Gaines for Girls with Riley Gaines - RILEY GAINES PODCAST： A Brave Mom Speaks Out

00:00:00.880 This episode is brought to you by Peloton.

00:00:03.400 Break through the busiest time of year with the brand new Peloton Cross Training Tread Plus.

00:00:08.060 Powered by Peloton IQ.

00:00:09.700 With real-time guidance and endless ways to move,

00:00:12.280 you can personalize your workouts and train with confidence.

00:00:15.600 Helping you reach your goals in less time.

00:00:17.660 Let yourself run, lift, sculpt, push, and go.

00:00:21.620 Explore the new Peloton Cross Training Tread Plus at onepeloton.ca.

00:00:30.000 Welcome back to the Gains for Girls podcast.

00:00:36.260 Today we're having on Kim Jones, who is an incredible athlete herself. 1.00

00:00:40.500 She's an All-American tennis player at Stanford.

00:00:43.460 But she's coming from this with a different perspective.

00:00:46.520 The perspective of a parent, of a mother.

00:00:49.380 She has a daughter who swam at Yale and who competed against Thomas.

00:00:53.760 She has a son who swam at Yale and who now has a woman in his locker room.

00:01:00.000 Um, which shows you how uncommon this really is.

00:01:03.640 Um, I couldn't be more excited to have her on. 0.54

00:01:05.200 She does great work now. 0.89

00:01:06.340 She has started a new organization called ICONS,

00:01:09.860 which is the International Council on Women's Sports, 0.95

00:01:12.580 where she's doing everything in her power to combat this at every level. 0.94

00:01:16.500 State level, federal level, within the specific sport governing bodies.

00:01:20.340 Um, really amazing things.

00:01:21.820 And so check out the interview with Kim Jones.

00:01:23.760 So, Kim, we have been connected for,

00:01:28.100 I can't believe it's been like a year and a half now, probably more than.

00:01:32.580 Um, so talk about how we got connected,

00:01:35.620 because I remember when I first heard of you.

00:01:38.380 Um, of course we knew there were a lot of kind of ticked off parents

00:01:41.960 behind the scenes at this NCAA championships.

00:01:45.460 Um, but talk about what that looked like from your perspective

00:01:48.940 and really how you and I got connected.

00:01:51.900 Sure.

00:01:53.020 So, yeah, Riley, it's been good to know you this long.

00:01:55.780 I'm glad we've become friends.

00:01:57.420 Um, I think I had my oldest daughter competing against Thomas

00:02:03.400 for the entirety of the Ivy League season.

00:02:06.940 And they swim the same events at dual meets,

00:02:10.160 and then they swim the same events at the Ivy League championship.

00:02:13.080 And, um, I started trying to reach out to anyone that I knew

00:02:18.540 that I thought could make a difference.

00:02:20.340 I spoke with parents.

00:02:21.980 We were trying to figure out how we could make an impression

00:02:24.860 when everything, um, kind of blew up in our faces

00:02:28.680 and we realized this is the,

00:02:30.320 what we were going to be faced with for the duration of the year.

00:02:33.440 I started speaking to, uh, folks like Kara Dansky

00:02:37.360 and Nancy Hanshead and, um, any political leaders

00:02:40.860 I could get in touch with.

00:02:42.160 And then come NCAAs, and I heard about you through a mutual friend

00:02:47.660 and you were going to be brave enough to talk on air

00:02:51.540 and voice your frustration, not just frustration,

00:02:55.380 but absolute rage at the NCAA.

00:02:58.460 Um, we got in touch over the phone

00:03:00.820 and I think it's been a great,

00:03:03.160 we've been a great person in support ever since.

00:03:05.700 I'm so proud of everything that you've been doing.

00:03:07.860 Oh my gosh.

00:03:09.420 Well, thank you.

00:03:10.900 Um, so you had a daughter who competed against Thomas,

00:03:14.640 um, which I, of course, know your daughter and she's amazing. 0.78

00:03:18.120 And she herself is so tall, but even still,

00:03:20.880 looking at Thomas, who is six foot four versus a six foot,

00:03:26.460 your daughter's six foot, right?

00:03:27.600 Yes.

