Gaines for Girls with Riley Gaines - Has the Olympics Failed Women's Sports？

00:00:00.540 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 Games for Girls podcast. I'm super excited about today's guest. Her name is Dr. Linda Blade.

00:00:34.000 She was an athlete herself, accomplishing incredible things. ACC champion, she's an All-American, a Bolivia national champion, and a Canadian national champion.

00:00:43.680 But also, I want her... She's going to dive into all of the progress, or I should say the lack of, that the Olympics has made and how it went from sex verification testing through a cheek swab to now we're in global discord where they're allowing men to self-identify as women to get into women's sports.

00:01:04.940 The progression is interesting, to say the least. All of the different policies and stuff that have been implemented and how we got here.

00:01:12.560 So, check out the interview with Dr. Linda Blade.

00:01:16.200 So, Dr. Blade, you have been someone over the past year and a half, I guess, who has really inspired me.

00:01:22.660 I came to find out later that you were actually at that national championships where Tom and I competed against each other.

00:01:29.320 And so, I just want to give you the chance to talk about your background, both athletically, of course, you're a doctor, and kind of the experience and the work you've done sitting on governing boards and creating policies.

00:01:43.320 So, yeah, I have quite a history in sport, you know, I'm well into my later years of life, I guess, second or third phase of life, just turned 60 a little while ago.

00:01:56.180 And all of this time, it's like my life just has been building up to this point where I've had to fight this battle about men self-identifying into women's sports.

00:02:06.940 And it really started way back when I was a little child.

00:02:11.040 My parents were religious, were Christian missionaries in Bolivia, in South America, and they were Bible translators.

00:02:16.460 And I happened to just grow up in a place where we had no TV, no electronics.

00:02:21.740 I just played soccer in the streets all the time with the boys.

00:02:24.660 I was a guest at the Convoy, and a lot of my parents' fellow missionaries didn't really like the fact that I was this little girl running around, always dirty and playing soccer and coming to church late with sweating because I'd been on the track team and all these things.

00:02:41.020 But, I mean, I really loved, loved, loved sports.

00:02:44.360 And then I got to back to Canada, and then I immediately was recruited to the NCAA and finished, well, I was on the University of Maryland team, Maryland Carapins.

00:02:58.220 And this was about exactly almost like 10 years just after Title IX, and I felt so appreciative of the fact that, you know, this little sweaty ragamuffin little girl with no money got to go and go get a university education and ended up, of course, with my Ph.D. in kinesiology. 0.99

00:03:20.260 So, I'm a doctor as far as research, but not medical.

00:03:23.160 And so, basically, but going back to that, I mean, I was team captain of Maryland Carapins and NCAA all-American, and it was just an amazing experience.

00:03:33.860 Came back and was trying to train for the Olympic team.

00:03:36.300 I ended up not getting to the Olympics in 1988.

00:03:39.980 I had an injury, devastating injury.

00:03:42.420 At the time then, I was also engaged to be married, and I just figured, okay, four more years, my husband was actually doing his agriculture.

00:03:52.260 He's in agriculture.

00:03:53.360 He's a farm boy who grew up and did work with African farmers, and, like, his Ph.D. was in Africa.

00:03:59.340 So, after I had national championships and all kinds of things and international, I competed with everybody who was at the Olympics that year.

00:04:07.560 I just didn't get to the Olympics, and it was just too bad.

00:04:10.020 But I got to compete with Jackie Joyner-Kersee.

00:04:12.000 She was in my event, the hip path one, and she still got the world record, and I just feel so, like, wow.

00:04:17.900 Like, it was amazing.

00:04:19.060 I got to compete with her probably on three or four occasions. 0.94

00:04:21.740 Of course, I didn't come close to beating her. 0.95

00:04:24.600 She's an American hero, an amazing athlete.

00:04:28.700 But anyway, so got married, thought I was finished with sport completely.

00:04:34.400 I got a new name, new place to live, living on the edge of the Sahara Desert in Africa.

00:04:40.560 And I thought, okay, well, I've been working on my Ph.D., and I'm going to go to a local university and just say, I help you teach or do whatever, because I was a little bit bored while he was doing his agriculture research.

00:04:53.700 So, that was in the area, you know, where Boko Haram is kidnapping the little girls and stuff.

00:04:58.060 And so, that was, like, a center for Islamic studies.

00:05:00.380 And so, I went to that university.

00:05:01.780 I just said, look, here I am.

00:05:03.100 I mean, I got a Ph.D., sports sciences.

00:05:05.780 I can help you.

00:05:06.640 And they said, well, you have to have an activity, you know, course that you teach, along with biomechanics and nutrition and everything else.

00:05:14.660 So, I thought, hmm, track and field.

00:05:16.520 So, I wrote to World Athletics and said, like, this is who I am, and I'm a Canadian living in Africa, and I need coaching materials.

00:05:26.160 And they were thrilled to send me some stuff, because they had started a new program where coaches coach other coaches as a mentorship thing.

00:05:35.040 And so, and they were surprised that I was a woman teaching at an Islamic university.

00:05:41.720 In fact, I was the only woman professor.

00:05:45.440 And actually, my first welcome to professor, welcome to university celebration was me getting my food and sitting in a different building than the men, because it was like I had to do that.

00:05:58.640 And so, I had to really navigate this, like, different cultures and different religious perspectives and different things.

00:06:05.700 And I was there, but they were very respectful of me.

00:06:09.820 But then, the World Athletics sent me to, like, they got me certified, and I became, like, a global lecturer for teaching coaches how to coach.

