Gaines for Girls with Riley Gaines - 61 Boys in Girls Sports in ONE County？! Parents FOUGHT and WON ｜ The Riley Gaines Show

00:00:00.000 they tell us it's not really happening well tell that to jefferson county in colorado that has

00:00:09.900 61 boys competing on girls sports teams that is in one county uh welcome back to the show today

00:00:19.620 i'm super excited uh we are talking to a true warrior for girls she's a friend of mine i've

00:00:26.120 had the honor of standing with her before. Her name is Lindsay Datko. She is the founder of

00:00:31.240 Jeffco Kids First in Colorado. She is a wife, she is a mom, she is a teacher, and she is one of the

00:00:38.340 most relentless child advocates out there. What started for her as a parent group pushing back

00:00:45.180 during the pandemic has become really a force of thousands of parents in the state of Colorado,

00:00:50.260 but really nationwide, fighting for transparency, fighting for safety, fighting for parental

00:00:55.840 rights. Again, this is in Jefferson County Public Schools. Her team at Jeffco Kids First has

00:01:01.920 documented 33 cases of sexual abuse, misconduct, and grooming by staff since 2022. That's only in

00:01:10.580 less than four years, really, at this point. These are cases that the district tried to

00:01:15.220 very entirely. But just last week, Lindsay and Jeffco Kids First really helped deliver a massive

00:01:21.500 Title IX victory. The U.S. Department of Education ruled that Jeffco violated federal law by letting

00:01:28.480 men, or I guess in this case boys, into girls' bathrooms, locker rooms, overnight accommodations, 0.95

00:01:34.100 and of course, even on girls' sports teams. As I said, with boys occupying 61 girls' roster spots,

00:01:42.400 This is exactly the fight that we have been in nationwide. And Lindsay, she's really leading the charge in Colorado. So stay tuned here.

00:01:50.200 well lindsey thank you for joining the show i was talking about you in the introduction

00:01:57.240 and how the pandemic was one of your kind of aha moments of course you're a teacher you're a mom

00:02:03.360 in jefferson county can you talk about that i can't stay silent anymore moment that led you

00:02:09.940 ultimately to finding jeffco kids first yeah and you know both my mom and i are teachers

00:02:15.740 and they were about to shut school doors and as teachers of young readers we thought if they do

00:02:22.820 this their their reading is going to suffer immensely and so my mom actually woke up at 2

00:02:29.380 a.m one night with this thought let's start gathering our friends let's start letting them

00:02:34.120 know we want to have the choice she calls it divine inspiration and I really think it was

00:02:40.240 And since then, we gathered 30 friends. We started chipping away and ultimately mastered our open record system so much that we pushed our health director to resign through the corruption that we uncovered and bipartisan support from elected officials.

00:02:58.340 and you know we thought that was our big crowning moment and really what we have learned is all of

00:03:05.760 that experience has led us to today. During the pandemic parents made so many discoveries

00:03:13.340 peering over their kids shoulders through remote learning that our mission naturally shifted into

00:03:20.200 all of these transparency issues and egregious issues that again that we've landed on today.

00:03:26.820 Yeah, egregious is putting it, I think, even mildly, especially in your county in the state of Colorado. Your group put together a report highlighting 33 cases of staff sexual abuse and misconduct in Jeffco schools since just 2022.

00:03:47.920 too. So can you talk about some of the patterns that you saw, how you were able to even uncover

00:03:53.280 these things, report these things? Have we seen any accountability since? I'm so curious about this.

00:04:01.940 Yeah. So since we put out that report, which the DOJ has shown interest in, we are now at over 37

00:04:10.560 cases, and most of them occurring in 2024 and 2025. Let me give you just a small taste,

00:04:17.840 Riley, of those cases to show just how egregious it is. In one case, migrant children were targeted,

00:04:25.700 given fake medical exams by an employee in a school office, and were molested. And that

00:04:33.960 is in going through the legal process in the courts. Another one, weapons, drugs, fentanyl

00:04:40.960 were used. The Jeffco School's employee encouraged her victim to bring a gun to school and target 0.54

00:04:48.060 a colleague in the midst of this sexual abuse. There was a case, a huge case that went international

00:04:55.220 out of Columbine High School where a student was groomed by her teacher

00:05:00.300 and ultimately whisked away to California after declaring her homeless right behind the parents' 0.76

00:05:07.660 backs. So much deception in that case. And I'll share just one more. Recently, a school psychologist

00:05:13.820 was charged for assaulting a child under 15, multiple charges there, originally charged with

00:05:20.480 soliciting for child prostitution, and they found ketamine on him when they arrested him.