00:03:28.980 But girl, who's, of course, an incredibly tall girl, 1.00

00:03:33.640 it still made your daughter look like a wharf. 0.99

00:03:37.900 I know, it was crazy.

00:03:39.620 And the, the, just seeing them up on the blocks next to each other,

00:03:43.080 I mean, it was infuriating to watch.

00:03:45.180 And I know you've spoken so eloquently about how much time and energy goes into,

00:03:50.880 um, having a passion for sports, chasing a dream and reaching an elite level.

00:03:55.500 You just have to turn your life over to it.

00:03:58.020 And even those that don't reach the pinnacle of success,

00:04:02.100 really dedicate decades of their lives to just being the best they can be.

00:04:08.480 So to see all of that hard work and effort just turned into a mockery of,

00:04:14.400 um, you know, of female athleticism was, it was devastating. 1.00

00:04:19.160 I, the first time I watched my daughter race, uh, Thomas was at the Penn Dartmouth

00:04:25.160 tri meet and, um, knew it was coming down the pipe for a while.

00:04:29.920 There was plenty of discussion about would the rules change?

00:04:33.480 Would they finally wake up to the insanity that was going on in front of our eyes?

00:04:37.600 There had already been complaints, um, about, you know, the girls on the pen team crying.

00:04:42.460 I had been in touch with parents from a few other schools,

00:04:44.780 but then having to go witness it in person was surreal.

00:04:49.680 And I mean, I, I kept myself together while I was watching it,

00:04:53.180 but the second I left the, uh, stands, I just broke down in tears.

00:04:57.300 The only reason I went was because, um, my daughter wasn't sure she could face it

00:05:02.680 without support from the bleachers.

00:05:04.280 And she didn't know what she could do on the pool deck

00:05:06.360 because the schools had been censoring them and, um, you know, threatening them with retaliation.

00:05:12.600 So it just, it was devastating to watch.

00:05:17.260 So it's how you felt kind of the general consensus,

00:05:21.040 or at least, you know, you can, you can get a read from other parents in the pool deck.

00:05:26.360 So even maybe if you didn't have those conversations with other parents,

00:05:29.940 is that kind of the consensus that, that you gathered from how other parents, other moms,

00:05:36.040 other dads?

00:05:36.940 Oh, yes.

00:05:38.100 I mean, so I, by, before I even watched that race, I think a lot of us parents had been on

00:05:44.660 the phone with each other, especially, I mean, and you've talked about this before you grown up

00:05:49.120 with these girls in these families.

00:05:50.660 We know each other.

00:05:52.400 Um, we didn't always talk on the phone, but we certainly socialized at swim meets and something

00:05:57.500 and the, your closer friends you were in touch with.

00:05:59.740 So we were all, all the mothers were on the phone with each other saying, how are you going

00:06:04.900 to help your daughter through this?

00:06:06.100 Like, what are you telling her?

00:06:07.460 Because the girls were, and some of the girls, especially after the Ivy League had pulled everyone

00:06:13.280 into those meetings to say, you don't have a voice.

00:06:16.720 You need to be quiet.

00:06:17.940 You know, your chance to speak up on this has long passed when you signed the dotted line

00:06:23.220 to come to school here.

00:06:24.740 It was, um, some of the girls had gotten so quiet.

00:06:28.940 They wouldn't even talk to their families about it anymore.

00:06:31.220 So it just would run away and just, I can't discuss this.

00:06:34.040 And even my own daughter, when I would try to bring it up with her, like, how are you preparing?

00:06:38.060 Are you okay?

00:06:38.820 Like, what can I do to support you?

00:06:40.820 She would say, I can't discuss this.

00:06:42.900 I can't handle anymore.

00:06:44.240 I'm just trying to survive this.

00:06:46.100 And I don't think people understand how deeply it cuts women to say, um, you need to figure 1.00

00:06:55.220 out how to stand up and fight for your rights along with competing at the highest level, training

00:07:04.260 to the point of exhaustion every day, trying to keep up with your studies, managing your

00:07:08.640 interpersonal relationships.

00:07:10.200 The burden is too great.

00:07:11.660 It was way too much to ask of the girls that were competing.

