ATLANTA — Former Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines was amongst greater than a dozen faculty athletes who filed a lawsuit towards the NCAA on Thursday, accusing it of violating their Title IX rights by permitting transgender girl Lia Thomas to compete on the nationwide championships in 2022.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court docket in Atlanta, particulars the shock Gaines and different swimmers felt after they realized they must share a locker room with Thomas on the championships in Atlanta. It paperwork quite a few races they swam in with Thomas, together with the 200-yard remaining by which Thomas and Gaines tied for fifth however Thomas, not Gaines, was handed the fifth-place trophy.
Thomas swam for Pennsylvania. She competed for the boys’s workforce at Penn earlier than her gender transition.
One other plaintiff, Tylor Mathieu of Florida, completed ninth within the preliminary heats of the five hundred free, which left her one spot from swimming within the remaining that Thomas would go on to win. Thomas was the primary overtly transgender athlete to win a Division I title in any sport, ending in entrance of three Olympic medalists for the championship. By not making the ultimate, Mathieu was denied first-team All-American honors in that occasion.
Different plaintiffs included athletes from volleyball and observe.
The lawsuit mentioned the plaintiffs “carry this case to safe for future generations of ladies the promise of Title IX that’s being denied them and different faculty girls” by the NCAA.
“Faculty sports activities are the premier stage for ladies’s sports activities in America, and whereas the NCAA doesn’t touch upon pending litigation, the Affiliation and its members will proceed to advertise Title IX, make unprecedented investments in girls’s sports activities and guarantee honest competitors in all NCAA championships,” the NCAA mentioned in a press release.
Critics contend transgender athletes have a bonus over cisgender girls in competitors, although in depth analysis remains to be typically missing on elite athletics and just about nonexistent in relation to figuring out whether or not, as an example, a sophomore transgender lady has a transparent benefit over her cisgender opponents or teammates.
In 2022, the NCAA adopted the lead of the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee and revised its insurance policies on transgender athlete participation to try to align with nationwide sports activities governing our bodies.
The third section of the revised coverage provides nationwide and worldwide sports activities governing physique requirements to the NCAA’s guidelines and is scheduled to be carried out for the 2024-25 faculty 12 months.
The lawsuit additionally lists the College of Georgia system as a defendant as a result of considered one of its faculties, Georgia Tech, hosted the 2022 championships. The go well with seeks to halt the NCAA from using its transgender eligibility insurance policies “which adversely impression feminine athletes in violation of Title IX” at upcoming occasions being held in Georgia.
Representatives from the Georgia faculties mentioned that they had not been served with the lawsuit and wouldn’t remark.