The University of Pennsylvania has reached an extraordinary agreement with the Trump administration: it will now walk back its past recognition of transgender women athletes in women’s sports, issue a formal apology, and revise official athletic records to reflect current rules that bar trans women from competing in female-only categories.
This move stems from the furor surrounding Lia Thomas, the swimmer who, in 2022, became the first openly transgender athlete to win an NCAA Division I title while representing UPenn. The fallout triggered a federal investigation earlier this year, accusing the Ivy League institution of violating Title IX — the civil rights law that bars sex-based discrimination in federally funded education programs.
In plain terms, the university has agreed to disown past inclusivity that allowed trans athletes to compete as women and has promised to “correct” history.
UPenn President J. Larry Jameson, in a statement, said the school had followed existing intercollegiate rules during the 2021–22 swim season — but acknowledged that “some student-athletes were disadvantaged” by those policies. He extended an apology to those who felt they were “unfairly affected or distressed” by trans inclusion in the locker room or the pool.
As part of the deal, UPenn will revise its women’s swim records, stripping titles and times earned by trans athletes and reallocating recognition based on today’s eligibility criteria. A public reaffirmation of the school’s alignment with Trump-era Title IX interpretations is also on the way.
The federal Education Department struck a decidedly more combative tone in its announcement. Referring to transgender athletes as “male athletes,” it defended Trump’s executive actions titled “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism” and “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports.”
Missing from the official statements was any reference to the $175 million in federal funds that had been suspended from UPenn earlier this year — part of a wider effort by the administration to penalize institutions over transgender inclusion, racial equity efforts, and even campus protests.
While supporters of the decision claim it restores fairness to women’s sports, LGBTQ advocates see it as a political sledgehammer aimed at a vulnerable minority that makes up a minuscule percentage of student athletes — collateral in an ongoing culture war.