00:07:15.440 And one of the reasons it's so impressive that you have done what you did is to take

00:07:20.840 on that mantle as a young woman, I think, or just even a young person to recognize abuse

00:07:27.720 when it's happening to you.

00:07:29.220 I mean, it takes a different mindset and a support structure around you to allow someone

00:07:35.240 to do that.

00:07:35.900 But I think there's a reason why we see, you know, children who are in abused homes and

00:07:40.720 even adults in abusive relationships.

00:07:43.740 It takes them years and sometimes even decades of reflection to realize how awful the situation

00:07:48.760 was that they were going through.

00:07:50.160 And I've said this many times to the parents and people who've asked about the situation

00:07:56.320 with my daughter in the Ivy League.

00:07:57.800 It's like, I don't think these girls are going to realize what they were put through and the

00:08:03.580 extent of it for another decade or two.

00:08:06.080 I think it's just going to take that long to process how bad it was.

00:08:11.000 Certainly.

00:08:11.680 And I think, you know, once they start having daughters of their own, like coming from it 1.00

00:08:17.840 from your perspective, I think it will shift a lot of things.

00:08:21.380 Um, but you don't just have one swimmer child, uh, multiple.

00:08:28.600 So my understanding is that this hasn't only just affected your, your daughter who swam

00:08:35.660 against Thomas.

00:08:37.120 Um, would you be willing to touch on how this is kind of impacted far beyond that really showing

00:08:44.720 how this is far from uncommon?

00:08:46.760 And by this, you mean, you don't just mean men and women's sports.

00:08:50.520 You mean the idea of, um, just that we are whatever we think we are.

00:08:55.260 Is that what?

00:08:56.640 Yes.

00:08:57.720 Um, so this is transgender or gender ideology.

00:09:02.420 Um, yes, I think we have a huge wake up call that needs to happen in society.

00:09:08.440 There are a lot of people even still, and you and I have spoken about this, or we were just

00:09:12.780 in the dark, just thinking, no big deal.

00:09:15.560 This will never affect me.

00:09:17.060 It's just a few people.

00:09:18.960 And then until you're hit over the head with the two by four of the impacts of denying the

00:09:25.240 reality of sex in the world, you don't understand the implications.

00:09:30.120 Fortunately, now I think there's enough media traction that people are, you know, opening

00:09:36.720 their eyes to the world that we're creating for women, especially. 0.90

00:09:40.340 But ultimately men as well, I mean, we can't, um, we can't ignore the harm when we give our

00:09:51.040 daughters and our young women, our wives, our sisters, um, the message that they just

00:09:56.220 don't matter and that women, that men have priority in all of their spaces. 1.00

00:10:00.760 But I likewise had my, so my daughter dealt with the threat of a man in her locker room 0.86

00:10:06.900 for that entire year that Thomas was swimming in the Ivy League.

00:10:10.880 And that was terrorizing.

00:10:13.760 The stories from the young women that had to experience it, the idea that she would have

00:10:18.120 to disrobe in front of a man or that a man could walk in on her with full rights to the 1.00

00:10:24.580 territory, um, while she's changing the lack of dignity and privacy that left someone with, 1.00

00:10:31.960 I mean, it was scarring.

00:10:33.140 She worried about it for days before going to that first meet.

00:10:39.300 And then also again, during the Ivy League championships.

00:10:42.840 And, um, I think that, and I know that this was felt around the Ivy League, because again,

00:10:50.120 I was speaking with parents from Harvard and Cornell, Princeton, everyone was panicked about

00:10:56.600 it, that it was really unsettling.

00:10:58.700 And some of the girls had gone so far as to complain to their university leadership, and

00:11:03.040 they had been shut down at every turn, not just at Penn, but also at other schools and

00:11:08.040 been even disciplined being kicked out of eating clubs just for complaining and voicing their

00:11:12.680 opinions.

00:11:13.200 So the atmosphere was very, I call it North Korea-esque, like, we will control what you 0.98

00:11:19.940 say.

00:11:20.280 You will like what's being done to you or else.

00:11:22.260 But then on the flip side, you know, the men on the pool deck or on the swim team, when

00:11:27.080 my daughter was competing, would try to congratulate the girls that, you know, you actually got first 1.00

00:11:34.220 or you are.

