Gaines for Girls with Riley Gaines - Celebrating International Women's Day

00:00:00.520 Okay, only 10 more presents to wrap. You're almost at the finish line. But first...

00:00:10.980 There, the last one. Enjoy a Coca-Cola for a pause that refreshes.

00:00:18.040 Welcome back to the Gainsboroughs podcast. Today's episode is a special one because it is

00:00:31.680 International Women's History Day. Never a day that I celebrated prior to us as women being told

00:00:38.880 by the people leading this country, make no mistake, by our leaders in corporate America,

00:00:42.860 in academia, and virtually in every realm, that men make the best women. So I certainly see the

00:00:49.960 importance of highlighting and honoring real women when it is real women who are due to be honored

00:00:56.840 and celebrated. But let's be real, identity politics is a silly game. It's a dangerous game,

00:01:03.060 actually, in general. I think a whole month dedicated to celebrating women's history is

00:01:08.320 just as silly as a whole month dedicated to celebrating Black history. These are really

00:01:13.840 just ways to continue to further divide us as a nation, as people. We're all Americans. We all

00:01:21.820 bleed red. But anyways, I figured I would take this episode today and share, I guess, kind of

00:01:31.540 the how I got here again. It has been just about two years this national championships

00:01:38.400 is approaching that's actually taking place at University of Georgia that would mark the two-year

00:01:44.620 mark since the whole Leah Thomas debacle, formerly Will Thomas, of course, right? So I figured I

00:01:51.940 would share this story again because I think it's important. I think it's important for people to

00:01:55.300 realize not just what we face in terms of the unfair competition, but what we face in terms of

00:02:01.300 the locker room aspect, what we face in terms of the silencing aspect, and how this really

00:02:08.220 continues to go on, and how this transcends beyond just this issue in particular. And it really has

00:02:14.880 transcended into an infringement upon our First Amendment rights, our freedom of speech.

00:02:20.600 So, background here. I started swimming when I was four years old. I graduated when I was 22. So,

00:02:29.520 of course, this means I dedicated really 18 years of my life to my sport. It's impossible to put

00:02:36.660 into words. And those athletes watching this, the parents of athletes watching this, former athletes,

00:02:41.560 you know, right? It's impossible to put into words the amount of time and the hours and the dedication

00:02:46.520 and the sacrifices that you have to make to be willing to compete and ultimately be successful,

00:02:52.500 especially at the highest level. But I was willing. I knew. I knew I had to do these things.

00:02:58.920 And so, you know, by the time I was eight years old, I was practicing every single day.

00:03:05.060 Middle school rolls around. You're practicing before school. You go to school. Straight from school,

00:03:09.820 you go back to practice. You did your homework, ate your dinner, went to bed, did it all again the next

00:03:15.660 day. You don't get to go on family vacations because, God forbid, you took one day out of the

00:03:20.840 water. Michael Phelps is known for saying that swimming is one of those sports where one day out

00:03:26.620 of the water, it takes you three days to get back to where you were. So, if you took a week off at

00:03:32.560 family vacation, it'd take you three weeks to get back to the point you were at before vacation. So,

00:03:36.880 none of that. No time out of the water. You don't get to go to prom with your friends because,

00:03:41.440 guess what? You have practice. You have a meet that same day. Same thing. No sleepovers on Friday

00:03:47.760 nights. Practice at 6 a.m. on Saturday morning. So, but again, all of that to say, I was willing

00:03:52.920 to do this. Flash forward to being recruited for college. Truth be told, I was pretty heavily

00:04:00.580 recruited. If you don't know, I come from a family of athletes. My father, he was an SEC football player.

00:04:08.220 My mom played softball. My oldest sister played softball. She ended up going to Ole Miss. My

00:04:12.960 brother's in college playing football now. My little sister, she's probably the best athlete

00:04:18.040 of my whole family. And I would never tell her this. I hope she's not watching. But she's a gymnast

00:04:22.920 and she will certainly be competing in college when it's time for her. So, I come from a family of

00:04:29.420 athletes. All my uncles played in Super Bowls and won Super Bowls and crazy stuff. So, playing sports was

00:04:36.240 never really an option for me. But anyways, flash forward to college. I'm starting to get recruited.

00:04:42.780 I'm biased. The SEC is the best conference. And I knew that's what I wanted to do.

00:04:48.840 Ended up taking a trip to University of Kentucky, kind of on a whim. But I fell in love with the

00:04:54.080 university. Never really where I saw myself. I saw myself somewhere the likes of Florida, right?

00:04:59.260 A school that's historically known for their pretty dominant women's swim team.