00:06:19.540 And my expertise was coaching muscle women how to coach the girls. 1.00

00:06:22.760 And so, I, like, I went to Iran, and I went to the Middle East.

00:06:25.900 But by that time, my husband, we had moved back to Canada, and then I just started having children.

00:06:30.880 And then I coached locally.

00:06:32.360 And as a private sport performance consultant and coaching athletes in more than 15 different sports.

00:06:40.240 Because my expertise is human movement studies, you know, sports sciences, and particularly the growth and development, like puberty and stuff.

00:06:48.340 That was part of my PhD in terms of the functionality of how the body goes through and changes over time and function.

00:06:54.840 And so, like, I could apply that with my track and field, you know, run, jump, throw, even if you're a swimmer, pushing off the wall as a jump.

00:07:04.160 So, I can actually help people actually improve their performances by taking them off their, away from their sport and actually working on specific features of their movement pattern.

00:07:15.300 And so, that's how I just made a private consultation.

00:07:18.000 And then, by 2014, I was elected as president of track and field in the province of Alberta.

00:07:25.280 And that's when I got to national meetings and found out that they wanted to push a policy.

00:07:31.480 And this was in 2018.

00:07:33.600 They wanted to push a policy where males could self-identify into female sport, into women's sport.

00:07:39.900 And I couldn't believe it.

00:07:41.380 I'm like, no, you're kidding, right?

00:07:43.920 Like, this is not going to work.

00:07:46.360 I'm looking at the words on the paper and it's saying, like, no, no surgery required, nor no hormone.

00:07:52.700 Like, the one in Canada that they were pushing at the time and still are, is, like, completely self-idea.

00:07:58.100 A man can come in one day and say he's a woman and then compete with females and then the next day can be a man again. 0.99

00:08:04.100 Like, it was, like, the most extreme one.

00:08:07.420 And I couldn't, I thought I had fallen into some sort of different universe.

00:08:11.940 Like, I just thought, how in the world is this even possible?

00:08:16.120 And it, and everything came into view perfectly clear to me when I said to the men around the table,

00:08:23.860 because I'm the one, I'm the president of one province, like one state, and all the other presidents are there around the table at the national capital.

00:08:30.620 And I'm saying, wait, like, you know that records, you know the record books, you know that men's records are way better than women. 0.96

00:08:39.000 Like, you know.

00:08:40.380 So, why are we doing this?

00:08:42.820 And instead of saying, yeah, yeah, Linda, we get your point, but Jill, there's this law.

00:08:46.980 Instead of saying that, they all just sat quietly and looked down at their hand.

00:08:49.940 And so, when you're in a meeting and that happens, something's up.

00:08:57.400 And I thought, this is going to be bad.

00:09:01.600 This was 2018.

00:09:03.400 I'm like, this, I don't know where this is coming from.

00:09:05.980 I was, it was completely new to me.

00:09:08.000 But I'm like, nope, this is going to be bad.

00:09:10.560 And obviously, I'm the woman, very few women at this level.

00:09:14.780 I'm the one that's going to have to say something.

00:09:17.660 Because they're obviously too afraid.

00:09:19.940 And then, when I got the president of the time of the national track field, then I took him for dinner and I just said, you know this isn't right.

00:09:29.820 Like, what's happening?

00:09:31.480 And he basically just kind of, he was humming and hawing.

00:09:35.520 And I said, oh, I get it.

00:09:37.460 So, you're worried that one or two men who want to self-ID, males, want to self-ID into women's sports.

00:09:47.080 You're worried they're going to sue us?

00:09:48.600 Is that kind of what this is about?

00:09:50.820 And he goes, I said, but don't you know that there's 50%, like the overwhelming number of women and girls are going to be feeling like they were discriminated on the basis of sex.

00:10:01.980 And don't you think they're going to sue?

00:10:03.900 Aren't you worried about that?

00:10:06.120 And he said, girls wouldn't do that. 1.00

00:10:08.140 So, when he told me that girls would not sue, women would not sue, that their worry is about the males, the men, the entitled men, because women would never sue, I thought to myself, boy, you have no idea about female athletes.

00:10:24.300 We're fighters.

00:10:25.140 And, like, you have, I mean, it turned me into an activist.

00:10:30.720 I'm telling you, Riley, it just turned me into an activist.

00:10:32.960 Because I'm like, this, I just, you know, all those years when I was teaching in Islamic countries and we had to wear the veil and I had to go around and do all these things.

00:10:41.720 And I thought, well, this is what it's like over here, but, you know, in the West, we respect women and we, you know, like, I just assume all kinds of things.

00:10:52.120 And then when push came to shove, the clarity of it all was just, it hit me like a lightning bolt because I realized we're no different than anybody.

00:11:03.260 Like, when push comes to shove, men will have the priority.

00:11:06.740 Totally, absolutely have the priority.

00:11:08.700 And that defining moment, wow.

00:11:12.600 But it hasn't always been that way.

00:11:16.800 And so I want you to kind of go into the progression, especially in regards to the Olympics.

00:11:24.240 I've heard you speak on this many times.

00:11:26.220 And, of course, you have a book called Unsporting.

00:11:28.320 It's awesome.

00:11:29.260 And I'll give you a chance to plug that at the end.

00:11:31.260 But she has it right here.

00:11:33.660 And it's incredible, all the different details and different things.

00:11:38.360 But I want you to go into specifically the Olympics.

00:11:41.440 With this being next year, being an Olympic year, I think a lot of people don't understand where the IOC falls on this.

00:11:50.900 But you and I do.

00:11:52.200 And it's horrible.