00:05:26.060 In addition, he worked with another school employee in that school to purchase Plan B for one of his victims, and it goes on and on.

00:05:40.060 But here's the kicker. The chief of schools, who was right under the superintendent in authority, purchased child pornography and went under investigation and then committed suicide.

00:05:55.340 but through our open records requests, we discovered that he was in charge of the adult

00:06:02.080 to student sexual misconduct trainings. And I share that. Yeah. Because that shows you

00:06:08.400 what we're dealing with here and just how damaged our system is.

00:06:13.320 Oh my gosh. It's like the, the wolf and the chicken coop analogy. What in the world are

00:06:19.160 the hiring practices to allow such deviant people, deranged people, really sick people 1.00

00:06:27.080 into these positions where they're ultimately affecting and impressioning and a very vulnerable

00:06:34.580 population, that population being the youth, your children. Oh my gosh. So you talk about

00:06:40.920 the DOJ is now being involved. What does that look like? Yeah. So the hiring practices first,

00:06:48.460 you know, when the police are involved, that's when we see more accountability. But in Colorado,

00:06:54.580 grooming is not considered criminal. And so we have so many misconduct cases where it doesn't

00:07:04.220 rise to the level of criminals, such as grooming students. And one girl was sent a message from her

00:07:10.500 bus driver. You know, you like older men and given gifts and nothing happens. Yeah. Yeah.

00:07:17.300 it's every employee, every level that we're finding these cases. A little middle school

00:07:23.220 girl was sent bizarre late night text messages from her English teacher. Again, nothing happens

00:07:29.860 there. We have a team of legal experts and a private investigator, and we have just committed

00:07:37.520 our lives to this volunteer work. But the patterns that we've discovered with these professionals is

00:07:44.040 that they're basically, as they call it, passing the trash from school to school, from district to

00:07:50.300 district. They're placing these students in the most at-risk schools, so they have high schools

00:07:56.160 for highly at-risk students with high discipline needs. They're failing to report to the Colorado

00:08:03.020 Department of Education, and so that then lacks a flag for other districts, and we're tracking them

00:08:09.880 all over states. We've even tracked them in other states and other countries. It is a massive

00:08:16.100 failure. It's a crisis. And one of our senators just tried to pass a bill to help ensure that

00:08:23.500 reporting happens. And our legislature turned the bill down because the unions influenced that.

00:08:30.780 It's so twisted, isn't it? And so you have 37 cases of some form of sexual abuse or misconduct.

00:08:38.360 in, I mean, gosh, what, four years now. You have to imagine how seemingly apparent it is now.

00:08:44.880 It's been going on much longer than four years, right?

00:08:48.160 Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it's definitely people say, you know, this has been going on. But for

00:08:53.640 some reason, in those 24, 25 years, 2024, it was just building and building, incredibly disturbing.

00:09:02.560 And we have seen the issues in our school district's culture that we believe have created this permissiveness around this kind of behavior.

00:09:13.860 Yeah, I was going to ask you about that.

00:09:16.160 Maybe the link between some of these misconduct cases and the district's broader policies, especially on gender identity and obviously privacy and these trusted adults, per se, that seem to keep parents in the dark.

00:09:32.560 Yeah. And, you know, overall, it's this culture of deception. That's the word we use in our

00:09:39.120 mission, in all of our work. That's how we are gathering people of all perspectives.

00:09:44.460 It's deception. And it took us a good two years to really push back on certain policies.

00:09:53.300 The transgender equal opportunity policy is actually not equal at all. It favors the 1.00

00:09:59.800 transgender students. And within that policy, there were multiple instances of explicit deception

00:10:06.260 of leaving parents out of a child's transition process and deceiving them. In addition to that,

00:10:15.900 we have this term that's taking hold in our school districts across the nation, and it's

00:10:22.480 trusted adult. Every single one of our sexual abuse cases was a trusted adult. And that term

00:10:29.220 is actually the catalyst. It's the mechanism for driving the deception. It is leading children

00:10:37.020 away from their parents to selecting a trusted adult where this signage hangs above classroom

00:10:43.980 doors allowing teachers to self-identify as trusted adults. Curriculum leads them to talk

00:10:50.200 to trusted adults about sexual education and it basically is a parental estrangement mechanism

00:10:57.560 that term. In addition, so many egregious examples, but one is a training that we discovered where

00:11:05.420 they were leading teachers to rename GSA clubs so that children could attend them, you know,

00:11:12.500 and having it not known by their parents. I could go on and on, but overall, it's this culture of

00:11:18.840 deception, of pushing parents out, and it is real danger, real harm to real children.

