By Liv Smith, Contributing Writer
On Tuesday, the Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) student organization hosted conservative activist and internet personality Paula Scanlan to discuss “men in women’s sports,” referring to transgender athletes.
Paula Scanlan is a 2022 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania where she swam and dived competitively alongside her teammate, transgender athlete Lia Thomas. Thomas is the first transgender athlete to win the NCAA Division 1 national championship by winning the women’s 500-yard freestyle event in 2022. Since then, Thomas has been barred from competing in women’s events by World Aquatics.
During the summer of 2023, Paula spoke alongside other female swimmers about participating in competitive swimming with trans female athletes. She is currently a spokesperson and an advisor for the Independent Women’s Forum and has presented to Congress.
The event comes about two weeks after the Young America’s Foundation, which is the parent organization of Young Americans for Freedom, filed a civil rights complaint to the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR). The complaint accused the college of “ongoing civil rights violations against conservative students at Gettysburg College.”
In response to said complaint, Gettysburg College President Bob Iuliano sent a campus-wide email in which he stated, “We create an environment that encourages a wide range of views, including views with which other members of the community (and outside advocacy organizations) might disagree. This is foundational to any quality education. For this reason we do not limit free speech and academic inquiry to certain viewpoints.”
There have been a wide variety of emotions and discussions circulating in regard to the letter of complaint, with tensions swirling as the event drew closer. On Tuesday, students wrote notes in chalk outside of CUB. Messages included “hatred is ugly,” “trans people don’t deserve to die,” “love one another,” “protect trans students” and “rule by love and acceptance.”
Chalk seen outside the College Union Building on Tuesday. (Liv Smith/The Gettysburgian)
At the Event
The number of attendees at the YAF event has not been reported, but there was a considerable number of people in attendance, ranging from Gettysburg College students to community members, campus safety and a small number of students from Penn State Harrisburg.
Before the event started, YAF president Tyler Seeman ’26 with The Gettysburgian. Asked what motivated YAF to host this event, Seeman replied, “I heard of Paula over the summer and some of the speeches that she was giving around the country, and I thought that it’d be great to bring it to Gettysburg. I felt that what she said was really compelling, and that she really got to the students and interacted with them well, and so I thought I’d bring her to campus.”
Seeman was also asked what message he is hoping Scanlan and YAF communicate during the event. Seeman stated, “I think it’d be great to bring a little clarity to the executive orders and things we’re seeing out of the government right now. This isn’t about hate. This is about fairness and opportunity for female athletes on the field, but also it can really affect them off the field as well, in terms of scholarships and recognition and just making sure that women have an experience too in athletics and the opportunity to seek those scholarships to go to college. I think Paula really sent that message well on other campuses, and I’m glad to bring it here.”
When asked if YAF had any trouble organizing the event. Seeman replied, “The Student Senate declined to fund this event. Thankfully, we have a lot of generous donors around the country who wanted to see this happen.”
Seeman also referenced how many posters advertising their event were torn down.
“We also had an individual on campus tear down 60 plus of our fliers, which is, I believe, a violation of college policy,” said Seeman. “And so we are dealing with that as it comes.”
The policy referenced is known as the “Time, Place, and Manner Guidelines for Public Distribution of Written Materials (Posting Policy),” which states: “Individuals posting materials may not remove the postings placed by other groups and may not cover up other postings. Removing or covering the unexpired postings of other students or groups is a violation of this policy.”
Many posters advertising the event were torn down around campus.
Seeman opened the event by introducing himself as chairman of YAF, a position he has held since last spring.
YAF vice chairman, Gavin Wilson ’27 introduced Scanlan, speaking on her background and career as a spokesperson and advisor at the Independent Women’s Forum and Independent Women’s Voice. He described her work as “[advancing] the point mission of defending women’s single sex spaces and standing up for the right to free speech.”
Wilson added, “Scanlan has encouraged women, especially athletes, to come forward and share their stories and join her in making the change to protect women everywhere.”
Scanlan then began speaking: “I’m here to talk about my personal experience and how we got here and how we got into the situation that we’re in now. But obviously, we have to address the fact that today is April Fool’s Day, and it is so fitting to be talking about the biggest joke of the entire world: thinking men can be women and women can be men.”
After her introduction, she spoke about her experience swimming with transgender athlete Lia Thomas.
“I was a member of the University of Pennsylvania women’s swim team, and in this experience, my teammates and I were told that women could be men and men could be women, and gender is fluid and all of these crazy concepts that I’m sure you probably hear on campus.” she said. “I started swimming at the University of Pennsylvania, and my freshman year was pretty normal. There was my fair share of weird classes that we had to take and weird things that they were pushing, but for the most part, I didn’t think anything was abnormal. Everything changed when my sophomore year started.”