00:11:54.340 And so I want you to go through the progression starting back in, you know, 1960 when, here, you take it away.

00:12:01.420 Yeah, so there was ever since, like, the first time, well, I can speak for track and field, the Olympics, the first Olympics was 1928 that women were allowed in.

00:12:11.700 I think swimming was much earlier, maybe like even 1904 or something like it was women could swim much earlier in the Olympics than in track and field.

00:12:19.420 But anyway, so ever since, you know, women were starting to compete more and more in the Olympic Games, instantly the International Olympic Committee had a problem where men were self-identifying or pretending to be women or whatever and coming in and competing, trying to compete against women.

00:12:39.460 And so they realized, like, right away, there had to be something that they did for gatekeeping, like, as a screen, right?

00:12:47.960 Like, like, how do you keep out the males out of women's sports? 1.00

00:12:51.260 And so there was different things tried.

00:12:53.660 Like, there was about six or seven different methods.

00:12:56.200 I mean, in the 40s and, well, 40s was World War II, so they didn't have Olympics then.

00:13:01.160 But right after that, they had, you know, they had things where they would have to be going to a medical exam with a gynecologist.

00:13:09.240 The worst one was in 1960.

00:13:11.040 And it only happened once, but they always go back to this one where it was called the naked parade, where the women had to parade before the panel of doctors naked and just to show that they were women.

00:13:21.920 So, and that was horrifying, obviously, and it only happened once, but, you know, all of the people who are in favor of don't screen are always pointing to that one moment.

00:13:31.740 But since that, by the 1970s and 80s, they had what we call the cheek swab, which is like you take a Q-tip and you swab the inside of a person's cheek.

00:13:41.920 Like, you get a little bit of the cells from the body and you look under the microscope and women have, like, because we have XX chromosomes in each cell, one of the X's turns into a little ball kind of thing.

00:13:54.180 And so they call it a bar body.

00:13:55.700 So you see this little black dot in the cell and the presence of this black dot tells you, oh, this is a woman.

00:14:03.860 But, I mean, sometimes the black dot is not seen visibly, you know, it's not visible under the microscope.

00:14:09.780 And so they think, oh, this might be a man.

00:14:11.320 So then you have to go further testing.

00:14:13.060 So really, it's just a screen to say, initially, do we see the black dot there?

00:14:17.980 Well, that was, there was a few false negatives or, yeah, like a few females were considered or found to be male, but not really in that screen test.

00:14:29.020 So they decided in 1996 Olympics in Atlanta that they would switch from the cheek swab to doing a blood test and just doing the genetic testing and looking for the SRY gene on the Y chromosome.

00:14:42.980 And it took a lot.

00:14:46.000 It took a lot of resources, time, experts.

00:14:48.960 It was expensive.

00:14:50.000 They took a huge number of, they tested a huge number of female athletes, almost everybody. 0.75

00:14:56.360 And, uh, basically, um, it, you know, it did work.

00:15:02.300 It did identify a few males in the female group and they let them compete anyway, which I just don't get that part.

00:15:09.120 Uh, they were DST type athletes, um, with Y chromosomes, which obviously meant they had male advantage, but for some reason, the IFC didn't have the guts at that time.

00:15:18.740 Even though our screen showed us they were male, they had the Y chromosome.

00:15:21.780 We let them compete anyway.

00:15:22.760 This was just kind of a test of the system.

00:15:26.260 And then that, you know, they real, then there are more and more committees that was like social justice was coming in on board, like in universities and stuff.

00:15:33.700 And by 1999, um, they had a meeting, just decided to scrap the testing altogether.

00:15:40.520 And their excuse was that it made female athletes feel uncomfortable, but this is not true because in their actual genetics of medicine, 0.99

00:15:50.340 they had published the results of a survey they did in, at the Atlanta Olympics, when they were doing that, um, testing, they did a survey of, uh, like many, many female athletes and all of them, like 82, 82% of the athletes thought that they wanted sex verification to continue.

00:16:12.220 And 94% had said it didn't make them feel uncomfortable.

00:16:15.840 So for the, the IOC on the first lie that this made women feel uncomfortable on that first premise, it's just started out from the beginning, telling a lie that, that women didn't want this. 0.96

00:16:27.420 We wanted it.

00:16:28.620 And yet by 1999, they had this special and they just had like some of the guys on an athlete commission kind of think about it.

00:16:35.760 No, yeah, that probably isn't a good idea.

00:16:37.840 And they scrapped the sex verification screen.

00:16:41.000 So that was where we started down this path.

00:16:43.600 And so in 2003, there was another meeting and there was a, uh, scientist named Louie Guerin who had done a research on, um, on transsexual or trans, yeah, transsexual.

00:16:58.200 So males who are doing the surgery and transitioning and trying to look like females. 0.78

00:17:03.620 And he did the testing, like in terms of strength and different things before transition, and then tested them after and found that most of the changes happened in the first year of transition, but they didn't mitigate very much at all.

00:17:18.100 Um, but nevertheless, um, he said they, he went to the IOC medical commission and basically said, they all said, based on the best information available at the time, we should allow transsexuals to compete with females.

00:17:34.120 Um, and it was only because they were assuming there weren't that many, they were saying, oh, one or two men, we'll let them cheat, you know, in a sense, that's what my words are.

00:17:43.020 But let's let one or two of the transsexuals that had the surgery and did the three years and I, the restrictions were very, you know, severe.

00:17:51.840 Like you had to have, uh, two years, uh, having had the surgery and live two years as a woman and, and all the hormonal profiles had to be low and all of this stuff.