00:11:25.180 What does GSA stand for? These GSA clubs? What's that?

00:11:29.160 That's actually a really good question. So GSA has long been known as Gay Sexual Alliance.

00:11:37.520 Got it.

00:11:37.840 But it is now Gender and Sexuality Alliance. And so that is something that has shifted. Now it

00:11:47.560 includes gender. And that is where a lot of deception happens to bring kids in secretly

00:11:53.240 and help them with their transitioning in the middle of the school day.

00:11:57.960 And that's what that means.

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00:13:55.840 Now, you mentioned some of these clubs being on these, I imagine, mostly high school campuses.

00:14:03.340 On the flip side of that, I think following Charlie Kirk's assassination, there was kind of

00:14:09.560 a cultural revolution, if you will, even in, I mean, several blue, deeply blue counties and

00:14:15.400 states where you saw young kids wanting to start like a Club America, which is kind of like a

00:14:20.160 turning point chapter for high schools. Are you seeing administrative pushback when maybe pro

00:14:26.460 Christian, pro conservative chapters are being, are attempted to being started by students?

00:14:34.740 You know, that hasn't come up a lot. I know of students who were inspired to try to do a TPUSA chapter. It's not as common to hear about that kind of chapter, but we definitely watch for that to make sure that that is going to be respected as well.

00:14:57.060 And what we always push for is these clubs need to take place after school hours when parents make the ultimate decision and have full knowledge of whether or not their children are attending.

00:15:11.340 But we definitely watch for that to make sure that that every club is going to be respected, as you mentioned.

00:15:17.740 Yeah. So I got to spend some time with you guys, gosh, what, maybe a year or two ago at this point.

00:15:23.420 And I got to meet the parents of a young girl.

00:15:27.220 I think she was 11 years old at the time who was sent on an overnight trip.

00:15:32.340 Can you give a little detail?

00:15:34.240 You know what I'm talking about.

00:15:35.120 Can you shed a little light on this and how ultimately now the U.S. Department of Education has launched an investigation into this?

00:15:44.340 Give us a little insight here.

00:15:46.320 Yes, that case has been just integral to this investigation.

00:15:50.860 And what happened was there's a school trip to Washington, D.C., where little 10-year-old children, fifth grade, will go on these trips.

00:16:00.800 And this little girl found that she had been paired with a biological male announced by him in the same.

00:16:10.280 But she was also 10-ish years old, right?

00:16:13.240 She was also 10 years old.

00:16:15.140 So not just in the same bedroom, but in the same bed.

00:16:19.020 She became very alarmed and unsettled and went to the bathroom and called her mother.

00:16:25.380 Her accommodations were not nearly as respected as the boys' accommodations.

00:16:32.940 But what's fascinating is at that same time, and Alliance Defending Freedom has taken on that child as a client.

00:16:41.000 And at that same time, our organization, Jeffco Kids First, began receiving weekly reports.

00:16:49.320 Our students, our sixth grade students, go on a week-long mountain trip.

00:16:54.440 It's called Outdoor Lab.

00:16:56.300 And they would come home and tell their parents, my high school leader, who's 17 and a child may be 11,

00:17:03.040 of an opposite sex was bunking, sharing sleeping spaces, monitoring showers, and they had no idea,

00:17:13.380 no notice to parents that this would be a possibility. And this became a very common

00:17:20.140 report. In fact, one of our high schools even explicitly recruited transgender students

00:17:27.340 for outdoor lab. And so that means they would be sleeping and bunking with the opposite sex 1.00

00:17:33.660 children. So all of this was happening near the same time. And our families at our encouragement

00:17:42.180 began making many reports to the Department of Education. And both of those, the little girl in

00:17:47.380 the bed, the outdoor lab situation were referenced in their launch, in their press release of this

00:17:54.360 investigation. And so we're so glad that they're taking it so seriously. And yeah, it's been over

00:18:01.860 three years of us pushing for that. So this is a huge moment for us. And then on top of that,

00:18:06.820 Riley, is the sports issue that the Department of Ed brought forward.