00:11:34.580 So people knew, um, the crowd definitely responded enthusiastically when the women would touch

00:11:41.400 the wall versus when Thomas did.

00:11:43.400 So the atmosphere was very much, we all know what's going on.

00:11:48.060 We're just unwilling to stand up and say anything.

00:11:50.640 And I think that takes a toll on men and women because it takes a toll on women thinking that

00:11:59.360 they don't have rights.

00:12:00.500 No one's going to back them, even if they do have the courage to complain.

00:12:04.200 It takes a toll on men because men believe that their voices don't matter as well.

00:12:10.420 And then the following year, my son had a woman in his locker room on our same team.

00:12:18.060 Now, the young woman that was, um, deciding that she wanted to compete on the men's team

00:12:23.740 and that she believed she was a man is a friend of our families or was a friend of our families.

00:12:28.300 And I love their family.

00:12:30.340 They're wonderful.

00:12:31.320 She's a great girl.

00:12:32.420 Um, just the problem comes when we insist that someone has their way for what they want.

00:12:41.180 And it doesn't matter how uncomfortable anyone else is.

00:12:44.100 So I can compare and contrast the two experiences of having a man threatened to be in my daughter's

00:12:50.420 locker room and a woman in my son's locker room. 1.00

00:12:53.360 And the terror that the women experience is not, um, it's not similar to what the women go through,

00:13:01.660 what the men go through.

00:13:02.960 What the men go through is discomfort.

00:13:05.100 They're annoyed.

00:13:07.020 They're, oh, this is, why is she here?

00:13:10.560 But they are not, um, so it removes, it removes privacy and dignity from the men.

00:13:17.580 It removes the atmosphere that they're comfortable in, but it is not a source of terror.

00:13:22.900 So they're kind of just, oh, this'll be over in a year.

00:13:27.420 So I'm not going to worry about it.

00:13:29.100 Okay.

00:13:29.240 But for the girls, it's scarring in a longer and not in a more immediate sense.

00:13:35.640 And I think you can relate to that.

00:13:38.700 Right.

00:13:39.680 Oh my gosh.

00:13:40.660 Yes.

00:13:41.580 Yeah.

00:13:42.040 But I think that is interesting.

00:13:44.400 I think it's something people need to hear because it really isn't just, as you said,

00:13:48.500 it's not just women who are impacted by this.

00:13:51.280 It is men too.

00:13:53.060 Uh, and that's made very evident by you and your family.

00:13:58.840 And I think it's an important point too, because as I said, introducing this is that

00:14:04.500 people think it's uncommon.

00:14:06.200 It's not really happening.

00:14:08.140 Really?

00:14:09.000 Well, you had it happen to two of your children.

00:14:12.360 Well, and then even a third, right?

00:14:14.280 So I have four kids.

00:14:16.680 My youngest is still in high school there.

00:14:19.960 I think there are just a lot of people out there that believe this, they can avoid this

00:14:24.200 if they just educate their kids well, they teach them to speak up for themselves or they're

00:14:29.940 willing to go, or they can let other people handle this.

00:14:32.720 This isn't impacting their lives.

00:14:34.860 And in the last two years, I realized this is going to hit everyone.

00:14:39.680 If it hasn't hit you already, you're probably not aware, but it has.

00:14:42.920 So, um, my daughter with the, having to raise a man in her sport, having her, um, accomplishments

00:14:51.340 taken her first place stripped from her, her opportunity to swim in a finals event stripped

00:14:56.100 from her.

00:14:56.560 And then my son with a woman in his locker room.

00:14:59.520 And the, I think the prior year of watching all the women silenced also silenced the men.

00:15:05.520 There were plenty of the men that would have said, no, come on, get this woman out of here. 1.00

00:15:10.260 But watching people concede their rights, watching people not stand up for themselves,

00:15:17.640 watching the silence of parents and those in authority has a devastating impact on, I

00:15:25.300 think on society as a whole.

00:15:27.000 We take the backbone out of the next generation. 0.96

00:15:31.160 And then my younger daughter, who's now a freshman in college, I did not realize this, and it's

00:15:37.980 probably true in many schools around the country, but she does not have a sex separated space 1.00

00:15:45.120 to shower or to use a restroom in on her campus for the freshmen.