00:18:02.360 So it was really restrictive.

00:18:04.020 So basically going to an ectomy where they take off testes and then you have zero testosterone.

00:18:09.560 Um, and so basically the best available evidence.

00:18:15.580 Well, what, what does like, if they said in that meeting in 2003, so that was, that was called the Stockholm consensus.

00:18:22.680 Cause that was in Stockholm, that meeting.

00:18:24.420 And, and basically what it's, it, the best available evidence at the time, if they were honest with themselves, even with that only one study that Dr. Louis Noren had done.

00:18:37.100 Um, it was like males, they knew males already because of their Olympic records and stuff.

00:18:42.440 They knew males were stronger and bigger and, and taller and larger than women.

00:18:47.000 And they knew that males outperformed female athletes.

00:18:49.420 They knew that, um, you know, even after three years of transition, um, it didn't take away many of the male advantages, especially in the terms of strength.

00:19:00.700 Um, maybe hemoglobin levels came down, but I don't even know if they measured that.

00:19:04.300 We found that out later, but everything else, you know, all the, the many variables that make men better than women, not better, but different than women. 0.83

00:19:12.440 Uh, as far as athletes, and then their performances are distinctly different.

00:19:17.340 Um, all of those physical differences are not mitigated, but nevertheless, they let them compete.

00:19:23.720 And basically the, the statement by Dr. Louis Noren at the time sums it up.

00:19:29.940 He says, and I'll quote, depending on the levels of arbitrariness, one wants to accept.

00:19:35.620 It is justifiable that reassigned males can compete with other women. 0.92

00:19:39.520 So they were basically admitting it's arbitrary, that it's completely political.

00:19:44.340 And it was a bunch of men making this decision.

00:19:47.040 So that was 2003.

00:19:48.820 And then come the moment, the third moment.

00:19:50.940 So the first line was 1999 saying, we're not going to test.

00:19:55.520 We're not going to verify.

00:19:56.280 We're not going to date keep at all.

00:19:58.580 Two, second moment was 2003 Stockholm consensus, where it could be only men, males who've had the

00:20:06.720 surgery, transsexuals. 0.99

00:20:08.400 And the third moment they threw women under the bus or basically disregarded women completely

00:20:13.200 was in 2015, um, where they suddenly decided, oh, we won't, no, we'll throw away the requirement

00:20:21.920 for surgery.

00:20:23.200 All you have to do is reduce your testosterone.

00:20:25.920 And then we see what happened in 2016 with Laurel Hubbard.

00:20:31.020 Yes.

00:20:32.140 And well, that was actually Laurel Hubbard right away.

00:20:34.140 Yeah.

00:20:34.360 Coming came in 2016 and then all the way to the 2021, you know, Olympic games or 2020

00:20:39.940 Olympic games, which happened 2021 because of COVID.

00:20:42.760 And of course, when I went, when I was at the table, going back to that meeting where

00:20:46.960 I said, where the men were looking out of their hands, that I was so fuming coming out

00:20:52.220 of that meeting and thinking, oh, I'm going to just write to the IOC and say what they're

00:20:56.760 doing in Canada.

00:20:57.640 And so when I looked at the IOC policy, it was the 2000, the third, you know, thing that

00:21:03.920 I ran into was, oh, wow, a man can self-declare as a woman, um, take one year to have hormones

00:21:12.820 reduced to 10 nanomoles per liter, which is sometimes up to, you know, 20, 10 times higher

00:21:19.180 than any female athlete could ever have, uh, legally. 1.00

00:21:23.160 Um, and the question that in that moment, the third moment is why, why did they, why did

00:21:28.860 they, um, sort of retracts on the surgical requirement?

00:21:33.800 I mean, they've mentioned being there at all, but why did they do that?

00:21:37.180 Well, I think I have a little bit of an answer.

00:21:42.260 I mean, cause it involves a couple of Canadian males.

00:21:46.240 So there's a cyclist named Kristen Worley who wrote a book called Woman Enough.

00:21:51.160 And, um, and he was actually, you know, he was born male and then he transitioned.

00:21:59.580 And so basically, uh, had the surgery, I think in maybe 2004, I can't remember you, but anyway,

00:22:05.740 so as, as Worley was trying to train for international cycling, uh, I'll say they, just cause of Canadian

00:22:17.520 law, but they found out that, um, they didn't, they couldn't recover, Worley couldn't recover

00:22:24.940 after training.

00:22:26.600 Um, and so Worley was, um, finding it that, that, you know, they'd go on a big bike ride

00:22:33.880 and come back and couldn't train for days because no testosterone, like clearly the male body

00:22:41.160 is designed to need testosterone.

00:22:44.080 You can't function without testosterone, but instead of saying and admitting that Worley

00:22:51.180 then goes and seeks a, um, therapeutic use exemption from the international cycling.

00:22:57.220 So saying, basically I need to violate water rules, the doping rules.

00:23:01.340 I need to be able to take testosterone because of my body requires it.

00:23:06.040 And I need to have an exemption so I can take testosterone and stay in the female category. 1.00

00:23:10.820 So instead of, instead of just saying, look, it's not working, I'll just take testosterone

00:23:17.520 and compete as a male, which is, you know, the biology that Worley has, no, I want all these

00:23:24.780 exemptions so I can compete as a female. 0.92

00:23:27.780 And, um, and it just like crazy.

00:23:30.720 And so basically Worley took everybody to court.

00:23:34.660 So I, uh, the UCI, the international cycling, uh, all the human, like he launched a human

00:23:41.980 rights, um, claim in the province of Ontario, but it went all the way up to the IOC.