00:18:12.680 Well, that has circulated online. And oh, my gosh, it totally debunks the whole it's not

00:18:19.240 really happening narrative that we see all the time, even from legislators in the state of

00:18:23.840 Colorado who say, well, it's not really an issue here. What Jeffco Kids First and what the Department

00:18:30.580 of Education has ruled is that it certainly is an issue and not just an issue. It has overrun

00:18:38.500 the county. 61 boys on girls, teams, absolutely a violation of Title IX. What went through your

00:18:46.760 mind as someone who has kind of been on the front lines, especially locally in the county?

00:18:50.780 What went through your mind when you saw these numbers?

00:18:55.060 Yeah, unbelievable.

00:18:56.760 And we just kind of sat in silence reading that report.

00:19:01.200 And as soon as they launched, I, again, because of that pandemic experience, understanding

00:19:06.580 so well how the open record system works, I submitted a request to get all of that documentation.

00:19:13.820 And when we read that report, which is 31 pages long, and that data showed up, we were

00:19:20.140 stunned. And I want to be careful to say that the Department of Ed uses the words up to 61

00:19:27.620 because they make it so incredibly difficult to track this data. And I think that's why it

00:19:34.540 went so wild online is because it's very difficult to actually see it broken down.

00:19:41.380 But what we found is in that data, and it corroborates with employee reports,

00:19:47.420 coaches on opposing teams I just had a coach text me this morning and say hey this is happening in

00:19:54.180 cross-country a lot and that's exactly what the data shows that cross-country was one of the main

00:20:01.120 sports to have this issue followed by tennis and then swimming and volleyball and so it was just

00:20:09.720 unbelievable to read that and to be honest Riley one is too many 20 would have been shocking but

00:20:16.460 But up to 61 possible males taking away girls' dreams and scholarships, as you know, all too well.

00:20:24.440 It's so true. 0.84

00:20:25.700 And you're right with one being too many and to just maybe shed light.

00:20:30.080 Because, again, if you haven't played sports, maybe you don't really understand.

00:20:33.980 But one boy, it's not like a one-to-one, right?

00:20:37.800 Like one boy doesn't affect one girl.

00:20:39.620 You have one boy standing atop the podium or taking a roster spot or whatever, taking an opportunity, being in the locker room.

00:20:45.860 that affects every single girl think of how many girls in the state of colorado play sports 1.00

00:20:50.200 that's how many are displaced when you have a man at the top so to have up to 61 that is crazy

00:20:56.960 numbers uh and so of course you have as i alluded to the lost opportunities but you also have fears

00:21:03.220 of safety you talk about volleyball and tennis sports where you're you know jumping up spiking

00:21:09.580 a ball colliding into one another where you have collision things like that you have safety

00:21:14.120 concerns. And obviously the locker room, there's a total violation of, of privacy. And when you're

00:21:20.220 talking about that 10, 11 year old girl sharing a bed, I think of myself at that age, you know,

00:21:27.140 you're in fifth grade and, and I didn't go on overnight trips at the time because that's how

00:21:31.660 timid I was to even leave my home. So being in a bed with even a girl doesn't sound overly

00:21:37.740 comfortable. Um, but sharing that space with a boy, oh my gosh, if you're a parent or maybe you

00:21:44.220 have younger sisters and you're listening to this, think of, think of them, uh, put your daughter or

00:21:49.860 your granddaughter or your sister, uh, in their shoes. That is a, that is a crazy thing. And so

00:21:55.220 anyways, have you talked to parents specifically who have experienced, uh, again, whether it's

00:22:01.380 the violation of it, the lost opportunities because of these policies? Yeah. And I want to

00:22:06.600 read a couple of their testimonials word for word just to show you. Yeah, so here's one. This one

00:22:13.720 just really deeply hits me, the breach of privacy here. One parent reached out and said my middle

00:22:20.640 school daughter was using the restroom and taking care of her female hygiene when a biological male 1.00

00:22:26.840 peered over the stall. Another, my kindergartner, came home from school and told me her teacher

00:22:33.540 announced that a boy in their classroom would now be using the girls bathroom I confirmed with the

