Gaines for Girls with Riley Gaines - April 17, 2024


The Truth Fits with Jennifer Sey

Hosted by
Riley Gaines
Mentioned
Larry Nassar Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Wrestling with Gender Identity in Women's Sports A Navy SEAL's Mission to Protect America and Its Values with Tim Sheehy

Episode Stats


Length

22 minutes

Words per minute

179.29

Word count

3,956

Sentence count

—

Harmful content

Misogyny

8

sentences flagged

Toxicity

2

sentences flagged

Hate speech

1

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode of the Gains For Girls Podcast, join me as I interview the founder of Xxxy Athletics and author of "Unbuttoned" Jen Sayers shares her incredible story of growing up in a very abusive childhood and how she overcame it all to become a fearless advocate for women in sports.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 welcome back to the gains for girls podcast uh you might have seen in the news recently
00:00:11.760 that there is a new athletic wear brand i know i'm not talking about the likes of nike and adidas
00:00:19.060 and lululemon that are totally woke and don't represent conservative values they don't represent
00:00:25.000 women that's for sure uh but if you can tell by my shirt today that says woman tm because we have to 1.00
00:00:33.220 trademark being a woman now uh this new athletic wear brand it does stand with women it stands for
00:00:40.220 truth most importantly um it is called xxxy athletics it is head up by jen say she is the 0.96
00:00:47.560 ceo and the founder of xxxy athletics uh she has been on the podcast before uh to share her story of
00:00:55.000 being an athlete she was of course a national level gymnast she saw um all the effects that
00:01:01.420 that came to light much after she experienced it with larry nasser and different things and
00:01:06.220 and what was going on in her sport at that time and really the injustice that she and other of her
00:01:12.500 teammates and competitors faced um her rise in levi's the denim brand which ultimately fell short
00:01:20.980 because of her questioning um the process during covid and the pandemic but she is someone who has
00:01:29.160 throughout her life been fearless and a wonderful advocate for again common sense values uh so this
00:01:35.380 new athletic wear brand i'm an ambassador i'm a proud ambassador the quality is amazing the products
00:01:40.240 are amazing i encourage everyone to go to the truthfits.com check them out sign up for emails make
00:01:46.240 sure you're checking out social pages all the things uh but in the meantime check out my interview
00:01:51.240 with ceo of xxxy athletics and author of levi's unbuttoned jennifer say well jen thank you so much
00:01:58.500 for coming on the gains for girls podcast uh of course we've had you on before so i encourage everyone
00:02:03.500 to go listen to your incredible and more in-depth story about your background as an athlete um of course
00:02:10.760 you know experiencing the injustice in women's sports in a different way uh climbing your way to 0.99
00:02:16.540 the top of levi's to ultimately be canceled for asking basic and sensible questions during the
00:02:22.660 pandemic um but would you be willing to just share i mean a brief background on yeah how you were
00:02:28.460 uniquely excuse me uniquely qualified to create xxxy athletics which is the only brand to stand up for
00:02:36.380 women in sports now of course the shirts we're both wearing um what makes you qualified well the first 0.86
00:02:44.000 thing is as you were as you alluded to i had a very unusual childhood i was an elite gymnast um i made my
00:02:50.160 first national team at 10 years old so i was competing in the 70s and 80s i was 1986 national champion and i
00:02:56.900 really started gymnastics not long after title nine was passed so you know i was the first generation
00:03:04.320 really to enjoy the benefits of title nine which you know is at risk at this point um you know there's
00:03:11.720 great risk at this point of protecting women's opportunities educational opportunities sports
00:03:16.760 and spaces as is guaranteed by title nine so you and i both care a ton about that and i
00:03:21.860 am so grateful that i came of age and i was able to experience the benefits of title nine so i was an elite
00:03:30.520 athlete um gymnastics is a pretty brutal sport the training environment is abusive um i hope it's
00:03:38.180 getting better um since it's been exposed uh but after 20 years having left the sport after 20 years
00:03:44.460 i was still really struggling with issues of anxiety and self-esteem and all sorts of stuff from the
00:03:49.140 abusive training culture and i ended up writing a book i just sort of sat down to make sense of how i was
00:03:54.620 still feeling at 40 years old and it became a book and it was the first i was the first person to talk