00:23:47.740 IOC was involved in that case.

00:23:50.620 And, um, while they were contending with this transsexual trying to sue them or because they 0.99

00:23:57.620 wanted to have the excuse to take testosterone illegally and women's sports, while that was 1.00

00:24:04.000 all happening, another Canadian male called Joanna Harper, uh, who was not transsexual,

00:24:10.460 just was identifying as a one, um, and was a radiologist, just did a sort of a recreational

00:24:16.880 runner, um, they did a research, like he's looking around on, in Facebook, this was the

00:24:24.840 age of Facebook, so around 2007, um, say, well, I need to see like, like, uh, and this

00:24:31.600 Joanna Harper, J.H., I'll call this person, J.H., decided, okay, I identify as a woman and

00:24:39.220 I noticed that when I reduced my testosterone, my times go down to about the female level. 0.97

00:24:44.300 And so we call that in master's running, that's called age grading, where there's a

00:24:49.500 thing called age grading, where you compare your results.

00:24:53.140 Let's say you have an 80 year old competing and a 60 year old competing.

00:24:56.660 You compare their two results relative to their peers, their same age peers, and then they

00:25:01.780 can compete against each other.

00:25:02.780 Because if the, if the 80 year old does better against their peers than the 60 year old does 0.55

00:25:07.400 against his peers, then the 80 year old still gets the medal.

00:25:10.660 So basically, it's an age grading thing, where masters can compete against each other.

00:25:16.400 And so basically, J.H. was saying, when I reduce my testosterone, I'm on par on the age

00:25:24.760 grading with female, my fellow female.

00:25:28.500 But the thing is, um, so he didn't, that, you know, there was, they had to have more,

00:25:34.060 more, more subjects to compare.

00:25:36.340 And so J.H. was asking on Facebook, like, are you transgender?

00:25:41.460 So transgender at that point, men, I self-identify as a woman, but not, not with the surgery.

00:25:45.960 Are you a male and who is transgender?

00:25:49.580 And can you tell me you're, and runner, and can you tell me your times before transition

00:25:54.620 and after transition?

00:25:55.660 And, you know, so you get an ad hoc group of six, uh, eight, seven others.

00:26:02.620 And then Harper, uh, you know, the person doing the research shouldn't be his own subject,

00:26:07.380 but he included his own results in it.

00:26:09.820 And, and basically, so J.H. had his own, the own results in it.

00:26:14.320 And then the, the seven other males, um, and self-reported, self-reported times, but not

00:26:23.220 only that, there were sometimes as much as like 20 years between the pre and post.

00:26:28.280 So a lot of other things could happen in your life.

00:26:30.200 Like you could have gotten, become a couch potato and your times drop.

00:26:34.760 There's a lot of other factors that were not even being controlled for.

00:26:38.120 And so the thing is that, um, Joanna Harper then did all of this comparing posts, you know,

00:26:46.320 before and after times.

00:26:47.720 And actually one of the runners, runner number seven, um, actually improved and became a better

00:26:55.540 runner after transition by a lot.

00:26:59.340 And because that didn't agree with Harper's desired outcome, Harper called it an outlier and

00:27:06.000 left it out and just did the summary of, so I'm happy to show that you're, oh, our times

00:27:13.800 are kind of coming in parallel with women, the women of our same age category. 0.99

00:27:19.140 So basically this was published in, um, and basically it was published in some sort of a,

00:27:25.940 I don't know, like a, a, a journal, you know, those journals where you just pay to get your

00:27:31.080 paper put in, it's just not an official medical, like it's not an official, you know,

00:27:35.280 peer review anything.

00:27:37.320 It's a system where they pay, but then you have to peer review others.

00:27:41.580 Like it's just this whole thing.

00:27:43.600 And it was so, um, but even Harper, even in the Harper study, they, the outcome of the

00:27:51.580 conclusion was this only applies to runners, long distance runners.

00:27:58.160 Like they weren't even testing sprinters or jumpers or throwers, only runners.

00:28:03.780 And, and, you know, so, um, you have to be careful, but that, that was published in 2014.

00:28:10.880 But then because that was the only study involving transgenders instead of transsexuals, the IOC,

00:28:18.120 the International Olympic Committee, they were having this other lawsuit happening.

00:28:21.700 And now they saw, oh, we can just say, reduce testosterone at 10, uh, 10 animals.

00:28:29.340 And that'll solve our problem because that's what, that's what Joanna Harper's study shows.

00:28:33.500 So then Joanna Harper became cause lab and was put on the IOC Medical Commission to help them 0.97

00:28:39.560 decide on the 2015, what would become the 2015 policy.

00:28:44.540 So basically, again, only listening to males who are transitioning, not having any women's 0.99

00:28:50.260 voices in there, never consulting with female athletes. 0.95

00:28:54.040 And, and so, you know, the way I said it in the, the, uh, presentation in Denver, um, I

00:29:01.940 said this, and I want to quote myself because this was like, I said, I don't have time to

00:29:06.140 go into the many flaws of this study.

00:29:08.060 You can read about it.

00:29:09.720 There's an website called N equals eight.

00:29:12.020 And it tells you all about how this study was just bogus, but it is enough to say that

00:29:17.600 self-reported data from only eight older male runners should never have being used to change

00:29:25.240 the rules of sport for every female athlete in every Olympic sport in every country around

00:29:30.480 the globe.

00:29:31.080 But it was.

00:29:33.260 So it's like, they just wanted to change.

00:29:36.940 They wanted, they were looking desperately for a solution.

00:29:39.600 And by the way, where does the 10 animal per liter come from?

