Statement on the nomination of Lia Thomas for NCAA “Woman of the Year” award

The nomination of a male person who identifies as transgender for one of America’s most prestigious female athlete awards is appalling. The Consortium holds both the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and the University of Pennsylvania (PENN) responsible for their continued failure to provide female athletes with the same fair sports competition as their male counterparts, thereby undermining the promise and purpose of Title IX.

​​In allowing this nomination to stand, the NCAA has relinquished its governance obligations in the following ways:

1. The NCAA has failed to ensure that eligibility rules are up to date and based on scientific fact.

2. The NCAA has knowingly placed a transgender athlete into an impossible situation as the symbol of its failed eligibility policy and has misled the public into believing that the inclusion of someone with a competitive advantage into the female category represents social justice.

3. The NCAA failed in its Title IX obligation to female athletes to provide them with the same fair competition as their male counterparts.

4. The NCAA continues to undermine entire cohorts of female swimmers by announcing a three-year “phase in” of a new FINA-consistent NCAA eligibility policy which would not have permitted Lia Thomas’ eligibility; thereby conveying the message that female swimmers are simply going to have to wait three more years for fair competition (full implementation of its new policy being scheduled for 2023-24).

By seeking to promote an athlete who was inappropriately admitted into the 2021-2022 collegiate female swimming competitions, both the NCAA and PENN send a signal that they no longer honour the principle of a level playing field for the female athlete category. Further, in doing so, both institutions exhibit extraordinary insensitivity in, once again, placing this transgender participant in the crosshairs of controversy.

We call for both the NCAA and PENN to demonstrate good governance by withdrawing the nomination of Lia Thomas.