00:22:39.220 girls with the teacher and my daughter is uncomfortable and confused showing all ages here 0.90

00:22:45.580 and here's one that really shows what everyone knows is going to happen when you just open

00:22:51.560 bathrooms to males to come in freely and use the female restroom in an intimate space he said our

00:22:59.280 daughter left class one day to use the restroom. She walked into the girls restroom at school to 1.00

00:23:03.820 find there was a boy in the girls bathroom. They were engaged in an intimate moment, the boy and

00:23:10.020 the girl. She left the restroom and went to tell an administrator that there was a boy in the girls 1.00

00:23:15.200 bathroom. They have investigated and the boy who was known by students to generally identify as

00:23:21.940 male told the school that he is transgender so nothing was done. And the parent who was also 0.95

00:23:28.700 a Jefferson County teacher, said nowhere in any response were my concerns for my daughter's

00:23:35.120 feelings or concerns for her safety and privacy in a female space addressed. And that really says it

00:23:41.700 all right there. The bathroom issue, girls are standing guard. They're leaving campus to use 1.00

00:23:48.080 the bathroom at home. I mean, this isn't just a culture war, Riley. This is real kids, real harm,

00:23:54.860 real privacy being breached. My gosh. Yeah. You think about if the only qualification

00:24:02.020 to access female spaces is to say you are a woman, think of how many people would take 1.00

00:24:08.040 advantage of that. And whether it's in these high schools or middle schools even, but across the

00:24:13.900 board, we see it all the time in prisons where male inmates who are often convicted of violent

00:24:20.460 sexual offenses, realize that the quickest way to get into a woman's prison, which sounds awesome 1.00

00:24:25.300 to a rapist, is to say, I am a woman. Well, they're doing that and they're getting access to

00:24:30.380 these women in these facilities. And it's heartbreaking because these are women who

00:24:35.920 oftentimes come from some sort of domestic violence background. Of course, they have their

00:24:40.700 own issues, but these are bruised and battered women a lot of times. And they're being exposed 0.99

00:24:45.560 to that because he has merely said he is a woman. It's wild. And these are kids we're talking about,

00:24:52.160 as you said. Of course, Jeffco, they're pushing back, saying that this ruling that has come from

00:24:58.120 the Department of Education really has no basis in Title IX, and that they're going to keep

00:25:03.580 following state law. What's your reaction to that? And what exactly does the proposed

00:25:10.160 resolution agreement require them to do, I mean, this week?

00:25:15.640 Yeah, you know, they really can't hide behind state law. Now, we would have bet a lot that

00:25:21.500 this would be their response to media. They're calling it erroneous. It's to be expected with

00:25:27.340 Jefferson County, they will dig their heels and they will die on this hill of gender ideology. 1.00

00:25:31.980 uh we so the department of ed basically outlined um that they're denying fairness and equality to

00:25:42.020 females in private facilities overnight travel and sports and what they're requiring of them 1.00

00:25:48.520 was a four-page document again that i was able to pull from uh open records that shows in vast

00:25:56.000 detail. And so they're required to rescind and refuse policy on all of these issues,

00:26:03.720 make a public statement, and post it prominently on their website. I love this, Riley. We're

00:26:10.740 calling this the Riley Effect. They have to reinstate athletic awards to all females who 1.00

00:26:19.560 rightfully deserved it, and issue an apology letter to those females. So again, it's very

00:26:26.340 detailed. It's four pages long, but that's generally what they're requiring of them,

00:26:31.740 and today's the deadline. But let me just mention this. So the Department of Ed is very clear

00:26:36.960 that Title IX applies irrespective of Colorado's state law, and they are requiring Jeffco to

00:26:44.540 acknowledge that and basically post that on their website. But in addition to that, we just had a

00:26:50.040 settlement happen through our Colorado High School Activities Association, which governs all of the

00:26:56.120 high school sporting activities in our district. And so they settled saying that they will not

00:27:04.320 place penalty on any school district that wants to keep transgender students out of sports.

00:27:11.260 And so they're, of course, using state law and that we call it CHASA bylaws, but really CHASA just free districts to make their own policies.

00:27:22.160 And so Jeffco's hands are going to be tied, I believe, because not only that, enforcement is going to mean removing funding.

00:27:30.640 And we're in a $70 million deficit in a $1.4 billion budget.