00:29:43.320 That was something, of course, enduring study, but it was something that, um, there were two

00:29:48.180 women who are, you know, they, the NCAA policy actually, you know, help sort of, um, inform, 1.00

00:29:56.260 I guess the IOC medical commission during the, uh, 2010 and 2015, because in 2010, Pat Griffin

00:30:05.320 and Helen Carroll, the two lesbians who were working really hard inside the NCAA committee 0.99

00:30:10.980 had also used that figure 10 animals per liter, assuming it would be the one that would level

00:30:17.100 the plate, assuming all kinds of assumptions.

00:30:19.540 And they were the one because they had felt uncomfortable in the eighties as athletes and

00:30:24.980 as lesbians. 0.99

00:30:26.120 And they were, you know, afraid to come out of the closet back in those days.

00:30:29.240 They assumed that the transgender situation was the same thing as lesbians had to deal 0.99

00:30:34.300 with, but they threw women under the bus. 1.00

00:30:36.700 They were two women who gave this number and basically threw the other women under the 1.00

00:30:43.020 bus.

00:30:43.240 And even after the Leah Thomas event, what really, what really got to me just as a sort

00:30:47.960 of, I'm, I'm kind of doing a little detour here and then I'll get back to the IOC.

00:30:51.000 But during the time you had to compete against Leah Thomas, I was waiting for Helen Carroll

00:30:56.840 and Pat Griffin to say, we made a mistake.

00:31:00.380 This is obviously not working.

00:31:02.240 Not one time have they disavowed what they did in the NCAA.

00:31:06.360 And so basically they, you know, all of these people in this whole realm of female eligibility,

00:31:12.280 they're all of course talking to each other.

00:31:14.580 And even the Canadians were talking to Helen Carroll and Pat Griffin.

00:31:17.660 And even Canadians were talking to the IOC and the IOC people on the IOC medical commission

00:31:23.120 were talking to all these people.

00:31:24.780 So this number of 10, of course, uh, later it was, you know, seeing that like, okay, 10

00:31:30.560 is actually the lower end of the normal of healthy male range was, you know, but that's

00:31:35.320 keeping men in your focus.

00:31:36.660 It's not, has nothing to do with fairness again, you know, for female athletes. 0.98

00:31:41.660 And so, um, so whatever, be that as it may, the NCAA picked 10 animals, then the 2015 IOC,

00:31:49.820 um, consensus came out and said, you only have to, you know, self ID as a man, as a woman, 0.96

00:31:56.280 if you're a man, and then live your life as a woman for a year, whatever that means. 0.77

00:32:00.860 What does that mean?

00:32:01.360 Wear makeup for a year and then keep your testosterone down 10 animals per liter throughout that period

00:32:07.760 of throughout the time you're competing question who checks that who monitors like 10 animals

00:32:17.320 per liter.

00:32:18.000 Like you can actually, and Dr. Emma Hilton has pointed this out and that number of others,

00:32:22.160 like if you leave it up to the trans person to prove that their hormone level, hormonal

00:32:28.240 levels are down, they are booking their own tests.

00:32:32.180 They know the day they're going to be tested.

00:32:34.260 They can take a drug to get their testosterone levels down to castration level for a day or two,

00:32:40.960 and then it pops back up and they don't have to worry about it for the rest of the month.

00:32:44.760 So there's no saying that they're staying at that level anyway.

00:32:50.780 Right.

00:32:51.400 Even as unfair as it is to women. 0.85

00:32:53.960 This is the same policy back in 2010 that the NCAA implemented.

00:32:58.080 Who's checking?

00:32:59.640 Um, yeah, nobody checking.

00:33:00.860 So the city of the Olympics now, what does this look like now?

00:33:07.580 So now, so of course, after that, all of these things happened and Rachel McKenna, the cyclist,

00:33:13.040 became big news because the master cyclist suddenly they were allowed to feed.

00:33:17.060 And all these, you know, we saw the Connecticut boys in high school.

00:33:20.680 We saw, we saw you, we saw Leah Thomas meeting, you know, female athletes in the NCAA. 0.90

00:33:26.200 And we saw how the, the policy didn't work.

00:33:28.540 So 2021, uh, the IOC basically actually, was it 2020?

00:33:35.280 Yeah.

00:33:35.580 So actually Leah Thomas came out just then.

00:33:37.840 So the IOC came out and basically just said, um, well, it's up to each sport then.

00:33:43.140 So they just, they created the problem and then they kicked the can down the road, but

00:33:48.540 they were also saying that if it's up to them, they feel like there should be no surgical

00:33:55.480 requirement and there should be, no athlete should be compelled to take a drug to diminish

00:34:00.920 their hormone levels.

00:34:02.200 It's against their human rights.

00:34:03.780 Well, I kind of agree with that.

00:34:05.020 You shouldn't enforce anybody to take medication, but there have then has to be eligibility rules

00:34:10.700 surrounding that.

00:34:11.740 And they were saying that it would be up to the female in the race to prove that the 0.88

00:34:16.240 male has a disproportionate competitive advantage.

00:34:18.720 Like what girl is going to run a race? 1.00

00:34:22.460 And then at the end of the race realized she had just raced against the male.

00:34:26.900 And then in that moment, have all the paperwork to prove to the officials that he has a competitive

00:34:31.500 advantage. 0.89

00:34:32.020 Like in the application, that is ridiculous.

00:34:36.300 And nowhere in the policy does it even define fairness.

00:34:39.800 Like what?

00:34:40.060 No, you've been defining that word.

00:34:42.320 You know what I'm saying?