00:05:05.260 But I went to Kentucky and I fell in love. I really felt God tugging me to ultimately go to

00:05:11.800 Kentucky. And looking back, there could not have been a better place for me. I love the team. I love

00:05:17.620 the coaches. I love the resources that were being poured into us outside of even just athletics. How

00:05:22.840 they poured into our academics, into our community service, and our stewardship. All things that really

00:05:27.660 mattered to me. And so, I ended up going there. Freshman year, I thought I worked hard before.

00:05:35.580 I was wrong because this was a different kind of working hard. We trained six hours every day,

00:05:42.740 right? So, three hours before 8 a.m. 5 a.m. to 8 a.m. You're in the pool. You go to class. You come

00:05:49.160 back. You practice again from 1.30 to 4.30. You ate your dinner. Again, did your homework. Ice your

00:05:54.520 shoulder. Went to bed. Did it all again the next day. So, lots of adjustment during my freshman

00:06:00.640 year. Sophomore year rolls around. And I was really having a breakout season. I developed a sense of

00:06:09.380 consistency. A consistency among my diet. Consistency among my sleep schedule. Among my

00:06:15.840 attitude. Even within my personal relationships. I just tried to be a very consistent person. Which

00:06:21.780 paid off. But about three days before we were supposed to leave our national championships

00:06:27.220 in March of 2020, our coaches pull us out of the water, take us back to the team room,

00:06:32.800 sit us down. My coach said, look, if you live in the dorm rooms, pack your stuff up. You have

00:06:38.820 to leave campus tonight. Of course, COVID had hit. We didn't really know what this meant at the

00:06:46.180 time. There was a lot of uncertainty surrounding this. And so, for all I knew, I thought we'd go

00:06:53.160 home for maybe the weekend or potentially the week. But we'd be able to come back to campus pretty soon.

00:06:57.460 Everything would be back to normal. But that was naive to think. Because upon going back home to

00:07:03.660 Nashville, Tennessee, there were no pools open. There were no gyms open. Fortunately, we have an

00:07:10.580 abundance of lakes. And like I mentioned, swimming is not one of those sports you get to take time off.

00:07:14.840 And so, I knew if I wanted to continue this breakout season I was having my sophomore year

00:07:19.240 into my junior year when we were eventually able to come back, I had to keep training somehow.

00:07:24.460 So, I put on a wetsuit every single day and swam miles, aimlessly in the lake, just hoping and

00:07:31.320 praying that I would continue getting better. Which, ultimately, I did. Not to mention the amount of

00:07:38.120 snakes that swam in front of me or like dead catfish that hit you in your face as you're swimming.

00:07:44.840 Um, certainly not pleasant. I had this route where I'd jump in the boat dock and I'd swim down to

00:07:49.320 Johnny Cash's house and I came back and I did it every single day. But eventually, we were able to

00:07:55.380 return to school my junior year. Which, I did continue this breakout season. Um, despite the

00:08:03.820 COVID theatrics. Which, I will be the first person to say that being a college athlete,

00:08:08.860 really being a college student, I would argue being a human during the time of COVID was

00:08:14.420 miserable, to say the least, in terms of the social distancing and the contact tracing and the mask

00:08:22.200 mandates and, um, the mandatory vaccines. Uh, which I understood mandatory did not mean required.

00:08:31.700 And honestly, I say that to say it's really the first time I learned to stand up for myself and say

00:08:35.580 no to authority figures when they told me, Riley, you know, your team captain, you have to get the

00:08:41.680 vaccine. You're going to be hurting your team if you don't. And you're supposed to be the leader.

00:08:45.400 You don't want to hurt your team, do you? Of course I did it. Um, this was my first taste

00:08:51.640 of emotional blackmail, which is important to remember going into my senior year.

00:08:55.280 Uh, because honestly, the tactics that they use to force us either into submission or to, um,

00:09:02.880 to be coerced, uh, were the same my junior and senior year and two totally unrelated different topics.

00:09:09.020 But anyways, I said no. I thought, you know, I've already, one, I'd already had COVID. So I had the

00:09:14.980 natural, I had the antibodies, which I thought was the best form of natural immunity. I was young.

