a statement to Forbes the complaint "isn't just about competition; it’s a fight for the very essence of women’s sports. We’re standing up for justice and the rights of female athletes to compete on a level playing field."
Michelle Brutlag Hosick, director of external communications for the NCAA, said in a statement that the organization does not comment on pending litigation but will "continue to promote Title IX, make unprecedented investments in women’s sports and ensure fair competition in all NCAA championships.”
Former University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas.
Key Background
The lawsuit largely focuses on the case of Thomas, whom the suit describes as “a biologically male student-athlete” who competed on the UPenn women’s swim team during NCAA competitions in the 2021-22 season. Thomas competed in three swimming event finals at the 2022 NCAA Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships held at Georgia Tech University, finishing first, fifth and eighth. In the 500-yard freestyle swimming event, Thomas’s qualification for the final round knocked plaintiff Reka Gyorgy, a Hungarian Olympian, out of contention for the title. Thomas won the race by more than a second-and-a-half, putting several Olympic medalists in second, third and fourth places. Since the competition, the Thomas case has become the centerpiece in a national discussion about transgender participation in sports, with opponents arguing transgender athletes have an unfair biological advantage while others argue restrictions are exclusionary and not always necessary. Policies vary from state to state and across governing bodies. Half of the country has local laws or regulations that bar transgender students from participating in school sports that don't align with their assigned-at-birth gender, including Texas, Florida, North Carolina and Utah, according to the Movement Advancement Project. The International Olympic Committee has dropped requirements that forced athletes to undergo genital surgery or hormone level modifications to compete, but some individual sports restrict transgender athletes at the professional level.
Contra
Thomas spoke to “Good Morning America” about the controversy after winning her championship medal, saying “trans women are not a threat to women's sports.” She said she lost muscle mass and became "a lot, a lot slower in the water" after starting her transition from male to female in 2019, and said that athletic performance "is not something that ever factors into our decision" to transition. The NCAA says its transgender student athlete policy "preserves opportunity for transgender student-athletes while balancing fairness, inclusion and safety for all who compete." In an interview with the Associated Press last spring, NCAA chief Charlie Baker, former Republican governor of Massachusetts, said it was the responsibility of the NCAA to make sure "student-athletes feel like they’re properly supported."
Reka Gyorgy competes in the Women's 400m IM during the Toyota U.S. Open Championships on Nov. 13, ... [+]
What Is The Ncaa’s Transgender Athlete Policy?
The NCAA Board of Governors in January of 2022 implemented a transgender participation policy that required student athletes to have undergone one year of testosterone suppression treatment to be able to compete in the 2022 winter and spring championships. For the 2022-23 and 2023-24 regular season and championships, athletes had to meet that same requirement but also provide documentation for documented testosterone levels tested before the regular season, before any championship event and before any non-champion competition. Starting in August of 2024, transgender student-athletes will have to provide twice-annual documents proving their testosterone levels are within sport-specific standards.
Big Number
34. That's how trans athletes had openly competed in U.S. college sports as of March 2023, according to the ACLU of Ohio.
Crucial Quote
"What I want to see the NCAA do, and what they haven't done thus far, is take accountability and take responsibility," plaintiff Gaines, who has often spoken out about competing against Thomas in her time as a collegiate athlete, said to OutKick Thursday. “They're cowards…morally bankrupt, spineless cowards.”
Chief Critic
“Trans people don’t transition for athletics. We transition to be happy and authentic and our true selves,” Thomas told “Good Morning America” in 2022.
Former collegiate swimmer Riley Gaines testifies during a House Oversight Subcommittee on Health ... [+]