00:34:42.940 So she can have all the, all of the paperwork and different things presented to the IOC and

00:34:48.160 they can still say, sorry, that, that is fair.

00:34:51.780 We're classified that as fair.

00:34:53.800 And if the direction, and we've seen that, that's, that's what's going to happen.

00:34:58.860 Well, we see what officials did to you.

00:35:01.100 Like, no, no.

00:35:02.480 If there are a tie, let, let the, the man hold the, the, um, trophy because we need to be

00:35:08.920 virtue signaling and we need the photo op that we're being prepared to these people.

00:35:14.080 Like, as if there's some sort of celestial beings that we have to bow to, like, it's

00:35:18.540 unbelievable.

00:35:19.240 They're just human beings that are male who are trying to live their lives as a woman, 0.99

00:35:24.760 but don't use sport.

00:35:26.520 Don't use women's sport as your, you know, social therapy or whatever. 0.99

00:35:32.500 Like it's, that's not what sport is for.

00:35:35.540 And I mean, that's why, I mean, you know, we've never picked athletes on the basis of

00:35:41.000 their religion.

00:35:41.420 And let's face it, transgenderism, uh, gender identity ideology is a kind of religion.

00:35:47.100 It's a belief system.

00:35:48.300 You have to believe that the moment a man says, I'm a woman today, that all the trillions

00:35:55.200 of cells in their bodies suddenly changed from X, Y to X, like that it's magical thinking

00:36:02.080 that does not happen.

00:36:03.940 And so it's a belief, it's a belief system.

00:36:06.180 And I would say that we've never, the whole purpose and beauty of sport is that you take

00:36:12.220 your belief, you park them on the sideline.

00:36:14.740 You could be Muslim, Hindu, Christian, whatever, Jew, you can raise each other with your body

00:36:20.580 and not worry about what somebody believes.

00:36:23.480 And so to have this one singular belief system as sort of this carve out that we need to abide

00:36:30.260 by that religion and then let them compete unfairly is just almost just too hard to believe. 1.00

00:36:37.820 Like really in 2023, is this how stupid we are? 1.00

00:36:40.520 Like, I mean, honestly, it's, it's beyond belief. 0.98

00:36:45.140 So what do you think is the future of the Olympics and really the broader picture of women's

00:36:51.120 sports if we continue to deny this biological reality?

00:36:56.600 Yeah.

00:36:57.080 Well, I think the world is waking up, frankly.

00:37:00.560 I mean, with Leah Thomas, thanks to you and thanks to many people speaking up, the truth

00:37:06.040 is coming out that, you know, there's a way to be respectful.

00:37:09.000 And the thing that I, I find interesting, I'll just say one more thing is there is no single

00:37:16.760 human being on the earth today who has come into being other than the union of a male and

00:37:23.060 a female. 0.96

00:37:23.500 So clearly sex is still binary.

00:37:25.040 There's no way, there's no middle person that even with intersex, there is intersex male 1.00

00:37:31.220 and people who are born male have an intersex condition and people born female that have

00:37:36.680 an intersex condition.

00:37:37.600 And so basically we can say there are still two sexes, whatever you want to have as an 0.85

00:37:42.500 identity after that.

00:37:43.740 It's up, you know, up to you as an adult, but anyway, the, whenever you believe, right?

00:37:48.900 But, but basically that means that in the trans umbrella, um, there are females who identify

00:37:57.060 as male.

00:37:57.580 So there's two kinds of trans.

00:37:59.140 There's females who identify as men and males who identify as women, right?

00:38:05.760 These types of trans stay in women's sports. 0.98

00:38:08.340 So we don't, it's not about whether we accept trans or not.

00:38:10.840 The, the vast majority of people who are trans or non-binary or whatever that means, they

00:38:17.860 choose if they're female born, they choose to stay in female sports. 1.00

00:38:21.700 So we're already accepting them.

00:38:23.720 The only question is whether the trans who are over here get to come and discriminate even 0.98

00:38:28.340 against the females who are trans.

00:38:30.560 So it's, it's not about trans at all.

00:38:33.360 It's about fairness because there are still two of these two kinds of trans.

00:38:37.420 So basically when we saw what happened in, in 2021 with the IOC, all the women from 10 0.98

00:38:44.800 different countries, we coalesced into this international consortium on female sports.

00:38:49.720 And we are, our job is to represent the female voice because that is a legitimate, uh, question

00:38:55.760 like who represents the female voice really when you're, you know, 50% of the world's population.

00:39:01.140 And then IOC medical commissioner says, well, we got to get a woman's opinion. 1.00

00:39:06.460 What do they do?

00:39:06.980 Walk down the hall and ask their secretary, like who represents the female voice?

00:39:11.360 And I'm just saying, well, if we figured out that there's has to be some international

00:39:15.340 body of women that represent, that couldn't sit at the table and represent the female voice. 1.00

00:39:21.160 So that, that started when I saw you at the NCAA convention in Texas in January of this

00:39:27.280 year, 2023, um, and it was a pleasure and an honor to meet you Riley.

00:39:31.780 And, but basically we, we, that whole thing we did was basically the launches also of the

00:39:38.380 international consortium because icons is under that umbrella.

00:39:41.980 A lot of other groups, save women's sport, all these other groups are under the same international

00:39:46.380 umbrella that we all agree on sex based rights and the idea that there has to be one category

00:39:51.980 in sport that female only, right? 0.93

00:39:54.520 That's our basic ask.

00:39:55.660 Just make sure.

00:39:56.520 So we have support from around the world.

