Swimming Against the Tide: Fighting Censorship and Compelled Speech in Women's Sports

Making the University of Pennsylvania women's swim team should have been the apex of Paula Scanlan's competitive swimming career. Instead, she was subjected to censorship, coercion, compelled speech, and a host of other indignities, all because she didn't think she should be required to share a locker room and compete against male swimmers like Will Thomas who transitioned and took the name Lia Thomas before joining the women's team.

Paula and her teammates at UPenn were never asked if they were willing to share their locker room with a man. Instead, they were simply ordered to comply, coerced not to disagree with the university's decision publicly, and told that anyone who disagreed with the policy might need mental health counseling.

Find out what swimmers like Paula Scanlan and Riley Gaines endured as they ran this gauntlet of censorship and coercion.