00:09:20.680 I was healthy. Why would I inject myself with a vaccine that we don't know the long-term effects

00:09:25.140 of? Anyways, all that to say, I learned how to stand up for myself, but, but ultimately my junior

00:09:29.640 year, uh, this is one I won my first individual SEC title. Uh, this is when I led my team to its first

00:09:36.760 ever program SEC title in history. Uh, and ultimately my junior year, I ended up placing seventh in the

00:09:44.580 nation, which I was proud of, right? You know, you're top eight, you're an all American. It's

00:09:49.200 pretty high honor, but it was right then and there that I placed seventh my junior year that I set the

00:09:54.700 goal of my senior year to win a national title, which would of course mean becoming the fastest

00:09:59.760 woman in the country in my respective event. I'm right on pace to achieve this goal. I'm about

00:10:06.320 midway through my senior season. Uh, I was ranked third in the nation in the 200 free, uh, trailing the

00:10:11.580 girl in second by a few one hundredths, tenths of a second. Maybe, uh, I knew her very well because

00:10:17.120 like in most sports, you're top tier athletes know of each other, uh, regardless of where you compete

00:10:21.980 because you've grown up competing against each other. So I knew her very well, but the swimmer who

00:10:27.820 was ranked first in the nation, leading the nation by body links, might I add, was a swimmer that I had

00:10:34.700 never heard of before. Neither had my teammates or my coaches. Uh, and this is the first time we became

00:10:40.420 aware of a swimmer named Leah Thomas. Keep in mind, we hadn't seen a photo of this person or else

00:10:46.660 things probably would have been a little more clear. Uh, but for all we knew at the time, this was

00:10:52.040 a senior from University of Pennsylvania leading the nation, which is not historically a school

00:10:58.160 known for producing fast swimmers, leading the nation by body links and events ranging from the

00:11:03.920 100 freestyle to the 200 freestyle. Um, which if you don't know anything about swimming, um, think

00:11:11.940 about this in terms of your Olympic runners, because that's like saying your best 200 meter

00:11:16.080 runner is your best marathon runner. They're two totally different systems. That's not what we see,

00:11:21.080 but that's what we were seeing in this person. So scratching my head, uh, talking to my coaches,

00:11:26.660 my, my, my teammates, who is this? We had no idea. And we continued to stay in the dark

00:11:30.680 until an article was posted disclosing that Leah Thomas was formerly Will Thomas and swam three

00:11:39.000 years on the men's team at University of Pennsylvania before deciding to switch to the

00:11:43.060 women's team. When I read this, of course I was shocked. Naturally I was shocked, but, but really

00:11:51.880 I felt this sense of relief upon reading this. It's kind of like, oh, this makes sense. Uh, and

00:11:58.880 admittedly I was curious at this point. I, I went to look up who Will Thomas was. I wanted to know,

00:12:04.100 you know, was this a lateral movement? Was this someone who went from ranking amongst the best

00:12:08.160 of the men to now continuing to rank amongst the best of the women? Which is of course not what we

00:12:14.200 saw. Uh, we saw this was a mediocre man at best and that's, that's generous. Um, who was ranked

00:12:21.400 460 second in the nation the year prior when competing against the men. Um, and the hundred

00:12:28.440 freestyle where he was also at the top of the nation in the women's category, he was ranked in

00:12:32.340 the three thousands competing against the men. So again, but ultimately, like I said, that's why I

00:12:38.000 say I felt relieved. Um, because I thought the NCAA would see it, how I saw it and how my teammates

00:12:44.720 saw it and how my coaches saw it and how my family saw it and how anyone with any amount of brain

00:12:48.400 activity would probably comprehend this. Uh, but lo and behold, the NCAA did not see it that way.

00:12:55.800 They saw absolutely nothing wrong with this. And about three weeks before our national championships

00:12:59.920 in March of 2022, they announced that Thomas's participation in the women's category was a

00:13:04.980 non-negotiable meaning there was nothing that we could do as female athletes. There was no questions

00:13:10.540 that we could ask or concerns that we could raise. Uh, we were essentially told that we had to accept

00:13:15.260 this with a smile on our face. Um, and so I got to personally witness and really feel the effect

00:13:23.680 that this infringement, that this injustice had on myself and my teammates and my competitors.

00:13:29.840 And look, I don't claim to speak for every single girl on that pool deck. No, of course not. But I do

00:13:35.460 claim to speak for the overwhelming majority of us because I look, I can wholeheartedly attest to the

00:13:40.820 tears that I saw, not just from the moms in the stands watching as their daughters are being

00:13:45.540 obliterated in the sport that they once loved, but the tears that I saw from the girls who placed

00:13:51.340 ninth and 17th and missed out on being named an All-American by one place. And I can wholeheartedly

00:13:56.420 attest to the extreme discomfort in the locker room when you turn around and there's a six foot four

00:14:03.060 22 year old man who's fully intact with and exposing male genitalia inches away from where you were

00:14:09.000 simultaneously undressing. And I can wholeheartedly attest to the whispers because that's what they

00:14:17.960 were. They were whispers of anger and frustration from those girls who just like myself had worked

00:14:23.460 our entire lives to get to this meet. And so that first day of competition was the 500 resale,

00:14:30.880 uh, where it's not, it's not an event that I typically do. And so I watched on the side of the

00:14:35.060 as Thomas swam to a national title, beating out Olympians, beating out American record holders.