00:39:59.180 And when the IOC veins to allow us at the table, our representatives can be at the table

00:40:04.880 because now we have a group of women. 1.00

00:40:06.840 So that's one of the things going forward is we're going to advocate for female only category

00:40:11.840 in whatever sport comes along and that we can become aware of building a consensus.

00:40:18.800 And actually, even without us, our activism per se, I mean, we've been writing letters

00:40:24.180 behind the scenes, a lot of different organizations, but on it, on their own, of course, world rugby

00:40:29.360 did a sensible policy in 2020.

00:40:32.980 Um, and now since then, of course, world swimming has had a policy that's more protective, uh,

00:40:39.340 world track and field, world athletics is world track and field.

00:40:43.000 And now I believe is it world cycling.

00:40:46.100 Um, but the four, four big ones that we're looking to get like working on FIFA.

00:40:51.500 Um, there's a woman in France who's a professional soccer player and she just come to my attention.

00:40:57.380 Um, and, um, Melissa Plaza is her name and she is working hard with the French Federation

00:41:03.980 on their policies, but she is also will probably going to be very effective and working on that

00:41:09.840 soccer, FIFA.

00:41:11.400 And there's, um, we're looking at triathlon.

00:41:14.660 I mean, think about it.

00:41:16.480 World triathlon is next obvious.

00:41:18.700 I mean, you have world swimming, world track and field and world cycling.

00:41:22.580 The three sports involved in triathlon have all done with it, you know, productive category,

00:41:27.260 but world triathlon hasn't done it yet.

00:41:29.760 I mean, like it's, it's pretty, uh, uh, ironic.

00:41:34.160 Yeah.

00:41:35.740 Tide is turning though.

00:41:37.320 I totally agree with you earlier.

00:41:39.360 Um, I think people are starting to wake up.

00:41:41.740 I think these governing bodies more as more and more women are affected and more and more

00:41:46.320 women are willing and able to speak out.

00:41:49.720 Um, they're ultimately going to change their minds.

00:41:53.720 Um, I'm hoping we're seeing that happen.

00:41:56.060 Um, I think of course, there's a lot of work to continue being done, um, that I know we

00:42:01.640 have linked arms to, to continue fighting, uh, along with a slew of other women, um, under 0.99

00:42:07.600 this umbrella of my CFS, um, which is really great news.

00:42:11.700 Um, and again, I just appreciate you and your activism.

00:42:15.200 I love that you called yourself an activist because I think people are hesitant to use that

00:42:19.840 word, um, to call themselves an activist, but you most certainly are.

00:42:23.680 And I most certainly am.

00:42:25.420 Um, and so thank you for your, your activism work.

00:42:29.980 Thank you, Riley.

00:42:30.880 I appreciate it.

00:42:31.620 I'm, I'm really happy to be able to tell you, I think it is a positive story, even though

00:42:35.400 it's heartbreaking, all of these things and the ways in which, uh, the IOC undermine

00:42:40.500 female athletes, but I think we can help them get back on track by being strong and speaking 0.94

00:42:45.260 out the way we have been.

00:42:46.480 And, and especially you, you've been just amazing and, uh, young and, and totally, totally

00:42:53.800 legit.

00:42:54.500 So thank you so much for all you've done for female and sport for women in sport.

00:42:59.920 It's just been fantastic.

00:43:00.940 And little girls.

00:43:01.900 I mean, we can't forget our little girls too.

00:43:03.980 And, oh, by the way, Roanoke college, I mean, that was amazing what you did there.

00:43:07.700 And I have a, my, one of my coaches from Maryland, from the NCAA just wrote me last night that if

00:43:12.520 you ever talked to Riley, tell her, even the girls I'm coaching in Maryland, love her.

00:43:18.380 Oh, Tim, Timothy Moore, I did it.

00:43:20.960 I told, I called you out, man.

00:43:23.280 That's so sweet.

00:43:24.580 Um, but you're exactly, all right.

00:43:25.820 That's why, that's why it matters.

00:43:28.080 Um, it's not for I, cause I, well, I can't speak for you, but I'm certainly done competing.

00:43:33.100 So it's not about me.

00:43:34.020 It's not about any competition that, that I choose to, and it's not about that.

00:43:39.760 It's about the young girls.

00:43:40.780 So, yeah, and we had our turn, right?

00:43:42.960 We had our turn.

00:43:43.720 Like the whole point is we want, it's been like title nine has been the most amazing thing.

00:43:48.300 It's been so amazing.

00:43:49.300 Like think of all the soccer moms that are now that carting their kids around to competitions 1.00

00:43:53.700 because they had such a good experience as far.

00:43:55.580 I mean, it's actually foundational to our culture and to destroy it is just to destroy

00:44:00.540 so many good things that happen.

00:44:02.660 So thank you.

00:44:03.680 Like it's, if you can't, you just can't express, I can't express how important it's been

00:44:08.600 to have you in this fight as well.

00:44:10.320 So thank you so much.

00:44:12.740 Thanks for joining the Games for Girls podcast this week.

00:44:15.940 Make sure to like, subscribe anywhere where you get your podcasts.

00:44:19.460 You can check it out at outkick.com.

00:44:21.520 And we look forward to seeing you guys again next week.

00:44:36.100 Thank you.

00:44:40.320 Bye.

00:44:40.840 Bye.

00:44:41.200 Bye.

00:44:42.100 Bye.

00:44:45.940 Bye.

00:44:53.320 Bye.

00:44:53.640 Bye.

Gaines for Girls with Riley Gaines - October 18, 2023

Has the Olympics Failed Women's Sports？

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