She then went on to discuss a meeting she was required to attend as a member of the women’s swim team, which was held after the men’s swim team had a similar meeting. This, she had stated, was “really odd, because the men and women’s team program at Penn was combined.” The men and women’s team at UPenn, she clarified, shared the same coach and typically there was no situation in which the men’s team was informed of something that the women’s team was not.
Scanlan then went on to talk about Lia Thomas, who transitioned from male to female. Prior to transitioning, Thomas was a member of the UPenn’s swim team.
Scanlan discussed the different reactions between her and her teammates upon receiving the news.
“I truly thought that I was maybe on some type of prank show, or someone was going to come out with a camera, or it was secretly April 1, and I didn’t know what was going on,” she said. “I looked behind me, and I saw a lot of my teammates were clapping and congratulating him and saying they were so proud and happy that he was being his true and authentic self.”
Scanlan next discussed swimming alongside Thomas in the fall of 2021, telling attendees that it did not take long for Thomas to begin setting the best times throughout the country. She beat the times of Olympians and broke records in countless events. As a member of the women’s swim team, Scanlan said she and her teammates were told by the school administration and the swim coach that Thomas being on the team was a “non negotiable, whether you love it, whether you hate it,” and thus had characterized this as a civil rights issue.
Paula Scanlan speaking in CUB 260 during the event. (Liv Smith/The Gettysburgian)
She expressed that she and her teammates felt their speech was suppressed by the school administration as prior to this meeting, she and her teammates felt comfortable speaking out against Thomas being a member of the women’s swim team. After this meeting, the female members of the swim team no longer voiced opposition to being teammates with Thomas.
“What was so scary about this meeting is, before this meeting happened, I could have one on one conversations with pretty much every single girl on my team and to some extent, they agreed that it was wrong–whether they were unhappy with the locker room situation or unhappy with the unfairness and competition,” said Scanlan.
Scanlan said that after this meeting, no other member on this team spoke out about Thomas, and there were representatives and administrators sent to watch the team and ensure that there would be no conflict over Thomas.
Her next talking point took center around her first written opinion article for her school paper that criticized the NCAA policy on transgender athletes. She said that after submitting the draft, a multitude of lines in her writing were redacted with one of these statements being, “If we continue to allow this to happen, female athletes will be discouraged from competing altogether.”
She said her article was retracted within a few hours of its publication.
Scanlan then presented data she collected throughout her career, citing a New York Times and Ipsos poll published earlier this year that found that 79% of Americans and 67% of democrats agree that trans women “should not be allowed to compete in women’s sports.”
“My biggest takeaway from this and what I want to tell you guys as college students is how important it is to truly say what you mean and speak up and do exactly what you believe in,” she said.
She furthered this by talking about the numerous relationships she lost over her viewpoint on this topic and how important it is to be open to discussion and debate even if opinions differ.
“If you talk with someone you disagree with, there are two very valuable things that can happen. First, your viewpoint can be changed, which is very valuable. But second, your own viewpoint becomes stronger when you talk about these things,” she said.
After this, Scanlan concluded her speech and the floor was left open for questions. It was encouraged that those with differing opinions to that of Scanlan be the first to ask questions.
A student from Penn State Harrisburg asked Scanlan, “What was the motivating factor to stand by your beliefs, even though it could have negatively impacted your career?”
Scanlan responded, “My mom immigrated here from Taiwan, and my grandfather worked very, very hard to get democracy in Taiwan and one of his proudest accomplishments of his career was that in his Japanese newspaper article, he got two opposing viewpoints on the same front cover of the newspaper.”
She said her grandfather worked in Japan to aid in diplomatic relations and also worked in the United States to do something similar. She then added, “I thought about all the things my grandfather had fought for, and I thought about all the things that we have to lose if we’re not able to talk about these issues. And so it was really that that motivated me to stand up for what I believe in.”
After the question and answer portion of the event ended, attendees were able to line up for photos with Scanlan.
After the event, one student spoke with The Gettysburgian about how discussions like these might impact the environment on campus. The student stated, “Almost no issue shouldn’t be up for discussion. I’m ready to have that debate, and if everyone strongly believes it’s their right, their position is right, then come to the discussion and defend it. If they can’t win the argument, then maybe it’s not the right position. So we need to have these discussions.”
Another attendee, Jordan Brown ’26, stated, “I think they’re very negative and I don’t think that it was very appropriate.”
She continued, “I don’t think [Scanlan] should encourage blatant transphobia. I don’t think she had a place here on this campus. I feel like the only reason she was allowed to come to this campus is because YAF threatens to tell the Department of Education on us. It’s a direct violation and harm to students’ rights, and I think it’s egregious and unjust.”