00:14:42.140 Keep in mind these, these girls weren't scrubs. They're the most impressive female swimmers this

00:14:46.580 world has ever seen. And Thomas beat them all by body links. Um, one second might not sound like a lot

00:14:53.980 of time, but in the sport of swimming, uh, one second is significant, right? It's a sport that's

00:14:59.160 measured down to the hundredth of a second. Um, Thomas beat the entire nation, the entire country

00:15:06.120 of girls by nearly two full seconds. And even the time Thomas went, um, in 2022 would have beat every

00:15:12.900 girl in the nation in 2023 by two full seconds. Um, he became the first man to win a division one

00:15:20.740 NCAA women's title trailblazer. Um, but the second day was the 200 freestyle, which is the event that

00:15:28.920 he and I race in. And so we swim prelims that morning. Uh, we weren't in the same heat. We

00:15:34.940 both qualified top eight though. So we came back that evening where we were in the same heat.

00:15:39.580 Um, got on the blocks, dove off, swam eight laps of freestyle, touched the ball at the end.

00:15:46.200 I look up at the scoreboard and almost impossibly enough, uh, we had gone the exact same time down

00:15:53.960 to the hundredth of a second, meaning we in tide.

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00:16:23.140 tread plus at onepeloton.ca. Uh, I have people all the time tell me, you know, uh, you know,

00:16:31.080 some of the haters and the opposition and some of the negative comments that infiltrate in,

00:16:34.920 they'll say, Oh, well, you're just a sore loser. Let it be known. This man didn't beat me,

00:16:40.520 which is incredibly embarrassing, honestly, for a six foot four man. Um, but anyways, we had tied,

00:16:47.460 which you can't tell me that's not in divide intervention when racing for a little over a

00:16:53.980 minute and 40 seconds and not even one, one hundred separated us. Um, that's certainly God's

00:16:59.900 doing. Uh, we get out of the water, go behind the awards podium where the NCAA official looks at both

00:17:06.040 Thomas and myself. Again, Thomas, who's towering over me at six foot four and the official says,

00:17:11.060 great job, you two, but you tied and we only have one trophy. So we're going to give the trophy to

00:17:16.780 yeah. Sorry, Riley, you don't get one. In this moment, uh, my heart rate was still high.

00:17:24.920 My adrenaline was still high. And so the first thing that I thought ended up being the first

00:17:29.120 thing that I said. Um, and the first thought that I had was, isn't this everything that title

00:17:35.460 nine was passed to prevent from happening? What do you mean you're going to give the trophy to a man

00:17:39.980 in the women's 200 freestyle? Uh, I asked the question, no one dared ask all season. And I said,

00:17:45.520 why they didn't have an answer as to why, uh, they hadn't been given a script of what to say when

00:17:53.160 someone asked why. And so he kind of stumbled on his words and this poor official, he says, uh, well,

00:18:00.560 uh, well, we're just doing this in chronological order is what's his first rationale he tried to,

00:18:06.700 to, to use. And so I, I continued to press. Okay. Uh, we tied. I'm not really sure what you're

00:18:15.620 being chronological about. Do you mean alphabetical? Because if so, G comes before T. Otherwise I

00:18:21.700 literally have no idea what you're being chronological about. Uh, again, he didn't have

00:18:27.060 an answer for this and actually appreciate his honesty and understand this is when his face changed.

00:18:31.660 He looked sad. His voice was somber. I could tell he didn't even believe what he was about to say.

00:18:37.720 Um, but he looked at me and he said, Riley, I am so sorry, but we have been advised as an

00:18:42.940 organization that when photos are being taken, it's crucial that the trophy's in Leah's hands.

00:18:48.820 Again, you can post with this one, but you have to give yours back. Leah takes the trophy home.

00:18:54.140 You go home empty handed. End of story. We can eventually mail you one is what they said.

00:18:58.220 It was that moment. Uh, that was the pivotal moment for me. I knew all season. Of course I

00:19:06.160 knew all season. We all did. We knew the unfair competition was wrong. We knew the locker was wrong.

