Today, let’s talk about another elite athlete who turned her success into a life of activism.
In 1960, 13-year-old Donna de Varona qualified for the Olympic swimming team. She held a world record in her best event, the 400-meter individual medley.
The problem? That event wasn’t on the Olympic program. People still believed women shouldn’t exert themselves. (Though, in the pool, who can see you sweat?) In a 1962 Sports Illustrated cover article, the writer felt it necessary to comment on the photo of Donna (above) that “some good, tough muscles show on her otherwise ladylike figure.”
At the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, organizers added the event and Donna won gold in the women’s 400-meter individual medley. She defeated the second-place finisher by an astounding six seconds and set an Olympic record. She also took home gold as a member of the world-record-setting U.S. team in the 4 x 100 freestyle relay.
But this being the 1960s, Donna’s stellar swimming career came to an abrupt end. Back then, female athletes couldn’t get college athletic scholarships so there was no path forward for her.
“After finishing my last race at the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo, I went back to the arena and climbed the highest tower overlooking the pool,” she said. “I sat there and looked out at all those empty seats, thinking, ‘What’s next?’”*
Pivoting to activism
Well… a lot came next! She enrolled in UCLA and at age 17 began a decades-long broadcasting career for ABC, going on to cover eighteen Olympics. At the same time, she began her lifelong activism for Title IX.
“I never forgot how the lack of scholarships forced me to cut my swimming career short. It made me a passionate advocate for gender equality in college sports,” she said.**
Donna worked with Congress to pass Title IX, so that future generations of women could have the opportunities she was denied. In the mid-1970s, she and Billie Jean King founded the Women’s Sports Foundation, serving as its first president. One of its focuses was ensuring that Title IX’s mission was being accomplished. In 2007, she hosted, wrote and produced a documentary for the 35th anniversary of Title IX.
A rising Title IX issue
Today, Donna has entered the fray in the highly controversial issue of whether transgender women should compete in women’s sports. Last year, she and other elite athletes founded the Women’s Sports Policy Working Group, whose mission is to provide equitable ways to include trans women yet protect women from competing against biological males who have physical advantages that can’t be erased. “There is a middle way,” the group insists.
“Those that want to compete as transgender male to female athletes should be accommodated in a separate or more creative manner,” Donna says.***
The group’s answer is two-fold: to provide men and women with equal opportunities on the basis of biological sex, and to provide ways to include trans girls and women in ways that would ensure fairness and playing safety in competitive sport without diminishing the protection of biological females. They advocate for national standards that would ensure fairness across all states and sports.
“Those of us who fought for Title IX, it has been a war for a long time,” she said. “We had to research and prove our point that we deserved to have an equal opportunity, not just to compete but to learn so many valuable tools from the foundation sports provides us.
“So what is the answer? It is complicated and people don’t want complicated.”***
Donna would like to see her sport lead the way in crafting policy. “The voices are going to get louder and we have to find solutions,” she says.****
If anyone can find an answer, it’s Donna de Varona. She’s proved she’s a champion both in the pool and out.
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* Donna de Varona, “At 17, I’d won two Olympic gold medals for swimming. I still couldn’t get a scholarship,” Vox (July 13, 2016).
** Vox. Ironically (and sadly), in 2000, de Varona sued ABC Sports for $50 million, saying she was fired because of her sex and age. She dropped the suit in 2002 when ABC rehired her.
*** Dan D’Addona, “Donna de Varona: Transgender Swimming Dialogue Must Continue,” Swimming World (January 4, 2022). De Varona was responding to the controversy over trans woman Lia Thomas, who swam for the University of Pennsylvania, winning an NCAA Division I national championship this year in the women’s 500-yard freestyle event. Thomas’s final collegiate ranking in this event jumped from 65th on the men’s team to first on the women’s team. In a March 17th article, Swimming World’s editor said, “Lia Thomas’ victory is an insult to the biological women who raced against her. Against those who fought for Title IX and equal opportunities for female athletes. Against science, and the unmistakable physiological differences between the male and female sexes.”
**** Swimming World.