Former Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines was among more than a dozen college athletes who filed a lawsuit against the NCAA on Thursday, accusing it of violating their Title IX rights by allowing transgender woman Lia Thomas to compete at the national championships in 2022.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Atlanta, details the shock Gaines and other swimmers felt when they learned they would have to share a locker room with Thomas at the championships in Atlanta. It documents a number of races they swam in with Thomas, including the 200-yard final in which Thomas and Gaines tied for fifth but Thomas, not Gaines, was handed the fifth-place trophy.

Thomas swam for Pennsylvania. She competed for the men’s team at Penn before her gender transition.

Thomas was the first openly transgender athlete to win a Division I title in any sport, finishing in front of three Olympic medalists for the championship. By not making the final, the lawsuit mentions that Florida swimmer Tylor Mathieu, who was not a plaintiff, was denied first-team All-American honors in that event.

Other plaintiffs included athletes from volleyball and track.

  • Certified Asshole
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    -93 months ago

    There were abolitions of slavery when most holding voting rights could lose something in the process. Sports are not even close. Reformating them can come hurtless if the focus is pushed somewhere else, like local friendly competitions where there’s no stakes. Americans like their local teams at baseball and football, why it’s impossible to limit them to make regular youth the primal category participating in that, so communities in reverse get more involved, not suoerstars?

    • @[email protected]
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      fedilink
      93 months ago

      Just because you don’t understand the value of a thing doesn’t mean it has no value. Casually tossing aside one of the oldest human institutions is foolish.

      • Certified Asshole
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        -43 months ago

        We tossed a lot of them out. It shows itself as incompatible with current european culture and cause weird gimmicks to happen. Maybe it’s the time to put it down too?

        • @[email protected]
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          fedilink
          13 months ago

          Yeah we tossed a lot of them out, and then had a century of world war and genocide.

          Stop trying to see yourself as an expert in culture, and start trying to see yourself as a student of it.

        • @Syntha
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          13 months ago

          So what are you proposing exactly? You want to reform sports but what does this actually mean?