00:19:10.460 We knew the silencing was wrong, but it wasn't until this official reduced everything that we

00:19:16.440 had worked our entire lives for down to a photo op to validate the feelings and the identity of a man

00:19:23.400 at the expense of our own. That is when I was no longer willing to go along with it. And I look

00:19:30.140 back now. Um, and even in that moment, really, I felt guilty. I felt responsible. I felt complicit

00:19:36.980 because I had participated in this farce. Uh, but it took me, unfortunately, it took me being directly

00:19:43.420 impacted to, to, to really see, truly see the harm and the severity and the likelihood of this

00:19:49.700 continuing to happen. Um, up until this point, honestly, I, I don't think coward is the right

00:19:58.500 word. Maybe it is, but I don't feel like I was necessarily cowering. I just thought it was someone

00:20:03.220 else's responsibility. I just thought someone else would do it. I thought surely a coach would say

00:20:07.740 something. I thought surely someone within the NCAA, someone with political power, some other swimmer.

00:20:12.820 I thought someone's dad, quite frankly, would come down there and yank this man out of our locker

00:20:17.720 rooms. Um, but in that moment, it hit me. Um, I remembered distinctly because I'm standing on the

00:20:24.760 podium holding this trophy. I know I have to give back sharing my, my placement with a man towering

00:20:31.280 over me. Uh, but we were clapping again, including myself. We were applauding. We were cheering,

00:20:37.280 but what in the world were we cheering for? We were applauding our own erasure, our own demolition.

00:20:45.100 Um, and that's when I realized what a naive thought to, to assume people will do the right

00:20:52.660 thing unprovoked. Uh, if that was the case, we would be waiting here for forever. Uh, I realized in

00:20:59.520 that moment, it has to come from us as women. If we, as women weren't willing to stick up for ourselves,

00:21:04.800 how could we expect someone else to do it? Uh, so again, that's, that's the, believe it or not,

00:21:11.620 that's the in short version. I actually just wrote a book. It just became available for pre-sale.

00:21:18.860 It is called swimming against the current, uh, fighting for common sense in a world that has

00:21:22.920 lost its mind. Um, just wrote that it is available for pre-sale. You can find it on Amazon, I believe,

00:21:28.620 but it's coming out May 21st for order. Um, all that to say, believe it or not, that's the short

00:21:35.780 version of ultimately how I guess I got here, not to mention the locker room, right? That's a

00:21:42.580 different added piece to this. I can't even put into words. First of all, we weren't forewarned that

00:21:47.520 we would be sharing this changing space. No one told us there was no prior acknowledgement. There was

00:21:51.680 no ways that we could have made other arrangements for ourselves as women. If this was something that we

00:21:56.640 were uncomfortable with, um, the first time we became aware that this, again, six foot four man,

00:22:03.920 put yourself in our shoes or put your daughter in our shoes. Um, the first time we became aware we

00:22:09.040 would be undressing next to this six foot four, 22 year old, fully intact man was when we were inches

00:22:16.020 away from said man, also fully undressed. The feelings of, right, having your back turned. And I'll be

00:22:23.020 honest, like a swimming locker room. It's, it's not a comfortable place anyways, but growing up a

00:22:29.600 swimmer, you almost become comfortable being vulnerable in that environment. Um, lots of

00:22:36.940 undressing. You have to undress from your, your street clothes to your practice suit, your practice

00:22:40.720 suit to your race suit, which takes about 15 minutes to put on 15 minutes of what you're fully

00:22:45.100 naked from your race suit back to your practice suit. So you can go warm down from your practice suit to

00:22:49.800 your clothes. Uh, and that's just one session. We had multiple sessions a day, lots of fully

00:22:54.940 undressing, trying to get to the point here. I can't even put into words. You have your back turned.

00:23:02.020 Um, and all of a sudden you hear man's voice in the locker room. It was inherent innate for every girl

00:23:10.560 to cover themselves, whether that was with their towel or with their clothes or with their hands or

00:23:15.560 with their suit. It was in innate. Um, it's awkward. It's embarrassing. It's uncomfortable,

00:23:22.820 but really it was feelings of betrayal and it was feelings of utter violation. Uh, and really it was

00:23:30.080 traumatic and not even necessarily traumatic because of what we were forced to see or how we were forcibly

00:23:35.820 exploited. It was traumatic for me to know just how easy it was for those people who created these

00:23:40.620 policies to totally dismiss our rights to privacy without even a second thought, without even bare

00:23:45.740 minimum forewarning us that this would be the arrangement that was had. Um, on top of, again,

00:23:54.000 the silencing piece of this, uh, I mentioned what we went through during COVID very briefly. Um,

00:24:01.440 but what we went through my senior year is nothing short of criminal, honestly. Uh, we were told

00:24:08.800 you'll never get a job. Your employer is going to look you up. They're going to see that you're

00:24:12.220 transphobe, uh, and you don't want that, do you? You're never going to get into grad school. You'll

00:24:17.020 lose your friends. You'll lose your scholarship and your playing time. Um, my school went as far

00:24:23.020 to, we had to go through a training, uh, where an outside professional came in, whatever that means,

00:24:29.140 uh, sat us down, uh, for the first time in my, my collegiate career, we never had any media training

00:24:34.640 before, uh, taught us how to, as a 21 year old senior in college, how to use she, her pronouns.