00:04:00.560 about the abusive training environment and this was in 2008 and i called out coaches who were known
00:04:06.440 pedophiles and and rapists national team coaches very well respected coaches in the sport everyone knew
00:04:13.460 but you were not supposed to talk about right he's respected you have to just keep this little secret so we 0.94
00:04:19.980 can maintain the reputation of the sport and sponsorship dollars and so i was this was 2008
00:04:25.000 so it was before me too you did not have to listen to women or respect women or any of that and i was
00:04:31.840 dragged across the internet for the first time um for saying these very true things and standing up for
00:04:37.760 girls and women competing in gymnastics and was not sort of redeemed until 10 years later when larry
00:04:43.340 nasser went to prison for life at which point everybody pretended they'd always you know
00:04:48.360 yeah they pretended but i remember but you know what we welcome new newbies to the fight i you know
00:04:55.360 i try to be gracious about that even though i actually remember so um when i left gymnastics i
00:05:01.380 went into the corporate world well first i went to college and then i went into the corporate world and
00:05:04.880 i ended up at levi's in 1999 after a few jobs and i was so excited to work there i loved levi's i'd
00:05:11.320 worn it my whole life growing up when i went to moscow in 1986 i brought 501s to trade with russian
00:05:17.220 athletes that was like gold you know back in 1986 and so i was really thrilled it's a product i loved
00:05:24.380 i'd always worn um i still wear i think it's a great product i still wear 501s it's my favorite jean
00:05:30.500 um and i worked there 23 years and i am really really proud of the work i did there helped reinvigorate
00:05:35.980 the brand helped them go public and in 2012 i climbed my way all the way up the ladder became chief
00:05:42.100 marketing officer then brand president then i stood up for kids during covid that was a very
00:05:46.220 unpopular position in san francisco where i lived and i was dragged across the internet for the
00:05:53.520 second time by the citizens of san francisco and beyond and eventually i resigned so i could do my
00:06:00.840 own thing and i've been making a movie called generation covid and i thought sorry this is longer
00:06:07.640 than you asked for but i thought i would go back to work in the corporate world like i like working
00:06:11.700 and i i had no issue like i love working in corporate america i like the support you have
00:06:16.960 i'm good at it you know but for the last two years as i've been interviewing i just realized i couldn't
00:06:22.260 go back to that like i needed to do it my way not just in terms of retaining my voice and all of that but
00:06:28.400 i'm done with people telling me i'm doing it wrong i'm done with people telling me i don't know how
00:06:33.640 to market to women or whatever thing i'm doing wrong today i'm 55 and i'm gonna do it my way so 0.93
00:06:40.100 that's that's that's what we're doing here and i just looked around at all of these hypocritical
00:06:45.320 athletic brands who pretend to stand up for women and not one from nike to lulu and everything in
00:06:51.640 between has taken a stand to protect women's sports and spaces so here we are and you and i are doing it
00:06:56.960 together thank you for being our ambassador our star are you kidding me i am proud to be an ambassador
00:07:03.840 uh i think what's so unique about xx xy athletics is you know we've seen some very few brands you know
00:07:13.320 try to become an alternative but the quality is not there or there's something that's missing but what
00:07:18.420 you guys what you have created is amazing quality pieces while getting the message across which as
00:07:27.500 you said is in total contrast with the likes of nike or adidas or lululemon um i just saw actually
00:07:36.760 where you tweeted uh actually i saw it today on my on my home screen of my computer um i think it was
00:07:42.300 from yahoo or someone that said um the headline was like controversial executive jennifer say 1.00
00:07:48.400 launches new athletic wear line and i loved your tweet and response to this so can you just can
00:07:54.580 you share what you tweeted i thought it was amazing if you remember i actually think it wasn't mine i
00:07:58.460 think it was the brand which i'm not running the brand's handle on twitter um our amazing uh lead
00:08:03.840 creative is running it brett craig he's amazing um it's i think that help help me remember i think what
00:08:11.940 he wrote was given that truth is controversial these days we're honored to be called controversial or
00:08:17.840 something like that we'll take it as a compliment because it's true truth is controversial saying
