Lia Thomas' former teammates sue UPenn, Harvard and NCAA in lawsuit to scrub her records

Three former members of the University of Pennsylvania swimming team have taken action to expunge the women's swimming records set by Lia Thomas, a transgender former collegiate swimmer. Former athletes, Grace Estabrook, Ellen Holmquist and Margot Kaczorowski, sued the university, Harvard University, the NCAA and the Ivy League Council of Presidents over their 'traumatizing' experience sharing a team with Thomas.

They accuse the institutions of violating federal law by allowing Thomas to swim against women and share their locker room facilities during the 2021-22 season, according to the lawsuit. Thomas is not listed as a defendant in the lawsuit, which was filed Tuesday - one day before President Donald Trump officially signed an executive order seeking to keep biological males out of women's sports. The complaint is also seeking to create a class-action claim on behalf of 206 female athletes who competed in the 2022 Ivy League Swimming and Diving Championships, which was hosted by Harvard.

The lawsuit seeks to scrub Thomas's records from the Ivy League, NCAA and Ivy institutions, including Harvard and UPenn, and receive a declaration that the transgender athlete was ineligible to compete. Three former teammates of Lia Thomas have filed a lawsuit to expunge her records. The plaintiffs argue that allowing the biologically male athlete to compete against women and share a locker room was in violation of Title IX. They claim the experience of competing alongside Thomas left them 'repeatedly emotionally traumatized.'.

The lawsuit alleges that female swimmers 'became captive and collateral damage to the Ivy League’s illegal social science experiment.'. It further accuses university administrators pushing pro-trans ideology onto the plaintiffs throughout the process of accepting Thomas onto the team and into the locker room. 'I never expected my Ivy League education to teach me that women must silently accept losing their opportunities and privacy,' Estabrook said in a press release Wednesday from the Independent Council on Women's Sports, which is backing the lawsuit.

'Women's sports and the leaders who oversee them should not prioritize men's feelings over fairness and integrity.'. The plaintiffs claim they were led to feel that their concern was a 'psychological problem' with the athletes invited to a talk titled, 'Trans 101.'. 'The UPenn administrators told the women that if anyone was struggling with accepting Thomas's participation on the UPenn Women's team, they should seek counseling and support from CAPS and the LBGTQ center,' the lawsuit alleges.

It also alleges that university administrators warned them against speaking about the situation publicly. Thomas poses with UPenn teammates Hannah Kannan, Camryn Carter, and Margot Kaczorowski during the 2022 Ivy League Womens Swimming and Diving Championships. The transgender swimmer on the NCAA Division 1 title as a member of UPenn's women's team. Thomas, who became the first transgender athlete to win an NCAA Division 1 title in 2022, had competed for the UPenn men's swimming team from 2017-20 under the name Will Thomas.

According to the lawsuit, Thomas was introduced by women's swimming head coach Mike Schnur to the women's swimmers during a team meeting in Fall 2019 as their incoming teammate. The athletes claim that they had initially been told that Thomas would not be sharing a changing room with them but were left shocked - with Kaczorowski claiming she was even left in tears - to discover that Thomas would in fact be allowed to use the locker room.

Coach Schnur allegedly told the swimmers that he would be fired if he did not allow Thomas to use the locker room. The three athletes were made to believe that they would be removed from the team if they protested Thomas's participation ahead of the 2022 Ivy League Championships, the lawsuit alleges. Thomas went on to finish first in the 500-, 200- and 100-yard freestyle races at the championships. She set pool and Ivy League records, ultimately becoming the highest-scoring swimmer at the entire meet.

On Wednesday, President Trump declared that the war on women's sports was over. The 78-year-old surrounded himself with female athletes and activists at the White House to sign an executive order barring trans participation in women's sports. President Donald Trump said he would make moves to ensure that no transgender athletes participated in women's sports at the 2028 summer Olympics, being held in Los Angeles.

Trump surrounded himself with female athletes and activists for an executive order signing in the East Room Wednesday, barring trans participation in women's sports. The order uses Title IX, a law against sex discrimination in taxpayer-funded education programs, to ban transgender girls and women from participating in female school sports activities. Trump said his new Secretary of State Marco Rubio 'is going to make clear to the International Olympic Committee' that 'America categorically rejects transgender lunacy.'.