00:24:41.360 Um, we had to answer these interview questions. If we didn't answer them to their standard, we had to

00:24:45.980 redo the training. Uh, not only did we have to learn how to use she, her pronouns, actually, uh, we had to

00:24:53.740 learn how to use he, him pronouns as well, because at the same national championships where we had Leah

00:24:58.860 Thomas, again, a man who's self-identifying as a woman, we were told we fully had to treat this person

00:25:04.160 as a woman, the same national championships. There was another athlete who was transitioning,

00:25:08.840 but this athlete is a female who now was self-identifying as a man. And we were told we

00:25:15.320 fully had to treat this person as a man. I say this to say also from another Ivy league school,

00:25:21.960 which begs the question of what's up with the Ivy leagues, thought those were supposed to be places

00:25:27.080 of higher education, but they are proving that to be more and more false by the day. Um, but I say

00:25:34.040 that to say, if we were really basing this off gender identity, like the NCAA claim, like the

00:25:40.060 Biden administration claims, like the IOC claims, then why did we have Izzy, now Isaac, uh, competing

00:25:47.700 at Yale, uh, swimming with the women while identifying as a man? It's a rhetorical question, of course,

00:25:53.700 because anyone with a brain or a heart, quite honestly, could answer this question. It's because

00:25:58.340 Izzy, no, Isaac would never, will never be able to compete at the same level against the men.

00:26:05.200 Um, but for optics purposes, right, you have a six foot four man in a women's swimsuit with a bulge

00:26:11.380 next to a woman in a Speedo, nothing covering her top. I'm watching this in real time. And I'm like,

00:26:20.300 it's me. I'm the crazy one. It must be me. This is the twilight zone. Anyways, back to the silencing

00:26:28.300 piece. Uh, we were told, you know, you signed a scholarship. And when you sign your scholarship,

00:26:32.920 you gave away your, your rights to speak in your own personal capacity. Remember you,

00:26:37.200 remember whose names across your chest and across your cap, because it's not your own,

00:26:40.020 it's ours. And understand we have already taken your stance for you. Um, and that's not to say that

00:26:46.520 some people at my school weren't great. Um, university of Kentucky, I had an amazing head

00:26:52.320 coach, um, who was incredibly supportive. I have an amazing athletic director, Mitch Barnhart,

00:26:57.940 who's been at UK for over 20 years. He's one of, he's one of the greats, um, at least within the

00:27:03.320 NCAA. So it's on a lot of NCAA boards. He's, it was awesome and entirely supportive of me the entire

00:27:09.060 time. Uh, a lot of this administrative stuff was coming from the academia side of the school or the

00:27:14.760 compliance side. Uh, but I will say I had a phenomenal experience within, I guess, the

00:27:20.360 athletic side of my university, always very supportive of me. Um, Thomas's teammates in

00:27:27.520 terms of silencing 16 of these girls signed onto an email expressing their discomfort in the locker

00:27:32.200 room. Um, uh, with, along with their parents, I kid you not, the university responded back with

00:27:39.000 essentially, if you feel uncomfortable seeing male genitalia, here are some counseling resources

00:27:43.040 that you should seek in an attempt to re-educate yourselves. Um, Paula Scanlon, who has been a

00:27:49.960 wonderful outspoken advocate, uh, for maintaining the integrity of sport and keeping women's sports

00:27:57.180 only for women. Uh, she's one of his teammates. Uh, she's got a lot of just, I use the word

00:28:04.020 incredible. Of course, I don't actually mean, um, incredible in a positive light, but, but really

00:28:09.640 mind-blowing stories, um, about what her and her teammates had to endure daily. Uh, keep in mind,

00:28:17.500 I only had to swim against him at one meet, one week long meet. Paula and her teammates had to do

00:28:22.000 this every day, um, for the entire season and really much longer than that. So I encourage you

00:28:28.800 to follow her and what she's doing. She's been, like I said, just a very fierce warrior. Um, anyways,

00:28:36.220 I could keep going on with the different silencing tactics they use. All of that in short, I know in

00:28:43.300 short is how, but more importantly, uh, especially on this International Women's History Day is

00:28:50.700 understanding why this matters, why we fight, why I care so fiercely and so passionately about this

00:28:56.520 topic. Um, first and foremost, as a Christian myself in addressing the question of why is this

00:29:04.260 happening, I feel, I feel confident in answering that. Um, and it's because the Bible tells us

