Funding cut reignites debate over Penn’s stance on transgender athletes and women’s sports
Photo Credit: AP Photo/Mary Schwalm
By Chloe Hunt
On March 19, 2025, the Trump Administration announced a freeze of $175 million in funding to the University of Pennsylvania, citing the University’s past policies supporting transgender athletes.
Announced on President Trump’s Rapid Response 47 X Account on March 19, this move comes after a GOP-backed bill aimed at preventing transgender athletes from participating in girls’ and women’s sports failed. The Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act, which was defeated in the Senate nearly two weeks ago on March 4, aimed at instilling policies that would have prevented former Penn swimmer Lia Thomas from competing on the women’s team.
In an email, the White House stated that “UPenn infamously permitted a male to compete on its women’s swimming team, overturning multiple records hard-earned by women, and granting the fully intact male access to the locker room.”
Grace Estabrook C’22, who swam alongside Lia Thomas during the 2021-2022 season,is one of three swimmers suing the University, the Ivy Council, and the NCAA for allowing Lia Thomas to compete.
She spoke exclusively with The Pennsylvania Post about her experience on the team and her motivations for suing Penn and the NCAA to “right some of the wrongs.”
“My senior year was the culmination of me seeing what was wrong with Penn and Penn Athletics,” Estabrook said, “when they not only allowed Thomas to compete with and for us, but also publicly supported it, nominated him for the Woman of the Year award, and pressured us to be on the same page as them.”
She shared that the lawsuit was her and her teammates’ last legal opportunity to respond to the frustration and discomfort that they experienced during their senior year on the team. They are asking that Lia Thomas’s swimming records be nullified so that the opportunity for female athletes to establish records is not diminished.
“It was extremely frustrating to me that Thomas took spots away from our own teammates, as well as women on other teams,” Estabrook said.
Although she hoped to be a listening ear to her teammates amid the controversy, she admits that she could not help feeling hurt and betrayed by the University.
“My entire senior year at Penn, I kept expecting coaches, administrators, and the governing bodies of the NCAA and Ivy League to wake up and see how wrong this all was,” she said. Instead, the University responded by nominating Lia Thomas for the 2022 NCAA Woman of the Year award.
She recalled unfair competition and discomfort among the team, both in and out of the pool.
“My senior year, all competition where Thomas was present was inherently unfair,” she said. “The locker room was an uncomfortable environment. It was disturbing knowing that a man could come in at any point. Meets were a media spectacle that were all about him.”
The Department of Education is currently investigating Penn for Title IX violations, a statute that prohibits sex-based discrimination in a school that receives federal funding. One of the biggest effects of the 1972 law was the proliferation of women’s sports teams, which were previously much scarcer. The Guardian reported that there was confirmation from an administration official that the cut in funding was not directly related to the ongoing Title XI investigation, but that further funding cuts could result from the currently unfinished investigation. It is unclear, given Trump’s starting of the process to close the Department of Education, what the future of the investigation looks like.
Even though Lia Thomas has since graduated from Penn, her legacy as an accomplished transgender athlete lives on, forcing Penn to continue to grapple with this conflict three years later.
Chloe Hunt is a senior in the College studying Creative Writing, Hispanic Studies, and Political Science from Roanoke, VA. Chloe is also the Opinion Editor for The Pennsylvania Post. Her email is chloemwh@sas.upenn.edu.
