Should the University of Pennsylvania cave in to the Trump administration’s demands about swimmer Lia Thomas?
No. A thousand times no. But for different reasons that you might guess.
The problem isn’t that the administration is wrong about Thomas, the transgender female swimmer who competed on the women’s team at Penn. The problem is that it’s imposing a singular answer to a complicated question. And there’s nothing right about that.
On April 28, the Trump administration declared that Penn — where I teach — violated Title IX by letting Thomas compete on the women’s team. It instructed the university to strip Thomas of the national championship she won in 2022 and to “restore to all female athletes” any records or titles “misappropriated by male athletes competing in female categories.” The administration also said Penn should send an apology letter to female athletes who lost to Thomas.
Penn was given 10 days to comply with the new demands or risk referral to the Department of Justice for enforcement proceedings. That deadline passed last week, and — as best we know — Penn hasn’t issued a reply.
The demands come on the heels of President Trump’s February executive order barring transgender athletes from women’s sports teams. And in March, the White House announced that it would freeze $175 million in funding to Penn for failing to abide by that policy.
In response to the funding cut, Penn noted — correctly — that it had been following NCAA rules when it allowed Thomas to swim on the women’s team in 2021 and 2022. The NCAA changed those rules in February to comply with Trump’s executive order, restricting athletes on women’s teams to people born female at birth.
But universities are supposed to operate according to the best scientific knowledge. And when it comes to trans athletes, that knowledge is the focus of considerable dispute.
A recent study financed by the International Olympic Committee found that trans women athletes had stronger handgrips — a common indicator of muscle strength — than their peers who were designated female at birth.
But the same study also showed that trans women athletes who — like Thomas — had undergone at least a year of treatment suppressing their testosterone levels had lower jumping ability, lung function, and cardiovascular fitness than cisgender female participants did.
Then there are the philosophical issues, which are even harder to parse. Should Thomas’ identification as a female be the deciding factor in determining her gender? Should her rights outweigh those of other athletes who might see gender differently?
We disagree deeply on these questions, which is why I hope Penn rejects the White House’s demand to strip Thomas of her titles and records. But I also hope we encourage everyone on campus to speak their minds on the controversy.
And if you think that’s already happening, you just haven’t been listening. In a 2024 survey by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, nearly half of more than 6,000 faculty members at 55 different colleges reported difficulty talking about transgender rights.
And in a 2024 FIRE survey of more than 55,000 students at 254 higher-education institutions, 42% said it would be difficult for them to conduct an “open and honest conversation” about the subject.
When Thomas was shattering women’s swim records at Penn, students who doubted the fairness of that told me they were afraid to do so publicly lest they be labeled “transphobic.”
So were Thomas’ teammates, who insisted on anonymity when they gave interviews criticizing Penn for letting Thomas swim on the women’s team. Since then, three female swimmers have sued Penn — claiming they were denied “equal opportunities as women to compete and win” — and several others have gone public with their concerns.
“About time for some accountability after they put a man in my locker room 18 times per week,” former Penn swimmer Paula Scanlan posted on X, praising the Trump administration’s latest demands on Penn. “So is my alma mater finally going to issue me an apology or are they just going to pretend like it didn’t happen?”
I try to call people by the names they prefer, so I would never label Thomas a “man.” But I don’t know if she deserves to retain her titles, or if Scanlan deserves an apology.
Here’s what I do know: we’ll never find out if we can’t hold an open and honest conversation about trans athletes. The Trump administration doesn’t want that, of course. The real question is whether the rest of us do.
Zimmerman teaches education and history at the University of Pennsylvania and serves on the advisory board of the Albert Lepage Center for History in the Public Interest.