00:08:23.560 which you have done and i have done that men and women are different is controversial even though
00:08:31.180 ruth bader ginsburg said it a hero of the last she said the physical differences between men and women
00:08:36.180 are enduring they are not fungible we can't say it now that is no longer true or acceptable so we'll take
00:08:43.600 that insult or compliment or whatever you want to call it it's totally a compliment and yeah to your
00:08:50.460 point you think of things like again these athletic wear brands uh these renowned athletic wear brands
00:08:56.160 like nike like five six seven years ago these were brands that that proudly stated you know they supported
00:09:05.240 women and now when women are really under attack in a different way like we we haven't necessarily
00:09:11.080 seen before they've abandoned us or maybe they're still saying they are but their actions are not
00:09:17.860 following their words same thing with the ncaa you know you mentioned title nine right title nine that
00:09:23.960 national championships we competed at with of course thomas again male yeah uh with the women
00:09:29.460 it was the 50th anniversary of title nine and so the ncaa was passing out these shirts that said
00:09:35.160 title nine uh 50 years of creating opportunities for women uh as if that's what they were doing at this
00:09:42.060 meet and the hypocrisy and the double standard and and really the emotional blackmail the propaganda
00:09:49.440 behind that it blew my mind so you're exactly right about these brands yeah i mean the brands are all
00:09:55.640 doing women's history month campaigns they pretend to champion women but i think outside of even
00:10:00.160 this issue i think if you look at nike in particular um they treat women with absolute disregard internally
00:10:09.320 there have been you know massive um scandalous reports in the new york times you know not like
00:10:15.660 in these french publications about the way female executives have been treated and passed over and 0.51
00:10:21.220 been made to kind of attend staff outings at strip clubs like really insane stuff uh famously allison
00:10:27.980 felix you know the world's fastest woman at the time her contract wasn't renewed with maternity 0.99
00:10:33.560 protections and mary kane a young runner who had been the best young runner in the world was abused
00:10:38.800 in their in their running club so it's all a charade and i just want to say we're going to treat actual
00:10:45.420 women with respect that work in the company it's female-led our head of design is a woman many of our
00:10:51.940 leaders are women um and we're going to put our money where our mouth is we're going to you know 1.00
00:10:57.200 work with women who speak up and and and and challenge these issues but others as well i mean
00:11:03.320 we have other great ambassadors in the mix we have dr tabia lee who has also i think spoken inconvenient
00:11:09.360 truths and have been very brave in that process and we have chloe cole um and some that are not not
00:11:16.340 women and we're partnering with icons um which is a non-profit and they are leading the lawsuit against
00:11:23.340 the ncaa that includes you and a portion of the proceeds from our collaborative t-shirt goes to
00:11:28.200 them and we have some other exciting announcements coming about how we're going to actually put our
00:11:33.000 money where our mouth is but i'm not gonna say it yet but i think the biggest thing we can do as a
00:11:37.860 brand is normalize standing up for women and girls as showing that that is actually the compassionate
00:11:44.820 point of view that is not mean-spirited that is compassionate to stand up and defend women and
00:11:51.060 girls yeah and i think it's important what you mentioned about these brands like the alice and
00:11:56.600 felix story i'd forgotten about that but you're right it shows how you know beyond just this issue
00:12:02.140 this very common sense issue um it shows how they have continually and consistently failed
00:12:09.280 mystery women um so that's important to mention i appreciate how you brought that up
00:12:13.580 do you feel like i also think the governing bodies you mentioned the ncaa i just want to jump in and
00:12:19.440 say the usoc and all the amateur sports governing bodies are also not standing up for women and this
00:12:25.220 again does not surprise me usa gymnastics clearly did not stand for stand up for women and girls in the
00:12:31.840 sport of gymnastics neither did usa swimming there was rampant abuse in both sports there continues to
00:12:37.220 be but i think it's getting better and so it's not surprising to me that at this point those same
00:12:43.100 governing bodies are not standing up for women and girls and even if you look even further than that
00:12:48.920 and you think of someone like sharon davies or you know the 1960s 1970s olympics where we had the east