00:15:50.720 So I'm in the process of getting responses, but the idea that we are sending young women,

00:15:58.560 18 and 19, 20 years old off to school where they're supposed to learn to become strong and

00:16:06.100 independent, take care of themselves, you know, find their voice and their passions in the

00:16:10.860 world.

00:16:11.340 But we are stripping them off the bat of privacy and dignity and an ability to take care of

00:16:17.320 their bodies in a way that they don't have to, you know, so that they're not in the presence

00:16:22.740 of men.

00:16:24.080 How are we going to give them the courage to find their voices in the classroom if we don't

00:16:29.260 even let them say, no, I don't want men in my space while I'm taking care of my physical 0.99

00:16:34.040 needs?

00:16:36.080 It's absurd.

00:16:38.500 I mean, it's an incredible burden hearing my daughter talk about the discussions with

00:16:44.120 the other freshmen on campus.

00:16:46.140 The young girls are like, oh, I haven't seen a guy in my bathroom yet.

00:16:49.640 I'm so lucky I have a sink in my room or they don't even have, like, they're utilizing

00:16:55.360 every option they can to find a way to keep themselves out of the space of men.

00:17:02.240 And this is on top of managing just being off on their own for the first time, trying

00:17:08.660 to get through college.

00:17:09.520 It's absurd that we are doing this.

00:17:11.940 It is absurd.

00:17:12.900 And I bet you, I would bet a lot of money that the majority of parents who have sent their

00:17:20.540 kids, both boys and girls, off to school as freshmen are unaware of how many situations

00:17:27.060 like this are happening.

00:17:28.140 And we need to be looking into it and speaking up about it.

00:17:32.240 So do you feel differently about the Ivy League now?

00:17:36.540 Because about you too, you were an All-American tennis player at Stanford.

00:17:43.000 So do you have a different understanding or this idea about what it means to have a degree

00:17:50.700 from an Ivy League school now?

00:17:52.140 Oh, absolutely.

00:17:56.260 I'm really disappointed.

00:17:58.220 I feel like it's a degree of conformity right now.

00:18:02.020 And I am really disappointed in people who, I guess the word is to say, I think there are

00:18:12.580 too many people in the world right now that are like, oh, I have too much to lose.

00:18:16.700 I'm too important to be speaking up on this.

00:18:19.260 I have too much of a position of power to put it at risk.

00:18:23.240 This is for someone else to fight.

00:18:25.980 And I want to know, like, when did we become a culture like this?

00:18:29.280 I remember when I was being brought up and it was par for the course and well understood

00:18:34.320 that if you saw an injustice, you stepped in and stopped it or did your best to.

00:18:39.240 And then if you were in a job that was asking you to do something unethical, whatever it was,

00:18:47.640 you would rather keep your integrity and stand up and speak up and even leave the job if it was going

00:18:55.180 to cost you your self-worth.

00:18:58.640 How do we value our silence and compliance so much more than we value our self-respect

00:19:06.260 and our dignity?

00:19:09.040 We have lost our way and I think we've become too big in our own heads, for the lack of a better word.

00:19:19.640 Like, we're not that important.

00:19:21.140 And if we can't stick up for people and we can't stick up for what's right, what good are we?

00:19:25.020 And I'm really disappointed in the Ivy League as far as not recognizing the harms of what they're

00:19:35.240 doing.

00:19:35.620 I'm incredibly disappointed in their censorship of speech, in their treatment of women.

00:19:43.200 I've told you a hundred times before I would rather have my daughter at any other school.

00:19:47.960 My son is about to finish up his degree at Yale as well and we have talked about having our kids

00:19:57.900 leave and we've talked about pulling them multiple times.

00:20:01.000 It's a much more difficult conversation than you think because we talked about pulling our

00:20:07.180 daughter during the whole Leah Thomas affair.

