The United States Senate Judiciary Committee held a Wednesday hearing on the impact of transgender women and girls in sports.
The Sept. 24 hearing, titled “Ensuring Opportunity, Fairness and Safety for Female Athletes,” made multiple references to Penn and featured discussion of 2022 College graduate Lia Thomas. Thomas swam on Penn’s women’s swimming and diving team amid nationwide controversy over her participation as a transgender athlete.
A request for comment was left with a University spokesperson.
The committee’s chairman, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), gave opening remarks at the hearing. He said that Senate Democrats had failed to prove that transgender women should be allowed to compete in women’s athletics.
“Regarding whether it is fair for men to compete against women in sports, they were wrong on that issue in 2023, and they know they’re wrong now,” Grassley said.
During the hearing, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) questioned Kim Jones, co-founder of the Independent Council on Women’s Sport, about her daughter’s experience competing against Thomas on Yale University’s swimming and diving team.
Jones called losing to Thomas an “insult” to female athletes. “It’s very hard to take,” she added.
The hearing comes several months after the Supreme Court ruled in favor of upholding statewide bans across the country on transgender athletes. While the justices unanimously found that state bans on transgender athletes do not violate Title IX, they remained split over whether the restrictions pass constitutional muster.
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Earlier this year, Penn professors said the court’s ruling may have limited immediate effects. In July 2025, when the University settled with the Department of Education’s demands to resolve Title IX violations, Penn Athletics announced its commitment to “biology-based definitions for the words ‘male’ and ‘female’ pursuant to Title IX and consistent with President Trump’s Executive Orders.”
At the time, other faculty said that the court’s decision could spark broader discussion about transgender rights and equality.
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) denounced the hearing in his opening statement, adding that the debate over transgender athletes was not an issue Congress should be overly concerned about.
“Research from the Trevor Project found that LGBTQ+ young people are too often placed at higher risk for suicide not because of who they are, but as a result of how they are mistreated and stigmatized,” Durbin said. “This Committee should not participate in that marginalization of any children in this country.”
