The Josh Innes Show - Penn Says "No" To Transgender Athletes

Episode Date: July 2, 2025

Lia Thomas is no longer the greatest lady swimmer in Penn history. The university is now removing her records and is banning transgender athletes from competing in women's sports. I think multiple things can be true. 1. I have no issue with keeping biological males from playing against women. 2. You already let it happen...so is changing those records really the move? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by Dazone. For the first time ever, the 32 best soccer clubs from across the world are coming together to decide who the undisputed champions of the world are in the FIFA Club World Cup. The world's best players, Messi, Holland, Kane and more are all taking part. And you can watch every match for free on Dazone, starting on June 14th and running until July 13th. Sign up now at Dazone.com slash fifa. That's d-a-z-n dot com slash fifa. Well let's see here we have got transgender drama at Penn, the University of Pennsylvania. Headline reads, Penn to erase Leah Thomas records banned transgender athletes from women's sports in title nine agreement. Oh, well, of course, this is kind of the in a way sort of the the og in this

transgender women's sports thing, right? Like it started with the gal, the blonde gal that has built the the gal that's built like her whole thing on fighting against transgender ladies or transgender men or transgender, well men who are competing in women's sports, you know that gal. So she's you know, been fighting the good fight for this. And one of the key people that she kind of always targets is the Leah Thomas. Leah Thomas is kind of in like the OG of this topic. Let's play a couple commercials and let's dig into this story.

Penn to erase Leah Thomas records banned transgender athletes from women's sports in Title IX agreement. The University of Pennsylvania has agreed to prohibit transgender athletes from competing in women's sports and stripped the record of former swimmer Leah Thomas as part of an agreement with the US Department of Education. I'm fine with the first part of that. If you're like, hey, we don't want transgender athletes competing in women's sports, I think that is fine and I think that's probably the way it should be, right? Like there is a biological advantage in being a man who is

transitioning into a woman. If you want to transition into a woman or a woman transition into a man have at it I don't give a shit it's your life do it hell I commend you if you're willing to like cut off an appendage in a dedicated effort to becoming a woman then you know what rock on brother sister do whatever the fuck it is you want to do it does not concern my life that you could say that this is a cop out or you could say well you don't have kids and things like this so these things truly don't impact you and that is probably right because I don't have kids I don't concern myself with this type of shit that much but I will say that in a situation like this, we've talked about it before, biological males

are going to be better athletes than women and it creates an unfair advantage. In the same way that if a man just went out and competed against women, you would find that to be absurd, but because it's a man transitioning to a woman, you're like, Oh, let it be. And because it's political, I'll let it be. If like a dude just went out there in a wig and swam against these women, you'd go well, that's unfair. And the wig would probably fall off. But if instead, because it's a big political thing, we have to say, Oh, no, this is not fair. And this is not right that these

people are being kept from from competing. Like, it's unfortunate for them. But you cannot allow a handful of people to dictate what happens for the masses in these situations. Penn entered the resolution agreement Tuesday, July 1 to comply with Title IX, the DOE announced as the university has been under investigation surrounding the case of Thomas, who became the first openly transgender athlete to win an NCAA Division I title. Under the agreement, Penn will restore the swimming records and titles of its female athletes that were broken by Thomas. The university will also not allow transgender athletes

to compete in female athletic programs and it has to send a personal apology letter to impacted swimmer. Now, that's just kind of just rubbing it in right? You're like, I want a letter, like you don't need a fucking letter, ma'am. Like, like if they read if they you know, reinstate your records, right? Like, that should be enough. Like they shouldn't have to write a letter because this wasn't a law before. This wasn't something they did before. You could make an argument that because this wasn't against the rules at the time, you could make

a solid argument, and I would listen to that argument, that those records should stay. The Leah Thomas records could stay because she, he, they, them were allowed to compete. And because they were allowed to compete and those competitions happened, you still lost. Look, I don't think it's right that it went down that way, but it did and you lost. So they're already reinstating your records, right? They're already saying, Hey, you were the gal that had the fastest backstroke or butterfly this or whatever the hell the swim. I don't know a shit ton about

swimming, right? So like your records are being reinstated. So now atop the mountain and something that nobody in the world is going to give a fuck about other than you and a handful of people. Here are your records at the University of Pennsylvania. And you are now reinstated as the all time greatest swimmer there and for you look, good for you. That's your moment. That's your life. You you strive to have that. And you deserve that. I don't think the University of Pennsylvania

