When Paula Scanlan earned her spot on the University of Pennsylvania women’s swim team, she didn’t expect to have to compete against male athletes, nor did she anticipate having to share a locker room with one. Unfortunately, that’s the situation she was put in when Lia Thomas, a male swimmer who had competed on the men’s team as Will Thomas, joined the women’s team in 2021.
“I would be at my locker and then all of a sudden hear a masculine voice, and I would just jump,” Paula told the New York Post. “I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, somebody got in here.’”
This situation would be uncomfortable for any woman, but it was particularly frightening for Paula because she had previously suffered a sexual assault inside a bathroom. Having to share a locker room with a male athlete brought back some of those horrible feelings.
“It’s incredibly vulnerable,” Paula said. “I had nightmares for weeks about men being there while we were dressing.”
UPenn can’t undo the harm it caused to Paula and other female athletes by allowing Thomas to compete on the women’s team. But thankfully, an agreement between the university and the Trump administration will help ensure that future members of UPenn women’s sports teams won’t have to go through what Paula did.
UPenn agrees to acknowledge biological reality
Shortly after taking office, President Donald Trump signed executive orders “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government” and “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports.”
The first executive order states that “it is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female,” and that “sex” in federal law does not refer to so-called “gender identity.” The second order declares it the policy of the United States to oppose male participation in women’s sports.
As part of that order, President Trump instructed the Secretary of Education, in coordination with the U.S. Attorney General, to update relevant rules and regulations to protect women’s sports and to prioritize enforcement actions against Title IX-covered schools and institutions to ensure they no longer allow males into women’s sports or locker rooms.
One day after issuing the “Keep Men Out of Women’s Sports” executive order, the Trump administration launched a Title IX investigation into UPenn for allowing Thomas to compete on the women’s team. And in July 2025, UPenn agreed to a resolution with the Department of Education that protects female athletes.
As part of the agreement, UPenn agreed to take four major actions.
- First, the university agreed to restore all individual school records and recognitions that were taken by male athletes to the rightful female athletes. Thomas never earned any UPenn records as a men’s swimmer, but he unfairly claimed the UPenn records for women’s 100 freestyle, 200 freestyle, 500 freestyle, 1,000 freestyle, and 1,650 freestyle.
- Second, UPenn issued a statement confirming it will comply with Title IX by not allowing male athletes to compete against women or enter their private spaces. The statement confirmed that “in providing to female student-athletes intimate facilities such as locker rooms and bathrooms in connection with Penn Athletics, such facilities shall be strictly separated on the basis of sex and comparably provided to each sex.”
- Third, UPenn will “rescind any guidance which violated Title IX, remove or revise any internal and public-facing statements or documents that are inconsistent with Title IX, and notify all staff and women’s athletics of all such rescissions.”
- And finally, the university will send letters apologizing to each female swimmer who was negatively impacted by UPenn’s decision to allow Thomas to compete on the women’s team.
Because Thomas’ story was so widely reported and debated, UPenn’s agreement represents an important turning point in the battle to protect women’s sports. But there is still more work to be done.
ADF is defending female athletes at the Supreme Court
While President Trump’s executive orders are a big step toward protecting women and girls, activist organizations are still challenging commonsense laws across the country, including in West Virginia and Idaho. Alliance Defending Freedom is helping to defend both state laws at the U.S. Supreme Court.
In West Virginia, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit challenging the state’s “Save Women’s Sports” law. ADF attorneys intervened on behalf of former West Virginia State soccer player Lainey Armistead, and we will serve as co-counsel alongside the West Virginia attorney general’s office at the Supreme Court next term.
The ACLU also filed a separate lawsuit challenging Idaho’s “Fairness in Women’s Sports Act,” and ADF attorneys intervened on behalf of female athletes Madison Kenyon and Mary Kate Marshall. The Supreme Court will hear this case next term, too.
The federal government has correctly recognized that men shouldn’t compete in women’s sports, and states should be able to enforce laws that acknowledge this fact. It’s time for the Supreme Court to restore common sense and protect fairness and safety for female athletes.