00:29:11.260 that this was bound to happen. Uh, we were warned that, that we would reach a time where, um,

00:29:18.960 evil is seen as moral. And, and look, that's not me saying that people who identify as trans

00:29:23.980 are evil. No, but deception is evil and lying and affirming delusions is evil and temptation is evil

00:29:33.780 and manipulation is evil. And who moves through deceit and who moves through lies? Satan. Uh,

00:29:40.600 he certainly does. He loves the darkness and, and that's what we're seeing. Um, but from a worldly

00:29:46.060 perspective, you know, why, why is this happening? Uh, the premise of this issue, especially as it

00:29:54.820 pertains to sports, but again, really the gender ideology movement as a whole is that we're denying

00:29:59.620 objective truth, biblical truth. Yes, but objective truth, biological reality, the most basic of truths

00:30:06.820 at that, uh, man and woman. Uh, it's as if we're being asked to deny that the sky is blue or being told

00:30:14.160 to say that two plus two is five. Uh, and if you look at any civilization or read 1984, which don't

00:30:21.680 lie and say you read that out of your own free will, uh, we all had to read that for school. You're

00:30:25.520 not fooling anyone. Um, but if you understand the briefest understanding of history, you'll know what

00:30:34.180 this means. And it's, it's certainly not a pretty outcome on top of right. The denial. So the denial

00:30:39.180 of truth, the shift in language that we're seeing, uh, the breakdown of family, the family,

00:30:44.160 unit, the nuclear family, penning parents and kids against each other, the breakdown of our faith.

00:30:48.580 We used to proudly be a nation that said one nation under God or in God, we trust the breakdown of our

00:30:55.120 freedom, such as our freedom of speech, um, propaganda being spread through the media,

00:31:00.600 uh, preying on our most vulnerable, such as children and women. It really points in one direction,

00:31:07.060 which, and I don't say this to sound like a conspiracist or, or some person who's putting my,

00:31:13.340 my tinfoil hat on. Um, but it really is in the direction of Marxism. Talk to someone from North

00:31:22.140 Korea, like Yanmi Park or China or Russia or Cuba or Venezuela or Brazil or, uh, Germany or any of

00:31:29.580 these countries that have once embraced this communist or Marxist or socialist regime. And they will tell

00:31:36.200 you that this is a slippery slope. Um, and it's a slippery slope that by the hands of the, of our

00:31:41.780 own leaders, we are actively being led down. Um, that's why this matters. Uh, that's why this matters

00:31:49.380 to me. That's why I care. I fight for my little sister, um, who I mentioned already. She's an incredible

00:31:56.440 athlete. I can't imagine her having to compete or change in the locker room with the boy or her not

00:32:01.860 having the same opportunities that I had. Um, that's why we fight. So again, I could sit here for

00:32:09.880 hours and list different examples of this happening just this weekend, uh, this, this coming weekend,

00:32:17.280 uh, at the D3 national championships in track and field, there's a boy who is set to dominate all the

00:32:25.220 women, of course, right? Because it's only ever goes one way. And it's always the same story.

00:32:29.080 A mediocre man joins the women's team to become a record smasher, uh, which is exactly this case as

00:32:34.120 well. In Virginia beach, uh, they have their national championships. So make sure you're

00:32:38.360 following along there. Um, that's why we fight. Um, I could list examples of girls being injured by

00:32:46.100 this. Uh, we've seen Peyton McNabb, right? The young girl who in a volleyball game, uh, high school

00:32:52.540 volleyball game, North Carolina, uh, you've got a boy posing as a girl on the opposing team on an all

00:32:58.980 girls team, jumps up, spikes the ball, hits Peyton in the face, immediately knocked unconscious.

00:33:03.940 Uh, still to this day, this was September of 2022. So nearly a year and a half ish later,

00:33:10.200 still to this day, she's partially paralyzed on her right side. Uh, she has to have special

00:33:15.700 accommodations for testing at school because she can't retain information like she once could.

00:33:20.020 Uh, her memory is impaired. Her vision is impaired. She's not playing college sports like she was

00:33:25.080 supposed to. I could list tens of examples just like that. Um, what about the girl from

00:33:30.840 Massachusetts who had all of her teeth knocked out on Dine Rehobo's field hockey team by a man

00:33:36.100 posing as a woman? Or what about these Massachusetts players in basketball recently where this boy who's

00:33:43.920 six foot two with facial hair, uh, gets on the court and injures three girls before halftime,

00:33:50.260 causing the girls team to have to forfeit because they don't have enough players left

00:33:53.860 to continue playing the game. It's terrible that when you hear that your initial reaction almost is

00:34:01.640 to chuckle. And I don't mean that sadistically. I mean that in a way that's showcasing how this really

00:34:07.780 is like a South Park episode or like a Babylon Bee headline or like an SNL skit, but it's reality.