should have to write you a letter and be like, hey, our bad man, we just hope you'll forgive us for allowing this dude to swim. He's transitioning this transgender person and obviously they're like, what do you put it like? That's the better question. What do you put in this letter? When it says that you have to send a personal apology letter to the impacted swimmers, what exactly do you put in that apology letter? What do you write to this person? Like this gal, let's say some gal that was the all-time leading breaststroker person, and now this Leah Thomas is a Division I champion and the greatest swimmer in the history of Pennsylvania Quaker lady Quaker Quakers swimming who writes this letter and then

second what do they put like dearest greatest lady swimmer sorry that we allowed a biological male to swim against you or swim and break all of your records. We really feel terrible about it and we are dreadful humans. But now that we are in the Trump administration, these type of things are a really big fucking deal and we apologize. We're sorry. What can we do? here is a gift card to Bennigan's oh wait Bennigan's is closed down well shit no here is a gift card to Dave and Buster's I hope you will accept this Dave and Buster's gift card as a sign of of our gratitude for you accepting our apology for allowing the transgender lady person to swim. Please forgive us university no XO XO University of Pennsylvania

athletics. Leah Thomas records Thomas competed for one year as a women swimmer at Penn after three seasons competing on the men's team. Like you cannot tell me like, again, I think that there are multiple levels to each story that you can look at and say I agree with this I disagree with this Part of me feels that if these people let this person swim then those records should stand. It's like this So I've told you the story before But when I was in fourth grade, I played basketball for the Williamson Kennedy

Was it Williamson Kennedy or Williams and Kennedy? Whatever the school was, it was the last year of the school's existence and we had a basketball team. We didn't even have a gym. We had to go to a different school to practice. I was the only white guy on the team. We're playing, you know, we play against all the other little local teams in the schools. Anywho, at halftime of a Poplar Bluff Mules basketball game, they give out like team awards and one of the awards was most improved player and you know who won most improved player? This guy, White-Ass Josh because that's the award that's won by the white kid on the team is most improved player and my

picture was in like the the newspaper I'm wearing my like Letterman Chicago Bulls 1996 jacket I'm big shit I'm loving it I get a medal I go to school the next day principal calls me into the office says Josh about that medal you won for most improved player it was supposed to go to such-and-such girl on the girls team somehow it was a mistake you can keep the medal but just know that you did not earn that medal. And I went home and I told my grandma that and she's like, Well, how the hell did they say your name then son and I'm like, fucking right grandma. One thing about my

grandma, my mom talks about this all the time. For all my grandma's faults. That is the most loyal human on the planet. You did not want to cross my grandma, she would have your back no matter what whether she there was no rationing like rationale with my grandma, she had your fucking back and she'd always have your back. And if you crossed her, she you were off her list and she was done with you. Like when allegedly Aunt Linda, like borrowed my mom's clarinet and

then sold it. My grandma never forgave those people. She'd sit there and we'd be playing Yahtzee and be like, Grandma, why don't we go to Aunt Linda's house and play, you know, cards or something? She'd go, we don't go over there, son, because they stole your mom's clarinet and sold it. And I hope they go into ruptcy or she would celebrate that they were in ruptcy, bank ruptcy, but she'd just say ruptcy or she would celebrate that they were in ruptcy bank ruptcy but she just say ruptcy she says son now they're in ruptcy like my grandma was not one to be fucked with like she is like that she's old school with it but i bring that up about that metal thing because like like it happened it's like the same concept as like reggie bush having his like heisman trophy taken away or taking wins away from a coach like

Les Miles is technically not eligible for the College Football Hall of Fame Because I think you need to get to 200 career wins to even be eligible and he had some wins later in his LSU career Taken away due to like some penalties there, you know rules that were broken So technically he doesn't have 200 wins the The games fucking happened. Reggie Bush won the Heisman because those games happened, right? The Fab Five were in the national championship game and those games happened. You can't just take them away. So whether they got them ill, they were ill-begotten games or not, they

happened. A team played and a team lost, right? Now, if you want to come back to me and say, yes, but the playing field was very unfair because one person was a dude and one was a girl, I'm with you. I agree. That's why I do think that there are stories like this, that there are nuances in it. And I know that some of you hate that I like to speak in nuance and I like to like look for every element of this. But I think you kind of have to, right? Like, currently, Leah Thomas holds the Penn Women swimming records in the 100 free, the 200 free, the 500 free, the 1000 free, and the 1650, the 1000 650 free,