00:20:10.000 But again, ripping her away from friendships that were keeping her upright as she was facing

00:20:15.680 this. It was a really difficult family conversation and ultimately we decided that we would just try

00:20:22.740 to weather the storm. I think a lot of us, including yourselves, like the other girls that were

00:20:28.600 swimming, we all thought that eventually the ship would write and there were people trying to fight

00:20:32.760 for this. The new USA swimming policy came out in mid-season. So I had more faith. I had a lot of

00:20:41.660 faith in people doing the right thing at the start of that experience. I had less as it went on,

00:20:47.940 but I still thought that we would get to the right answer. And now I'm realizing we will get to the

00:20:53.000 right answer. We will win this, but it's going to take longer and more vocal effort than I anticipated.

00:20:59.220 This ideology is rooted in deeply. So I have my youngest daughter now also at an Ivy League.

00:21:05.520 And the reason for that is that we had a year off from injury. We have definitely explored pulling

00:21:13.300 her and putting her in other places as well. But it's harder than you. I don't know where we go to

00:21:19.640 get away from this. I know. Well, it seems like there's nowhere. And as you mentioned, no one is

00:21:25.980 immune to this, to this impacting them, which is why it's important. If we all waited until we were

00:21:33.300 directly impacted, or if we waited for this monumental Leah Thomas moment before we stood up

00:21:39.660 to this, it's too late. It would be way too late. And I want to go back to and put emphasis on what

00:21:47.040 you were saying. It is not hard to say what you and I have been saying. It's not difficult. It does

00:21:54.560 not require any amount of knowledge over common sense. Let me reiterate what you and I have been

00:22:02.340 advocating for, which it seems like when you say it out loud, it's the bare minimum.

00:22:07.340 Oh, yeah.

00:22:09.300 I mean, come on, is it really hard to say those things, regardless of your background, regardless

00:22:16.100 of your political affiliation, regardless of your sexual orientation? Something I find interesting

00:22:22.240 about this topic is there's a lot of people within the LGB community, especially, who recognize

00:22:29.040 this for what it is, and how this really even sets them back. So will you speak to how it's not hard

00:22:34.800 to say what we're saying?

00:22:37.600 No. I mean, I've been saying from the very beginning that it just, they're kidding me. You can't have any

00:22:44.820 shame in standing up for the equal and fair treatment of women. If you're embarrassed to stand up

00:22:52.500 for women's rights and for women to be respected in a society you're on, I mean, you're just asking for 0.99

00:23:01.700 a detriment. There is no successful civilization that is able to stand on that ground. We don't

00:23:08.100 look kindly back on any culture that degrades and treats their women poorly or unjustly.

00:23:16.180 This is not a difficult thing, as you said, for us to do. It should be so easy to stand up for our

00:23:25.460 daughters and our sisters and our wives and any female member of society. We should feel 0.57

00:23:31.140 compelled to do the right thing. And it is not the right thing to ask a woman to be a tool of 1.00

00:23:41.880 affirmation or to give up her hard work or to be used as an individual to make a man feel better.

00:23:52.080 This is not an acceptable use of women in our culture. It's not an acceptable view. And it 1.00

00:23:58.580 should be really self-evident. Like you said, I mean, there's tons of science out there. There's

00:24:03.840 tons of literature. There's amazing thinkers and writers who've now delved into this subject.

00:24:09.260 So there's plenty of information with great arguments and discussion about the impacts

00:24:14.900 to culture and society and women. But it is self-evident that no man, no male-born person,

00:24:22.780 man or boy, can know what life is like to live in a female body and can understand what it means to 0.98

00:24:29.200 be a girl or what it means to be a woman. That is self-evident. We do not need any extra 0.93

00:24:35.360 understanding of life. No. For reason we exist. Absolutely. So after all of this,

00:24:43.100 what I think is so amazing about you is you took action. You haven't just been talking about it.

00:24:48.300 You've been doing something about it. So talk about ICONS and what the mission is, what ICONS stands for,

00:24:56.640 and what you guys have planned moving forward. Sure. That's awesome. So ICONS is the Independent

00:25:04.460 Council on Women's Sports. And basically by the end of the year of Thomas swimming in at Penn and then

00:25:13.060 at the NCAAs, through that experience, we realized that there just is not a voice for women in sports.