00:27:35.960 They can't afford a single dollar to be taken.

00:27:39.980 And so we think with this pushback that they're going to land in court, there's going to be hearings, the DOJ, again, the sexual abuse work we did with the DOJ, we hope will help here because they've already done a deep dive into Jeffco and seen how egregious it is.

00:27:58.320 And they're the ones who will enforce and hopefully go to court and file an injunction.

00:28:03.000 So we're just at the beginning of the ride, but boy, are we feeling relief for our kids.

00:28:07.880 Yeah, I would imagine so. And you're right. When you talk about pulling federal funds, first of all, the issue of which this debate is even happening. But when you talk about pulling federal funds, I mean, these are like school lunches for kids.

00:28:24.080 uh so you you would imagine that they would be on the right side of this but history has shown in

00:28:31.660 other states where you can expect this to be happening uh they continue to act defiantly

00:28:38.020 so we'll certainly be watching have you had any desire to maybe rebrand or take jeffco kids first

00:28:46.200 kind of national because i i would imagine with the success that you've had you've had lots of

00:28:51.260 parents reaching out, parents from, I'm sure, across the state, but probably from across the

00:28:56.480 country who inquire, you know, how do they get something like this started in their own districts?

00:29:02.640 What's maybe some practical advice you would give to them? Yeah, you know, I love that question. And

00:29:08.940 I believe that the success we have had is because we have focused so locally. I love that. We have

00:29:16.160 exhausted every option, every elected official, every agency that could help us locally in

00:29:22.980 Colorado, and that's when we turned federally, and that's where we're receiving the help.

00:29:28.340 We cannot just simply throw our hands up and say, nobody helped us, because this is safety.

00:29:33.460 This is our children's privacy, and so we reached out, and luckily, they're responding.

00:29:39.720 We're so incredibly grateful for that.

00:29:41.420 need them to prove that Title IX does apply irrespective of these state laws in certain

00:29:46.700 states. And so what I would say to parents is just start building support. You've got to

00:29:52.960 advocate with facts. You have to be so focused on facts. You have to do it in a dignified manner

00:29:59.760 where you're going to gain the trust of people around you, and they're going to want to support

00:30:04.460 you. Our key people have been employees within Jeffco schools who bring information forward.

00:30:11.420 They know that we're going to do it in a dignified way.

00:30:14.100 We're not going to make up stories.

00:30:17.280 And we're going to verify.

00:30:19.900 Learn to master your open record system.

00:30:22.800 You can get information.

00:30:24.860 It belongs to you as the public.

00:30:27.980 And then don't just stop there, but turn it into results.

00:30:32.460 Push for policy changes.

00:30:34.380 Have meetings with leaders.

00:30:36.520 And make real change in addition to exposing and sunlight.

00:30:41.420 See, I love that you hit on focus, focus on the community locally, what's happening at the grassroot level, because I think so often people get wrapped up in what's going on in Washington, D.C.

00:30:53.540 And yes, of course, it matters, especially in what's going on now in Jefferson County.

00:30:59.300 It matters who's in the Oval Office.

00:31:01.200 And of course, you want those people on your side. But what has far more influence on your children and what they're they're digesting and learning is what's happening at the local level. So I could not encourage that enough. I think it is so important. That is how you see real impact and real change. So I'm so glad that you mentioned that even myself.

00:31:25.900 I'm on our Sumner County, my county in Tennessee.

00:31:29.220 I'm on our library board because I took issue with the books that were in our public libraries

00:31:34.160 paid for by taxpayers, you and me.

00:31:38.860 But rather than just going online and talking about it, it's like, okay, well, why don't

00:31:42.540 I do something about it?

00:31:45.340 And in that, there has been positive movement and change.

00:31:49.720 So I love that.

00:31:51.080 There's two ballot initiatives on the November ballot surrounding kind of gender ideology. Can you talk about those and maybe how Jeffco Kids was involved or what your position on these things is?

00:32:05.560 Yeah, it's incredible. So there's another statewide grassroots organization called Protect Kids Colorado, and what they have accomplished is absolutely unbelievable and amazing.

00:32:19.440 they uh it's never been done before but they we found our elected officials our legislature would

00:32:27.040 not respond to these issues that many of them should be non-partisan bipartisan and they

00:32:33.660 wouldn't even you know want to punish sex offenders as you said and so they turned to

00:32:39.620 voters and they successfully gathered half a million signatures to get these initiatives on

00:32:46.980 our November ballot. And one is men and women's sports and another is the gender mutilation issue.

