All-American swim star Riley Gaines and 15 other all-female athletes are suing the National Collegiate Athletics Association for allowing transvestites to invade women's sports and locker rooms.

Gaines, host of the podcast "Gaines for Girls," noted on X, "The dam is bursting & it's about time."

The athletes who have joined the legal fight include All-American swimmer and Olympian Réka György; 2-time NCAA Champion and 31-time All-American swimmer Kylee Alons; soccer and track star Ainsley Erzen; University of Kentucky tennis player Ellie Eades; and Roanoke College swimming captains Lily Mullens and Kate Pearson along with their teammates Susanna Price, Carter Satterfield, Katie Blankship, and Julianna Morrow.

Background

Independent Council on Women's Sports, the group that ultimately organized the class action, penned a letter in January 2023 putting the NCAA Office of Legal Affairs on notice that their "practice of allowing male athletes on women's teams constitutes illegal discrimination against women on the basis of sex."

Stressing that the "NCAA is not above the law," the women's advocacy group demanded the association oust men from women's sports and locker rooms.

In subsequent months, various state governors around the country cognizant of the well-demonstrated athletic gap between men and women implored the NCAA Board of Governors to revise its transvestite student-athlete policy.

ICONS' letter and the gubernatorial pressure apparently weren't enough to make the NCAA budge. Sixteen female athletes figured a lawsuit might do the trick.

The Free Press reported that the suit could impact eligibility rules at 1,100 colleges and universities represented by the NCAA.

The class-action lawsuit

The stated aim of the lawsuit, filed this week in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, is to "secure for future generations of women the promise of Title IX that is being denied them and other college women by the National Collegiate Athletic Association working in concert with its member colleges and universities including those that are part of the University System of Georgia."

The suit accuses the NCAA of aligning with "the most radical elements of the so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion agenda on college campus" in the interest of "retaining control of the monetization of college sport," a multi-billion-dollar business.

To ensure this profitable ideological alignment, the suit claims the NCAA has also coordinated with member institutions such as Georgia Tech to suppress the free speech of student athletes who resist or speak out about the corruption of women's sports.

Part of this suppression strategy allegedly involves the imposition of "what the NCAA calls 'LGBTQ-Inclusive Codes of Conduct' which 'outlin[e] consequences for engaging in homophobic and transphobic behaviors.'"

The plaintiffs have requested the court declare that the NCAA violated Title IX and the 14th Amendment.

The suit specifically claims that the NCAA's eligibility policies pertaining to transvestites are discriminatory and violate Title IX because they:

• permit men to compete against women in competitions and for prizes designated for females;
• "deprive women of equal access to separate showers, locker rooms, and associated restroom facilities";
• "diminish equal opportunities and resources for women";
• "divert opportunities and resources to males";
• "subject women to a loss of privacy and emotional harm"; and
• "disproportionately impact and suppress the free speech rights of women advocating for their rights, safe spaces, and a reasonable and correct application of Title IX and equal protection principles."

The plaintiffs seek declarations that the University System of Georgia and Georgia Tech have similarly run afoul of federal law.

Beyond demanding declarations and damages, the female athletes want the NCAA and the other defendants to be barred from continuing to allow men into women's sports and from altogether enforcing its transvestite policies.

The plaintiffs have also asked that male athletes — such as the swimmer formerly known as William Thomas — have any awards, prizes, titles, or trophies won while competing against real women invalidated and reassigned.

"We're not just fighting for ourselves, we're fighting for every young girl who dreams of competing in sports," Gaines said in a statement.

ICONS cofounder Marshi Smith, herself a collegiate All-American and NCAA national champion swimmer, stated, "This lawsuit against the NCAA isn't just about competition; it's a fight for the very essence of women's sports."

"We're standing up for justice and the rights of female athletes to compete on a level playing field," continued Smith. "It's about preserving the legacy of Title IX and ensuring that the future of women's sports is as bright as its past."

The NCAA said in a statement obtained by The Hill, "College sports are the premier stage for women's sports in America, and while the NCAA does not comment on pending litigation, the Association and its members will continue to promote Title IX, make unprecedented investments in women's sports and ensure fair competition in all NCAA championships."

CBS News noted that representatives from the Georgia schools named in the suit said they had not yet been served with the lawsuit and would not comment.

It's personal

The lawsuit comes more than a year after Riley Gaines wrote to NCAA president and former Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker (R), speaking to the "anger and frustration" experienced by girls "who had worked so hard and sacrificed so much to get to this moment only to have to compete in a farce."

In her message to Baker, Gaines also highlighted the scientifically documented physical advantages male athletes have over female competitors. The former All-American swimmer witnessed this advantage firsthand in 2022 when she had to compete against Thomas, who dominated the NCAA Swimming Championships.

Blaze News previously reported that Thomas had been a middling performer on the University of Pennsylvania men's swimming team until he started taking cross-sex hormones in 2019 and competing against women.

He subsequently crushed records set by real women in the 500-yard freestyle in the 2022 championships and tied with Gaines for fifth the next month in the women's 200-meter.

Thomas' inclusion impacted various women besides Gaines, a number of whom are plaintiffs in the case.

Réka György, for instance, indicated in 2022 that Thomas' inclusion precluded her from securing a spot in the consolation final.

"That final spot was taken away from me because of the NCAA's decision to let someone who is not a biological female compete," György said in a March 2022 letter to the NCAA. "It hurts me, my team and other women in the pool."

It wasn't just Thomas' physical advantage that was a problem for female NCAA athletes. He also brought his vestigial male appendage into the women's locker room with him.

Kylee Alons, a plaintiff in the suit who previously swam for North Carolina State, told the Free Press that to avoid changing with a then-anatomically correct man, she started changing in a "dimly lit storage and utility closet" behind the bleachers.

"I was literally racing U.S. and Olympic gold medalists and I was changing in a storage closet at this elite-level meet," said Alons. "I just felt that my privacy and safety were being violated in the locker room."

Gaines previously alleged that on at least one occasion, Thomas exposed his male genitals in the presence of real female athletes.

Kaitlynn Wheeler told the Free Press that when changing into racing suits, "You're exposed."

"You can't stand there and hold a towel around you while putting the suit on at the same time," said Wheeler. "Never in my 18-year career had I seen a man changing in the locker rooms. I immediately felt the need to cover myself."

Gaines underscored that Thomas was merely taking advantage of the rules on the books: "It is the rules that are the problem. Not Lia Thomas."

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