Three Penn Swimmers Sue Ivy League, NCAA Over Trans Participation Policy

The NCAA was hit with another lawsuit Tuesday regarding its transgender athlete participation policy.

Two former University of Pennsylvania swimmers, Grace Estabrook and Margot Kaczorowski, and one current swimmer, Ellen Holmquit, filed a lawsuit against the Ivy League, NCAA, Harvard, and the University of Pennsylvania, alleging that they violated Title IX by allowing their former teammate, Lia Thomas, who is transgender, to compete in the 2022 Ivy League swimming championships. The complaint, filed in Massachusetts federal court, also alleges that the NCAA’s transgender participation policy in general violates Title IX. 

(Title IX is a statute governing gender equity in educational institutions, and that has been used to require equitable sports participation opportunities between men’s and women’s sports.)

This lawsuit follows two others brought in the past year that seek to restrict transgender athletes from participating in women’s sports in schools and colleges. It also comes in the same week the president is signing an executive order that will effectively do the same. NCAA president Charlie Baker estimates that fewer than 10 transgender athletes compete in the NCAA at any level.

The lawsuit’s plaintiffs are requesting class-action status and for damages as well as for Thomas’s Penn swimming records to be vacated.

“Women swimmers throughout the Ivy League were left shattered by the disregard of their rights and opportunities in order to create new rights and opportunities in women’s sports for a man with biological advantages they could not hope to match,” the 90-page complaint said. “Now, three women swimmers from the 2021-2022 UPenn women’s swimming team who were discriminated against by the Ivy League, NCAA, UPenn and Harvard and harmed by Thomas depriving them of equal opportunities as women to compete and win, while being denied the opportunity to protect their privacy in separate and equal locker rooms, bring this lawsuit to establish that Thomas’s participation in college women’s swimming, including at the 2022 Ivy League Championships, injured them and violated federal law.” (Harvard hosted the championships in 2022.)

Representatives for the NCAA and Ivy League did not immediately respond to emailed requests for comment. 

The lawsuit, along with two others, is being funded by the Independent Council for Women’s Sports (ICONS), which calls itself “a collective voice to promote and protect women’s sports” that believes “women should thrive and succeed in sport without facing sex based discrimination.” Lead plaintiff attorney William Block, who resigned from the NCAA’s Committee on Infractions over the governing body’s handling of trans participation issues, is prosecuting this lawsuit as well two related lawsuits.

The first lawsuit, filed in March 2024, took aim at the NCAA as a whole for transgender participation policy. The second, filed in November, attempted to block a purportedly transgender women’s volleyball player from participating in the Mountain West conference championships (though a federal judge struck down the request). Both cases are ongoing.

ICONS co-founder Marshi Smith told Front Office Sports she believed President Trump’s executive order was an indication that his Department of Justice would also involve itself in the three lawsuits, and that the NCAA would soon be forced to change its policies.