00:32:57.600 And so it's incredible what they've accomplished. But what I think is going to happen is

00:33:02.340 hopefully these pass. And what it's going to show is that Colorado is not represented by

00:33:09.080 our legislature. Our legislature is not responding to Colorado as a whole. The voters are going to

00:33:17.960 prove it, and Colorado is going to reject this damage done to children, is what we're going to

00:33:25.300 see happen, is our hope. Yeah, these ballot initiatives are really, really difficult

00:33:30.360 to pull off, and so to see the success thus far in the state of Colorado,

00:33:35.720 So it gives a lot of other states, I think just they feel as if there's a little cover provided there to push forward.

00:33:44.940 I know we've seen it in Maine now, again, previously unsuccessful efforts.

00:33:49.600 Now these are finally turning.

00:33:51.780 And so I think a lot of that is to thank people like you, Lindsay, and, of course, Jeffco Kids first.

00:33:57.040 So thank you for your tireless advocacy, you know, starting a lot of this stuff back in the COVID era.

00:34:04.580 It was a totally different time. It was a lot what it felt, at least speaking personally, it felt a lot more consequential then in 2020, 2021 to say what you guys were saying, as opposed to now in 2026, where I think it's becoming easier to say things like men can't be women and vice versa.

00:34:26.060 and that you are the arbiter of your child.

00:34:30.760 You don't have to co-parent with the government.

00:34:32.960 I think it's becoming easier to say those things,

00:34:34.820 but it wouldn't be possible

00:34:35.820 without people in groups like yours.

00:34:37.860 So thank you, Lindsay.

00:34:39.140 Thank you so much.

00:34:40.540 You've been our inspiration.

00:34:42.280 You brought so much energy to Jefferson County

00:34:44.500 when you came and attended our gala.

00:34:47.700 And we're gonna continue our mission

00:34:49.240 to protect our children's future

00:34:51.160 by securing their present.

00:34:52.480 We're thankful for the national ripple waves

00:34:55.160 and we hope our local work has an effect nationally.

00:34:59.060 What's kind of next for you guys?

00:35:00.560 Do you have anything big in the works?

00:35:02.380 And how can people support you too?

00:35:04.720 Yeah, this is kind of our big moment for sure.

00:35:08.420 We're going to have to hold feet to the fire.

00:35:10.640 We're talking about bureaucracy, fighting bureaucracy.

00:35:13.300 And to see that through, we're going to be working very hard to get a resolution here.

00:35:20.440 You can visit our website at www.jeffcokidsfirst.com.

00:35:26.240 We're entirely volunteer and depend on grassroots donations and support.

00:35:32.580 And you can reach out to us there with any questions.

00:35:35.540 We'd love to help anyone who is fighting a similar fight.

00:35:39.740 Amazing. Amazing.

00:35:41.040 Well, that support system, it makes a huge difference.

00:35:44.580 When you have other people you can lean on, maybe people who have gone through similar things.

00:35:48.120 So highly encourage if you're listening, watching right now, go to www.jeffcokidsfirst.com support if you can, because sure it's an investment, but there are few things more worthy of an investment than your kids and their future. So thank you, Lindsay.

00:36:05.580 Thank you so much.

00:36:06.700 thank you guys for tuning in to the riley gaines show be sure to follow us here on youtube.com

00:36:12.720 slash riley gains you can subscribe that way you never miss an episode you can follow us over on

00:36:17.340 instagram at riley gaines show we'd love to hear from you you can leave comments here you can dms

00:36:22.320 over on instagram we want your feedback we want to know what you want to hear about we want to know

00:36:26.400 what guests you want to see on the show be sure to share these episodes far and wide it helps

00:36:31.800 tremendously when you do you can share it with your friends or your parents or your neighbors

00:36:37.160 Heck, why don't you share this with that liberal in your life?

00:36:40.440 You know the one I'm talking about.

00:36:42.060 Share it with the person who needs to hear this message the most.

00:36:45.500 We'll see you guys later.

Gaines for Girls with Riley Gaines - March 27, 2026

61 Boys in Girls Sports in ONE County？! Parents FOUGHT and WON ｜ The Riley Gaines Show

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