00:12:55.780 germans doping um i mean essentially the same situation of course different but i mean you have
00:13:02.560 someone who has an unfair advantage competing those same governing bodies failed even then so you're
00:13:07.780 right we shouldn't be surprised by this honestly we should this is as expected um so it's up to us
00:13:14.960 to really stand up and force their hand make them stand with women um that's right do you do you feel 0.68
00:13:22.240 like this brand is almost like a culmination of everything you've ever done i i mean i feel like
00:13:29.600 again given your background given how you have been someone who has freely expressed themselves
00:13:35.840 previously i mean to me this just seems like a perfect culmination of you it does feel like that
00:13:42.480 and i'm having so much fun i mean working with you and paula and everybody else that i named and my
00:13:48.260 team which is tiny but like so hard working and so talented and so skilled and for me you know when
00:13:55.060 you're when you're an executive in a large company you spend a lot of time in boardrooms
00:13:59.720 doing powerpoint presentations and figuring out who's next to be laid off and you get very removed
00:14:06.640 and i say this as someone who's been on the board of other companies like i'm not i'm not talking about
00:14:11.340 levi's i'm not talking i it's just how it is you get very disconnected from the work that you love
00:14:17.180 doing which is for me making amazing product that people will love to wear and making amazing
00:14:23.080 marketing that's going to inspire them and engage them and you know you mentioned earlier the quality
00:14:28.040 of the product i don't want to be in the parallel economy i want to be in the regular economy i don't
00:14:33.340 want to be in the corner with the weird little brands that are you know narrowly targeted like this
00:14:39.720 is for everybody it's just it's not political it's not right it's not left it's just true
00:14:44.500 speaking of like the response you've received thus far and like in the public like
00:14:52.380 how have sales been i want to hear what the feedback that you've gotten
00:14:55.940 the sales have been amazing i think we've done like almost three weeks of sales in three days
00:15:02.460 uh so that's pretty outstanding we're we're scrambling to get more product back in stock
00:15:08.520 which is a really good problem to have certainly better than the opposite but i have actually been
00:15:14.260 surprised at the the positive outpouring um i mean i knew that there was a hunger for something
00:15:22.740 like this but there's been very little negative and i've heard from so many you know people that
00:15:28.780 i competed with back in the day so many gymnasts very high level gymnasts coaches um a lot of lefties
00:15:36.240 from san francisco just people who are like yeah right on this is common sense so again you know i i just
00:15:43.860 80 percent of americans agree with us and they're a little bit afraid to come out of the closet and say so
00:15:50.380 because you get called names but hopefully this can help normalize it you know and i like i said
00:15:56.040 i've heard from people from all backgrounds most of the people that i've known in my life are lefties
00:16:01.120 i spent my life as a lefty and that's a lot of the outpouring of support i've heard and there's just
00:16:06.540 been very little negativity so it's been um amazing an amazing three days so far well that's wonderful
00:16:13.780 um you mentioned some stuff on the horizon but i guess what you can share you know what can we expect
00:16:20.200 from the brand moving forward i've seen some people saying you know like what about some more men's
00:16:25.040 stuff and i've seen some corresponding there so what can we expect um as xxy athletics continues to grow
00:16:32.160 and flourish yeah well you can expect that we'll be back in stock on anything we're out of stock and
00:16:37.200 very quickly we've got a second drop coming and that's real performance product so that's leggings
00:16:43.000 and bike shorts and performance fabrics and in tanks and and and tees and lots more men's product as
00:16:50.320 well men's cotton product as well as performance products so there's a lot i will say we're also
00:16:54.840 tracking all the responses and there's a lot of women who have said i love the tees but i want something
00:17:00.700 that's a little longer i don't feel as good about my tummy as it used to so we heard you and we're
00:17:06.780 coming with that we'll have another drop in october that's holiday oriented so a little more lush
00:17:13.240 fabrics a little shine a little sparkle you know to make it fun for the holiday season the other thing
00:17:19.860 i wanted to add is the other little bit of feedback or questions that we've gotten around ethical