00:25:20.400 There was not a collective voice speaking up on behalf of women in sports. And so what we decided

00:25:27.520 was a network, we needed to form a network of female athletes, both collegiate and professional, 1.00

00:25:32.940 and then including their supporters and families to be that voice so that a woman didn't have to stick 1.00

00:25:39.900 her neck out by herself singularly, which isn't as effective as an entire organization anyhow.

00:25:47.020 And when we realized that the Women's Sports Foundation and the ACLU, the National Women's Law

00:25:55.480 Center had all abandoned women in order to support men when it came to men's preferences for women's 0.91

00:26:02.360 rights, spaces, and language, it was just time for a group to step forward and say, no, we are here

00:26:08.780 solely to defend our female athletes and their rights in sports. So that's how ICONS was formed. We

00:26:16.460 kicked it off with your great help in Las Vegas. It's a little over a year ago. And it's been a

00:26:23.100 fantastically rapidly growing organization. We've had a lot of great impact and pulled athletes around

00:26:30.080 the world together also to form the ICFS, which is the International Consortium on Female Sport. There

00:26:39.140 are women's organizations popping up all over the world right now, trying to fight for sex-based rights 0.99

00:26:46.100 for women and girls. And it's really kind of a wonderful thing to see women banding together

00:26:51.940 like this. So our goals in the immediate future, we are working with several international federations,

00:26:59.140 national governing bodies of sport. We're working with lawyers. We're looking at legal opportunities

00:27:05.520 to sue where we can. We are supporting court cases that are already in effect. We are organizing

00:27:16.380 protests and visibility, just public campaigns for awareness, releasing stories to the news. We are

00:27:27.480 advocating with politicians and educating as many people as we can on the issues that women are facing.

00:27:33.500 So I feel we're really proud of everything we've been able to do in the last year. This is an

00:27:39.420 Olympic year and an election year in the United States. So our goals this year are really just to

00:27:46.920 raise awareness and make sure that every single politician makes a public stand to say, hey, we are,

00:27:53.880 I'm backing women. I understand that women deserve equal rights and fair treatment in society,

00:27:59.620 or they don't. So I think that the focus on the Olympics and the celebration of the human spirit

00:28:08.200 and with the limits of the human body are capable of, this is a unique opportunity. So we'll be pushing

00:28:14.240 hard this year. Amazing. Do you think it's moving forward? Do you think it will take litigation? Do you

00:28:21.800 think it will take hitting them where it hurts to make impact? I do. Yes, of course. I think that

00:28:31.340 we're ultimately, we've got to have a ruling from the Supreme Court that says sex has to be a 1.00

00:28:37.960 recognized characteristic in society. So this whole notion that we can just ignore what sex someone is

00:28:45.260 what is so preposterous. I mean, we can't ignore sex or we cease to exist just from a basic

00:28:53.160 reproductive standpoint. But ignoring sex ignores where physical and social power come from. It 0.98

00:29:03.080 ignores the different ways that men and women are, what's the right thing to say, like how we're

00:29:12.160 collaborative. I mean, we have different strengths and physical power is definitely in sports and so

00:29:20.560 forth. That's definitely a male strength that should not in any way reflect poorly. You and I've talked

00:29:26.560 about this a bunch that should not in any way reflect poorly on what women are capable of and how amazing

00:29:33.880 it is to see what women's sports can do, not just for women, but for society, for culture, to uphold

00:29:41.280 women as strong and worthy of celebration and to see what their, we're built so differently. There's 0.99

00:29:50.620 just no point in comparing them. We should be excited to see what the potential of both male and female 0.99

00:29:55.940 are capable of. You've heard it from Kim. The time is now. We cannot continue to wait because silence is

00:30:05.560 complicity. Thanks for listening. You can like, subscribe, anywhere where you get your podcasts,

00:30:10.640 Apple, Spotify, Outkick.com. Make sure you check out the Riley Gaines Center. That's www.reilygainescenter.org.

00:30:19.000 What this center is, is a training program to really equip and provide resources to leaders. I think we can

00:30:26.720 all agree we need some more of those. Thank you guys. And I will see you next week.

Gaines for Girls with Riley Gaines - September 20, 2023

RILEY GAINES PODCAST： A Brave Mom Speaks Out

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript