EXCLUSIVE: Former University of Pennsylvania swimmer Grace Estabrook was one of the many young women who shared a pool and locker room with transgender swimmer Lia Thomas in the 2021-22 season.
From 2019, when she was first told Thomas would be joining her team, until her senior year in 2022, Estabrook alleged she was repeatedly pressured by the university not to oppose Thomas’ inclusion on the team. Estabrook told Fox News Digital that administrators tried to convince her that she would never get a job or get into grad school if she spoke out against it and that any issue she had with the situation was because she had a “psychological problem.”
And in between the practices and meets that made her feel “uncomfortable” and “powerless,” Estabrook says she also witnessed the mainstream media celebrate Thomas as a civil rights icon and even be nominated for the NCAA Woman of the Year award.
But now, in 2025, Estabrook is one of three former UPenn swimmers who have filed a lawsuit against the university, the Ivy League and the NCAA over its handling of the situation as the tides on the issue turn in the court of public opinion.
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Penn’s Lia Thomas waits to swim in a qualifying heat of the 200-yard freestyle at the Ivy League Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships at Harvard University, Feb. 18, 2022, in Cambridge, Mass. (AP Photo/Mary Schwalm)
Fox News Digital reached out to UPenn for comment.
Recent data suggests the vast majority of Americans now oppose trans athletes in women’s sports. The NCAA recently changed its policy to prevent them from competing in the women’s category after President Donald Trump signed an executive order to address the issue last Wednesday.
Still, many Democrats continue to fight for trans inclusion in women’s and girls’ sports, and multiple states have not complied with Trump’s order.
For Estabrook, who says she lived through the experience of changing her clothes with Thomas in the room and being threatened not to complain about it, the thought of elected officials still fighting for a cause that ensures other women experience what she did is “depressing.”
“That’s just really depressing,” Estabrook said. “I just don’t know why anyone would want to perpetuate abuse to women on large scales like this. I think that’s why we are doing what we’re doing. It’s because we want a clear court decision that will help institutions be able to set clear policies to make sure this never happens again. We want that enduring legal precedent. … It’s depressing, but that’s why we’re doing what we’re doing.”
Estabrook’s journey throughout the situation with UPenn has featured frequent “depressing” moments.
Her locker was only a few feet away from Thomas in the locker room, forcing her to back herself into a corner for the sake of her own comfort.
“I would kind of back into a corner that had low visibility and just try to change as quickly as I could, and I had other teammates who would go into the bathroom stalls and change in there,” Estabrook said.
“We were the ones that were forced into hiding, it was very uncomfortable, and there was just this constant fear and disruption of peace of like, ‘OK, I just don’t have a safe environment here anymore,’ not only physically but emotionally and psychologically, and it was just incredibly stressful. I look back on it and I don’t know how I endured that.”
Estabrook added that the situation put “incredible” stress on both her mind and body, and it disrupted her swimming ability.
The positive media coverage of Thomas was the insulting cherry on top of the situation for Estabrook. She said that many times when she and her teammates traveled to a meet, they not only had to deal with the anxiety of Thomas in their space but also a horde of reporters there to cover the trans athlete in a positive light.
“I just remember feeling, ‘This is so alien,’” Estabrook said. “It just felt like it was this whole celebration of Thomas and the whole transgender ideology movement.”
“All of the media I remember seeing or reading at the time was celebrating Thomas as this groundbreaking figurehead of the transgender community … there was just such a celebration of it that it was really pushed in our faces and forcing us to accept it.”
Estabrook said the hardest moment of the experience came at the 2022 Ivy League championships. She hoped that Thomas would be ruled ineligible to participate. However, the Ivy League allowed Thomas to swim. Thomas ultimately set pool records in every individual event the athlete competed in and topped the victor’s podium four times.
Thomas went on to put up a similar performance at the 2022 NCAA championships. There, Thomas ended up in an infamous tie with former University of Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines. That tie ultimately sparked the seeds for change that gave Estabrook and countless other women hope when the experience prompted Gaines to speak up and become a prominent advocate for women’s athletes seeking protection from trans inclusion.
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Former UPenn swimmer Grace Estabrook (Grace Estabrook)
“I was just so grateful for her bravery,” Estabrook said. “I really do feel empowered by the work that Riley Gaines has been doing and seeing women jump on that same train and start to speak out. … It empowered me to be able to do the same.”
More hope came this past year after Trump pledged during a Fox News town hall interview in October that, if elected, he would ban trans athletes in women’s sports. Trump won the election, and exit polls suggested the issue of trans inclusion played a prominent role in the decision of many moderate voters.
Trump quickly made good on his promise, signing the “No Men in Women’s Sports” executive order last Wednesday. For Estabrook, seeing this come to fruition has gone a long way in affirming her political beliefs.
“I was very excited to hear that and even more excited when that became a reality last week so quickly after he took office,” Estabrook said. “It’s just very encouraging to see that we have a president who is just so supportive of us and is also seeing this in accordance with reality.”
Estabrook’s lawsuit, which has been filed alongside former teammates Ellen Holmquist and Margot Kaczorowski, seeks to have all of Thomas’ records and accolades as a woman swimmer revoked.
In addition to Estabrook’s lawsuit, Trump’s Department of Education has launched an investigation into potential Title IX violations that occurred at UPenn and has also advised the NCAA to discard Thomas’ accolades in the women’s category.
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