00:17:24.600 sourcing um oh you probably this is from haters you know you probably make everything in china
00:17:29.060 we do not none of our apparel is manufactured in china this first drop is manufactured in peru
00:17:36.060 all of our factories believe in ethical sourcing and they are uh third party certified by an
00:17:42.980 organization called wrapped which is worldwide responsible accredited production so you know this
00:17:49.680 is not fast fashion we are making product as you indicated of the highest quality and uh we're making
00:17:56.620 it with partners that believe in ethical sourcing so you should feel good about buying it that it's aligned
00:18:02.680 with your you know beliefs and it's really really great product and it's made ethically amazing um well
00:18:10.960 that's all wonderful stuff how can we uh as everyday people you know support you xxy athletics and in turn
00:18:19.780 support women's sports and like you said the sanctity of truth itself yeah that's the thing and we'll start
00:18:28.000 messaging about other truthy related truth related things not just the protection of women sports and
00:18:35.680 spaces but uh sex being binary is such a fundamental truth we thought we'd start there right so if you go
00:18:43.440 to the truthfits.com that's our website and you can buy product um there is a save women sports tea
00:18:51.400 which is out of stock right now but the proceeds from that will go to support icons so you can support
00:18:56.420 icons and riley in the lawsuit against the ncaa if you purchase that product uh follow us on socials
00:19:03.460 that is at xx underscore xy athletics across every social and sign up for email so you know when new
00:19:10.840 product drops because there's going to be a lot of new product flows everyone needs to do those things
00:19:16.520 uh follow on social go to the truthfits.com signing up for emails is huge i'm sure there will be
00:19:22.320 different promos and deals and of course product drops so um make sure you're you're signed on to
00:19:27.820 these things because again uh it's important to put your money where your values are um i think for too
00:19:34.380 long we haven't had that alternative so we've kind of gone along to get along type thing but now it's
00:19:40.340 here um it is right in front of our faces and to ignore it is to continue contributing to the problem
00:19:46.500 ultimately so um jennifer you're amazing you're the best you have just uh really blown me away with
00:19:54.580 of course your grit and your resiliency and determination and willingness to say what so
00:20:00.200 many people think um but now on a broader scale even and you're wearing it on your shirt i'm wearing
00:20:05.500 it on my shirt um so riley's shirt is awesome if you if you can't see it it says woman tm because
00:20:13.580 apparently you have to trademark being a woman these days well you're incredible and i think
00:20:21.760 everyone should get this shirt again the quality is amazing i am a proud ambassador of xxxy athletics
00:20:28.280 along with chloe cole along with paul scanlon you've mentioned some of the ambassadors now um so some
00:20:34.200 really awesome people who are on board we've seen an outpouring of support from people like sage
00:20:39.200 sheil and megan kelly um there's been some awesome write-ups written about the brand i encourage
00:20:44.740 everyone to look it up um and support this brand it's um it's amazing so thank you jen you're the
00:20:52.160 best and we are so grateful for you and what you continue to fight for um it's so needed so thank you
00:20:59.080 thank you riley you've made this uh this issue you've brought it to the forefront and you talk about
00:21:06.520 it in the simple terms that it deserves which is why i think it really resonates this is not
00:21:10.740 complicated sex is binary men and women are different it's not hard boom so i'm glad to be
00:21:17.700 in this fight with you if you want to support women uh if you want to support truth if you want to
00:21:24.640 support common sense uh make sure you check out the truthfits.com again the product is awesome the
00:21:30.320 ambassadors are incredible all wonderful people jennifer say is amazing uh make sure you're
00:21:36.200 signing up for emails checking them out on social uh it's important like i like i mentioned in the
00:21:41.500 interview it's important to put your money where your values are that is how we fight back that is
00:21:45.540 how we shift the culture is with our dollars because that is what drives everything is money
00:21:50.060 um so put your money where it matters uh but in the meantime we thank you for joining the podcast
00:21:55.700 make sure you like and subscribe anywhere where you get your podcasts apple spotify check us out
00:22:01.440 at outkick.com and we will see you again next week