Trigger Warning: The following article includes Paula Scanlan’s transphobic language including, but not limited to, transphobic rhetoric, deadnaming, and misgendering.
On March 27, at 7:15 PM in Stager’s Stahr Auditorium, the Franklin and Marshall College’s chapter of Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) hosted Paula Scanlan. Scanlan is a Stand With Women’s spokesperson, and spoke under the headline of discussing transgender athletes in women’s sports. This event, titled “Men Should Not Compete in Women’s Sports,” was advertised in numerous YAF emails as a “campus conversation, and open to all ‘whether or not you agree that women deserve the right to a single-sex space in sports.’” The testimony, followed by a two hour Q&A session, focused on Scanlan sharing her “testimony on being teammates with Lia Thomas, a transgender swimmer, at the University of Pennsylvania, and the administration’s effort to silence her.”
Waiting in line for entry, one couldn’t help but notice the numerous Public Safety officers stationed throughout the building. Reaching the front, wristbands were quickly distributed to each attendee: seventy-seven blue ones for F&M students, staff, and faculty, and seventy-five red ones for Lancaster residents. After entering the auditorium, YAF members directed attendees to specific seats but left the front two rows empty. It wasn’t until several minutes after the entire auditorium filled that an entire group, who appeared to be YAF members and supporters, filed into those two rows. Most of the crowd appeared to be male athletes, with a few pockets of students wearing transgender pride pins or similar memorabilia.
Scanlan began her talk by thanking everyone for attending. However, she then expressed surprise at the room’s full capacity, as the F&M administration “sought to silence” her because there is “no tolerance for people who want to express their own opinions.” Ironically, as Scanlan spoke into an F&M-provided microphone, in an F&M-provided sound-amplifying auditorium, elevated by an F&M-provided podium, she was heard loud and clear.
Throughout her hour-long speech, Scanlan immediately and frequently misgendered and deadnamed Lia Thomas, stated that being transgender was a “choice” that one should simply suppress in their own head, and insisted that, despite all of this, she respected transgender individuals and was merely seeking to defend women’s sports.
None of this is an interpretation.
Although Scanlan’s grievances are rooted in the University of Pennsylvania’s disregard of her complaints about swimming, changing, and competing with Lia Thomas, Scanlan’s campaign explicitly targets transgender individuals.
Also, there is a false narrative, rooted in transphobia and the desire for an erasure of transgender individuals, that male to female transgender athletes are infiltrating women’s sports simply to dominate in an “easier” competitive field. To maintain this delusion, one would first have to completely disregard the National Collegiate Athletic Association stipulations that, along with consisting of several phases for different championships and seasons, baseline requirement that transgender athletes have:
“compliance with the 2010 NCAA policy, which calls for one year of testosterone suppression treatment. It also had to document a one-time serum testosterone level that fell below the maximum allowable level for the sport in which the student-athlete was competing within four weeks of championship selections for that sport” (NCAA).
However, suppose that transgender athletes are willing to undergo a year or more of extreme medical injections and bodily changes. Additionally, one must ignore the daily physical, mental, and emotional dangers of merely existing as a transgender individual in the U.S.A. Finally, they would have to discount Lia Thomas’ athletic prowess before transitioning. Before Lia transitioned medically, she regularly placed very highly on the men’s team. In the 2017-2018 season as a first year student, she was ranked 5th in the NCAA Men’s Top 100 for 1000 Y Free. In the 2018 Ivy League Championships she ranked third for the 1000 Y Free. In the 2019 Ivy League Championships (held Feb-Mar 2019), she took second place for the 500Y Free, 100 Y Free, and 1650 Y Free. She began her medical transition shortly after that competition (in May 2019). Only then did her ranking on the men’s team drop.
Towards the end of her talk, Scanlan stressed that her stance on transgender athletes within women’s sports was an “issue of common sense.” She insisted that she “doesn’t think it’s political,” and that “this issue is not on party lines” and extends “between left and right.” However, Scanlan has purposefully aligned herself with Young Americans for Freedom, a conservative organization. One must question Scanlan’s common sense in missing the hypocrisy of this statement as, during her entire presentation, she stood in front of an enormous red and blue YAF signage.
Despite never referencing a specific study, or having any data projected onto a slideshow, Scanlan frequently mentioned a desire for science and a passion for studies.
Continuing in that vein, here are some statistics.
Transgender athletes are unfairly targeted.
For example, in the last two years, in the state of Utah alone, there have been three separate, nationally reported cases of cisgender girls in sports being accused of being trans and harassed. For comparison, in 2022, only 4 trans children were competing in high school sports in Utah. Only one was a trans girl. (See Tanner, 2022; Tanner, 2024; Gehrke, 2024; Politico, 2022).
Policies that harm transgender women also harm cisgender women.
Bans may subject both cisgender and trans girls to invasions of privacy. For example, Idaho’s 2020 ban, was blocked by a federal court: per APnews (2023), “The judges ruled that the ban discriminates not just against transgender women but all women, citing a provision in the law that allows for anyone to dispute the sex of a female student-athlete in Idaho. That provision would require the athlete to verify their gender through medical procedures, including gynecological exams.”
Policies that target transgender folks, especially transgender women and girls, place such individuals at a greater risk of assault and negative psychological outcomes.
Wilson et al. (2016) found that young trans women who experienced discrimination based on their gender identity were 3 times as likely to have PTSD and 8 times more likely to have suicidal thoughts (compared to trans women who did not experience discrimination). Also, according to Murchison et al. (2019), school restrooms/locker room restrictions were associated with … 2.49 times the risk [of sexual assault] for transgender girls.” Similarly, Weinhardt et al. (2017) found that trans youth who “felt unsafe or experienced problems in bathrooms due to appearance and gender identity” had lower self-esteem and resilience and increased levels of anxiety; they also identified consequences for the student’s physical health (risk of bladder and kidney infections) and academic achievement.
When similar studies were referenced, Scanlan responded, “You have your science. I have mine.” Ignoring the fact that all of this information is based on empirical data, not fear-mongering and hate speech, some additional studies are included at the end of this article.
Furthermore, for someone billed as “eager to answer your questions,” Scanlan’s Q&A lacked any productive dialogue. Discussions of how to accommodate and uplift marginalized groups can be unpleasant, as one must contend with the discrimination and hatred that group receives, but these conversations are necessary for a healthy society. However, this event was not a discussion, nor a “campus conversation.” Instead, it was an hour-long hate speech against not just transgender athletes, but the entire transgender community. Also, this event did not offer a clear plan to accommodate and uplift transgender athletes, nor encourage any discourse on the subject. Instead, Scanlan’s testimony and mentality demands an erasure of transgender individuals. Not just from sports, as the event swiftly derailed from any discussion surrounding the women’s sports divisions. Scanlan frames transgender individuals as an issue. Her solution to the issue? Complete erasure. As James Baldwin said, “We can disagree and still love each other unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist.”
One final reflection. For an event centered around women’s sports, Stager Auditorium absolutely reeked of Axe body spray.
Sophomore Teagan Durkin is the Opinions Editor for The College Reporter. Their email is tdurkin@fandm.edu.
Resources Collected for the Pre-Talk Teach-in Led by the F&M FPS Queer and Trans Alliance and Faculty from Biology, Psychology, and the Women, Gender, & Sexuality Studies Program
Ben-Zaken, S., Eliakim, A., Nemet, D., Kaufman, L., & Meckel, Y. (2022). Genetic characteristics of competitive swimmers: A review. Biology of Sport, 39(1), 157-170.
Brink, M. (2022, July 4). Protections for Trans Athletes in Title IX Proposal Still Unknown. Inside Higher Ed. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2022/07/05/title-ix-transgender-athletes-be-considered-separately
Demillo, A. (2023, August 17). Federal appeals court upholds block of Idaho transgender athletes law. AP News. https://apnews.com/article/transgender-athletes-ban-idaho-appeals-court-5f2e4a6029f8a369872d781e4164f65c
Deutsch, M. B. (2016 June 17). Guidelines for the Primary and Gender-Affirming Care of Transgender and Gender Nonbinary People. UCSF Transgender Care. https://transcare.ucsf.edu/guidelines
Diaz, J. (2021, October 27). The NCAA’s focus on profits means far more gets spent on men’s championships. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2021/10/27/1049530975/ncaa-spends-more-on-mens-sports-report-reveals
Gehrke, R. (2024, January 27). An angry Utah parent accused a high school basketball player of being transgender. Will it keep happening? The Salt Lake Tribune. https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2024/01/27/an-angry-utah-parent-accused-high/.
Gough, C. (2022, March 23). Number of NCAA student athletes in the United States in 2022, by gender. Statista. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1098761/student-athletes-by-gender/#statisticContainer
Laurel Hubbard. Olympics. Retrieved March 27, 2024 from https://olympics.com/en/athletes/laurel-hubbard.
Lia Thomas. Swimcloud.com. Retrieved March 27, 2024 from https://www.swimcloud.com/swimmer/314430/.
Martin, S. L., Fisher, B. S., Stoner, M. C. D., Rizo, C. F., & Wojcik, M. L. (2022). Sexual assault of college students: victimization and perpetration prevalence involving cisgender men, cisgender women and gender minorities. Journal of American college health : J of ACH, 70(2), 404–410. https://doi.org/10.1080/07448481.2020.1751644
Murchison, G. R., Agénor, M., Reisner, S. L., & Watson, R. J. (2019). School Restroom and Locker Room Restrictions and Sexual Assault Risk Among Transgender Youth. Pediatrics, 143(6), e20182902. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2018-2902
National Sexual Violence Resource Center (NSVRC). 2019. Sexual Violence & Transgender/Non-binary Communities. Retrieved March 27 2024 from https://www.nsvrc.org/sites/default/files/publications/2019-02/Transgender_infographic_508_0.pdf
NCAA. (2023, April 17). Transgender Student-Athlete Participation Policy. https://www.ncaa.org/sports/2022/1/27/transgender-participation-policy.aspx
Penn Women’s Swimming All-Time School Records by Event. Penn Athletics. Retrieved March 27, 2024 from https://pennathletics.com/documents/2024/2/22/WSWIM_records_by_event.pdf
Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network (RAINN). Victims of Sexual Violence: Statistics. Retrieved March 27, 2024 from https://www.rainn.org/statistics/victims-sexual-violence.
Sanchez, R. (2022 March 3). ‘I Am Lia’: The Trans Swimmer Dividing America Tells Her Story. Sports Illustrated. https://www.si.com/college/2022/03/03/lia-thomas-penn-swimmer-transgender-woman-daily-cover
Stotzer, R. L. (2009). Violence against transgender people: A review of United States data. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 14(3), 170-179.
Tanner, C. (2022 August 18). Utah parents complained a high school athlete might be transgender after she beat their daughters. The Salt Lake Tribune. https://www.sltrib.com/news/education/2022/08/18/utah-parents-complained-high/
Tanner, C. (2024 February 7). Utah school board member Natalie Cline questions high school athlete’s gender, causing social media uproar. The Salt Lake Tribune. https://www.sltrib.com/sports/2024/02/07/utah-school-board-member-natalie/
Transgender Athletes in the Olympics. Transathlete.com. Retrieved March 27, 2024 from https://www.transathlete.com/olympics.
Weinhardt, L. S., Stevens, P., Xie, H., Wesp, L. M., John, S. A., Apchemengich, I., … & Lambrou, N. H. (2017). Transgender and gender nonconforming youths’ public facilities use and psychological well-being: a mixed-method study. Transgender health, 2(1), 140-150.
Wilson, E. C., Chen, Y. H., Arayasirikul, S., Raymond, H. F., & McFarland, W. (2016). The impact of discrimination on the mental health of trans* female youth and the protective effect of parental support. AIDS and Behavior, 20, 2203-2211.
UCLA Williams Institute. (2021 March 23). Transgender people over four times more likely than cisgender people to be victims of violent crime. https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/press/ncvs-trans-press-release/
Utah governor becomes latest to veto transgender sports ban. 2022 March 22. Politico.com. https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/22/utah-governor-veto-transgender-sports-ban-00019417Ybarra, M. L., Goodman, K. L., Saewyc, E., Scheer, J. R., & Stroem, I. F. (2022). Youth characteristics associated with sexual violence perpetration among transgender boys and girls, cisgender boys and girls, and nonbinary youth. JAMA network open, 5(6), e2215863-e2215863.