00:34:15.220 It's real life. Um, again, it's, uh, crazy the stuff that we're seeing, but it's up to us to make a

00:34:23.200 difference, which we can do. I hear all the time, you know, I'm just one person. I can't really do

00:34:27.400 anything. That would be your first mistake in assuming that. Uh, yes, you certainly can. Uh,

00:34:33.540 trust God's calling for you, right? I didn't feel equipped for this. I didn't know anything about

00:34:37.740 our civil process. Uh, I knew we had three branches of government. Don't ask me what they did. Still

00:34:44.120 don't ask me what they do. I don't even think they know what they do to be totally frank with you.

00:34:47.960 Um, I didn't, my public speaking courses in college, my face would turn the color of a tomato.

00:34:54.080 I wasn't prepared for this. Uh, but I realized pretty quickly that God does not call the equip,

00:35:01.260 equips the called. And if he brings you to it, he will certainly bring you through it.

00:35:04.500 Um, just as he did with Moses, uh, who led the Israelites out with Aaron and his staff,

00:35:10.420 or just as he did with Joshua, who promised a victory over the Canaanites, or just as he did

00:35:14.980 with Esther before she was brought before the king. Speaking of Esther, uh, that verse for such a time

00:35:21.960 of earth, excuse me, for such a time as this is constantly used. But I think we forget the first

00:35:29.260 part of that verse, which is applicable now more than ever. Uh, the first part of that verse says,

00:35:36.380 for if you remain silent, um, you, uh, you and your father's family will perish is what it says

00:35:43.000 for such a time as this. Um, that should speak to you for, if you remain silent, understand if you

00:35:50.560 are not condemning something, you are condoning something. Silence is complicity at this point,

00:35:55.740 which is why I have a major problem with the likes of someone, you know, Serena and Venus Williams.

00:36:01.480 Um, I don't believe that they think this is okay by any means, of course not. Um, but they don't

00:36:07.820 want to lose sponsorships. I'm sure I, uh, being in that position myself, putting myself in their

00:36:13.600 shoes, I can understand. It would be silly to say you, you couldn't understand. Um, that's their

00:36:18.600 livelihood, that's their lives, but sacrifices are necessary. Uh, so parents, coaches, professional

00:36:26.460 athletes, medical professionals, uh, spiritual leaders, teachers, counselors, everyone, everyone,

00:36:32.940 no one is immune and it is up to us to do something. Uh, so this women's history day,

00:36:40.300 international women's history day, honor real women, uh, support real women. I hate that we even have to

00:36:46.320 add that prerequisite of real in there, uh, but it's necessary. Um, because that's what this day

00:36:53.680 is about. Again, identity politics are silly. They really are. Um, but I think to a degree we have to

00:37:00.540 play their game. Um, thanks for tuning in. Uh, understand that God determines sex. He determines

00:37:08.900 gender. Uh, our God doesn't make mistakes. We don't get to redefine what God has already made perfect

00:37:15.880 and holy in his image. Uh, make sure you check out my new book. That was a very fun process getting

00:37:22.560 to relive a lot of this stuff and, and put some of my thoughts to paper for the first time. Um,

00:37:28.860 all the stuff that mainstream media or, or really that hasn't been talked about at all. Uh, it's

00:37:34.880 pinned on my X profile. Go check it out. It's called swimming against the current fighting for

00:37:39.560 common sense in a world that has lost its mind. Um, that's some pretty good endorsements on the back

00:37:45.500 of the book too, which I'm super excited about. Jordan Peterson, uh, Tucker Carlson,

00:37:49.680 Kristi Noem, Tulsi Gabbard, Caitlyn Jenner, um, Donald Trump. So super cool stuff. Uh, check it out.

00:37:56.760 I, um, appreciate you guys for tuning in. Uh, make sure you like subscribe, comment anywhere where you

00:38:02.240 get your podcasts. Uh, and we will see you again next week and hopefully next year on international

00:38:09.300 Women's History Day. Uh, we won't be constantly and consistently sent the message that men make

00:38:15.700 the best women. We will see you guys soon.

00:38:30.300 From that first coffee of the day to dropping off your dry cleaning on the way from stepping onto

00:38:36.620 the subway to opening your doors to your first customer of the day. We're here to power you

00:38:43.040 along the way. Moneris powering Canadian commerce. Visit us at moneris.com slash commerce.

Gaines for Girls with Riley Gaines - March 08, 2024

Celebrating International Women's Day

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