Women feel threatened by men in their sports and locker rooms, no matter with which gender the men “identify,” says college-swimming-star-turned-activist Riley Gaines.
Yet, some states recently have addressed this situation with laws to protect women’s spaces and sports. And that’s “really good news,” she said.
But the fight is far from over.
Gaines, who now serves as a pro-reality women’s rights activist, has long been campaigning for these laws. She’s one of an increasing number of activists fighting to maintain that a man cannot be a woman, just because he says he feels like one.
Some lawmakers around the country have signaled that they agree.
The state’s Republican-controlled Senate has already passed the bill. It has not yet been presented to Texas’ Republican Gov. Greg Abbott to be signed into law. But it’s on that path.
DeSantis is expected to announce a 2024 presidential bid on May 24 at 6 p.m. ET on Twitter with Elon Musk, his political operation team confirmed to The Epoch Times.
“The general public seems to know what a woman is, but now the law does as well,” Gaines told The Epoch Times.
“It’s huge, especially in states such as Texas, because Texas has such a huge impact on the NCAA [National College Athletic Association]. Lots of sporting events at the college level are in Texas.”
Gaines started speaking about the issue after tying for fifth place in a collegiate women’s swimming championship with Lia Thomas, a male swimmer who identified as female.
Gaines, who grew up in Gallatin, Tennessee, started swimming at the age of 4. After winning 12 All-American titles, five Southeastern Conference titles, and the Women’s Swimming and Diving Scholar-Athlete of the Year award during her time swimming for the University of Kentucky, Gaines finished her college swimming career.
Muddied Waters
For Gaines and other swimmers in her age group, swimming with Lia Thomas changed the whole dynamic of competing, she said.
“To be in an environment at the fastest meet in the world, a meet you train your entire life for, and be put in a headspace where you can’t stop thinking about the man that was watching you and other women in that locker room undress, while simultaneously exposing himself—it just felt like betrayal,” Gaines said.
And when Thomas entered the women’s locker room at the 2022 NCAA championship and stripped naked to don his swimsuit, he traumatized a friend, who was a victim of sexual abuse, Gaines said.
Yet, in the eyes of the media and spectators, the meet was no longer about celebrating America’s most exceptional female swimmers.
Instead, women’s swimming became a backdrop for a new drama in “trans rights,” Gaines said.
“It just felt as if women’s sports, and what we’re doing, and what we had done our whole lives was totally irrelevant,” she said.
“It felt like a social experiment. Yet we had to participate in it. There was no other option, or else you’re immediately deemed a bigot.”
Gaines and other swimmers wondered what purpose their many years of training and sacrifice to reach athletic excellence had served if a man could simply swoop in and take it away, she said.
After the championship, swimmers usually fill the locker room with expressions of gratitude after seeing their years of hard work pay off.
But after competing against Thomas, swimmers didn’t feel rewarded, she said.
“It didn’t feel worth it,” she said. “It didn’t feel as if it was, because it felt devalued. It felt like what we were doing was totally meaningless.”
It also felt humiliating and unsafe, Gaines said.
Changing into a hydrodynamic swimsuit is a slow process that can leave the wearer’s naked body exposed for up to 15 minutes. Gaines and other female swimmers had to squeeze into their extra-tight competition swimsuits in view of the man sharing the locker room.
The Power of One
Since March 2022, Gaines has focused on working to ensure that no woman has to compete unfairly against men again.“Women’s sports are for women, and there is no compromise,” Gaines said.
And though Lia Thomas was just one athlete, with his “winning a national title, it displaced 14,000 others,” she said.
Every woman in the NCAA who placed below Thomas should have been one place higher, Gaines said.
It knocked the 9th-place finisher from being named an All-American athlete, and it kept the 17th-place finisher from being recognized as earning an All-American honorable mention.
“This is the minority affecting the overwhelming majority,” Gaines said. “And that’s not what it means to be in a democracy.”
The impact of men competing in women’s sports can be even bigger at the lower levels.
Telling the Truth
Parents often tell Gaines how their middle-school daughters have dropped out of sports because a transgender-identifying boy joined the team, she said.It’s difficult to share feelings about facing unfair competition, she said.
“You should never apologize for feeling how you feel,” she said. “That is not something that requires an apology. You should never feel bad” about that.
After her race against Thomas, she agreed to an interview with a transgender journalist, but didn’t share how she really felt.
She regrets that now.
When asked by the reporter whether she felt uncomfortable competing against a biological male identifying as a woman, she said ‘no.’
Looking back, she wonders, “‘Why did I say that?’ And it’s because I felt so scared. I felt like I wasn’t allowed to feel uncomfortable.”
The feeling of not being allowed to be uncomfortable comes from the top, Gaines said. Universities, media, and social pressure all back the transgender movement, she said.
At the University of Pennsylvania, where Thomas swam, the school introduced a “trans-inclusive language guide,” so other students could learn how to talk to Thomas in the ways he preferred, Gaines said.
These days, it’s a common situation, she said.
“I’ve talked to girls across the country who were told they’re not allowed to say anything,” she said.
“They were told, if they were to misgender Lia Thomas or any other trans-identifying individual, there would be repercussions.”
Although transgender male athletes often switch to women’s sports to face weaker opponents, transgender female athletes often hide to avoid male competition, Gaines said.
“If they were to transition while they’re doing their sport, it would mean they have to compete against men, where they can’t [successfully] compete,” Gaines said.
At least one school soccer team in Tennessee has this problem, she said. A player on a women’s soccer team who identifies as a man continues to play against women to avoid being outperformed by men, Gaines said.
‘How Many Women Have to Get Hurt?’
The transgender intrusion into women’s sports is more extensive than people realize, Gaines said.It eventually will end—but only if people choose to end it, she said. In the meantime, vulnerable women will suffer, she said.
To protect women, Gaines said she is working on a fund to sue the NCAA for violations of Title IX.
Title IX refers to part of a federal civil rights law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in schools and educational programs receiving funding from the federal government.
“How many women have to get hurt?” she asked.
“How many women have to lose out on opportunities? How many women have to be forced to give up consent in areas of undressing before we make changes?”
