{"id":69525,"date":"2025-07-02T14:58:30","date_gmt":"2025-07-02T14:58:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=69525"},"modified":"2025-07-02T14:58:30","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T14:58:30","slug":"us-college-bars-transgender-athletes-from-womens-sports-after-lia-thomas-controversy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2025\/07\/02\/us-college-bars-transgender-athletes-from-womens-sports-after-lia-thomas-controversy\/","title":{"rendered":"US College Bars Transgender Athletes from Women\u2019s Sports After Lia Thomas Controversy"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Anifowoshe Oladipupo<\/strong><\/p>\n

The University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) has agreed to ban transgender athletes from participating in its women’s sports teams, following a federal civil rights case tied to the participation of swimmer Lia Thomas.<\/p>\n

The U.S. Department of Education announced Tuesday that UPenn has entered into a resolution agreement to comply with Title IX, the federal law prohibiting sex-based discrimination in educational institutions.<\/p>\n

This follows a probe by the Office for Civil Rights, which found the university in violation of Title IX for allowing Thomas, a transgender woman, to compete in women\u2019s events during the 2021\u20132022 season.<\/p>\n

The decision is in line with recent federal efforts, under former President Donald Trump\u2019s directives, to restrict transgender participation in women\u2019s sports.<\/p>\n

An earlier executive order authorized withholding federal funds from schools that do not define athletic eligibility based on biological sex.<\/p>\n

U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon hailed the UPenn settlement as a “great victory for women and girls across our nation,” pledging continued efforts to uphold Title IX\u2019s original intent.<\/p>\n

As part of the agreement, UPenn will reinstate swimming titles and records to biologically female athletes affected by Thomas\u2019s participation.<\/p>\n

The school will also issue written apologies to the athletes and publicly commit to barring male-born individuals from women\u2019s teams and athletic facilities, including locker rooms.<\/p>\n

Lia Thomas, who previously competed on UPenn\u2019s men\u2019s team before transitioning, gained national attention in 2022 after winning women\u2019s collegiate events, sparking heated debates over fairness in women\u2019s sports.<\/p>\n

Former swimmer Riley Gaines, who tied with Thomas in the 200-yard freestyle at the 2022 NCAA championships, welcomed the ruling.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis sends a clear message to institutions: women’s rights and fair competition must be protected,\u201d Gaines said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Anifowoshe Oladipupo The University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) has agreed to ban transgender athletes from participating in its women’s sports teams, following a federal civil rights case tied to the participation of swimmer Lia Thomas. The U.S. Department of Education announced Tuesday that UPenn has entered into a resolution agreement to comply with Title IX, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":69526,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-69525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69525"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69525\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":69527,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69525\/revisions\/69527"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}