okay? If you're the person that's right behind that, like, that's a big deal to you. It may not be a big deal to me or literally anybody else in the world who gives a shit about swimming records at Penn, but that matters to that person who presumably did it the quote unquote right way and they want their records reinstated so I can understand it from their viewpoint. On the other hand though, the school allowed the shit to happen. So it happened. This person swam these meets and was allowed to swim in these meets and broke these records. It's a weird thing. Thomas won her NCAA title in the women's 500 yard freestyle event in 2022. She also tied for fifth in the women's 200 yard

freestyle was eighth. Like see, that's where it's weird to me, right? So is there truly an advantage in this? Now yeah, there is a biological advantage like to be in a man versus a woman, we can agree with this, right? That's science, trust the science, right? Old Fauci, we're trusting the science here. There is clearly an advantage in being a man and a woman, right? Between a man and a woman.

Now how is it that this person won one championship but then finished fifth and eighth and another? It doesn't make it fair that they competed. Might just be maybe it makes them more pathetic like you're a dude and you came in eighth place against lady swimmers. I don't know. The NCAA did not respond to a request for comment after the announcement of the pin resolution. The decision comes as the Trump administration is focused on banning transgender athletes from competing in girls sports. In May, President Donald Trump had promised large-scale fines on California after a transgender athlete was allowed to compete and won two medals in the track and field state championship.

I am not against the concept of not allowing these people to compete like it sucks, but life isn't fair in many instances for a lot of people. In this case, you could say life isn't fair in this case, but I don't think that should be the case. I don't think these people should be competing against biological girls. I don't think they should. And I agree with that. Let's see if there's anything else worth a shit in this story. The university said in a statement it will comply with executive order 14168 defending women from gender ideology extremism and restoring biological truth to the federal government. Hey look, is it impacting my life? No. Will it ever impact my life? No. I don't plan on having kids, so I'm never gonna have a daughter.

I'm never gonna be in a situation where my daughter has to be in a locker room with somebody who might be a dude. And like that's the thing that I think they ignore is it's one thing for someone who's legitimately transitioning and wants to become a woman to be in this setting. But what it does when you tear down these barriers and make it so willy nilly, that's a weird term to use for that. But you make it so open for everyone is that's where you open the doors for the creeps. That's where you open the doors for the people who really aren't transitioning. They're just people who want to go into the girls locker room. That's where you get these weirdos that you see like that

post videos of themselves in the bathroom, where they're a dude basically in a wig and they're in the bathroom and all the women are like, what the fuck? How often that happens? I don't know. But you can't like to me, there's a bigger picture issue. And the bigger picture issue isn't, well, it's not fair that these people don't get to compete. And there's only a handful of them. That's the argument that a lot of these, you know, Keith Olbermann's of the world make

is that, you know, there's only so handful of them. That's the argument that a lot of these, you know, Keith Olbermann's of the world make is that, you know, there's only so many of these you guys are doing all this you voted for this guy because you know, 12 people are competing against women. That's not the thing, right? Like that like this is just the early stages of this. The more you let your guard down, the more you do put people in jeopardy. Like I think that's the thing people miss. That's not to say that this Leah Thomas person was some sort of creep that was wanting to go into the fucking locker room and look at tits or anything like that. I don't know. But it's a bigger picture issue for

me. That's where the issue becomes more kind of clear to me. The issue to me is not that a handful of people are doing this and competing, right? Because maybe all of these people competing or many of them that we don't see truly want to be women and believe in their mind that they are women. So there's something to be said about that. I think what you look at big picture is there are a lot of people who want to take advantage of bad situations and exploit them. They want to exploit these situations for their own gain, whether

it be sexual gratification or whatever it may be. And I think that's why you have to kind of put the kibosh on this because before you know it, you start allowing like, oh, here's transgender bathroom where we allow transgender women into the men's bath or the women's bathroom. That opens the door for arguments to be made for creeps to be in there and it makes it easier for them to do it That would be my argument for that Like do I give a shit if a woman's competing or a biological male is competing against a woman in a sport? Not really. It doesn't impact my life. I don't give a shit. I see I can see the argument that a woman would think it's unfair

And I'm with you on that Like if you had a record it was broken by someone who got it ill be gotten like I would want that to be reestablished probably. I don't need you to write a fucking apology letter to me for it. Like just reinstate my records, I'll be fine. You didn't do anything to me on a personal level. So I don't need your weird apology letter. But how far do you let these things go? Because there are shitty people and there are people that are looking to take advantage of situations. That's why you got

to nip that shit in the bud. That's why that's a big issue. Anyway, more to come.