What She SAW in That Locker Room ｜ Riley Gaines x Megyn Kelly - The FULL Interview
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Summary
Riley Gaines is a former collegiate swimmer at the very top of her game. She rose to fame after she placed fifth in the NCAA finals, and she tied with a man, Leah Thomas, who was posing as a woman and entered her women s race. And she and the other women were told to just deal with it or they d be labeled as bigots. But Riley did not stay quiet. She left a career behind that she hadn t entirely planned for herself to fight for fairness in women s sports, even though she d left them. She continues to lead the charge today and works to implement change across the country for her daughter and mine.
Transcript
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Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at noon east.
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Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, coming to you live from Sirius XM HQ in New York City today.
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We have a first-time guest to the show, which I cannot believe, and one you surely know.
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She is a former collegiate swimmer at the very, very top of her game.
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She rose to fame after she, well, she placed fifth in the NCAA finals, and she tied with a man, Leah Thomas, who was posing as a woman and was allowed to compete with the women and entered her women's race, not to mention her women's locker room.
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And she and the other women were told to just deal with it, or they'd be labeled as bigots.
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She left a career behind that she hadn't entirely planned for herself to fight for fairness in women's sports, even though she'd left them.
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She understood about the young women coming up behind her.
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She continues to lead the charge today and works to implement change across the country for your daughter and mine.
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Today, she's here to share her story in a new book that goes into her childhood, the unfair advantage transgender athletes have, and her advice for not just women and girls, but everyone.
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The book is called Swimming Against the Current, Fighting for Common Sense in a World That's Lost Its Mind, and it's out tomorrow.
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Okay, Riley Gaines, Swimming Against the Current.
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Of course, you have been at the forefront of this issue, a voice that I constantly look to.
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Like I said, I can't believe we haven't done this sooner, but I'm thrilled to be in this chair next to you.
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And, you know, your story helped activate me on all of this, because while I was speaking out, I'd had a change of heart from where I used to be.
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Um, it was when you got attacked in San Francisco that, I mean, for the first time in my life, I said, I might need to form like a 501c3.
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I might like, I, because, you know, as a journalist, you're not used to being an activist.
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I don't really like that word, but I couldn't believe what they did to you as a woman who has standing to speak about this issue, as a woman who was directly affected by a man competing in her sport at the highest level.
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Uh, up until that point, I kind of just figured I would speak to this issue, um, say my piece, speak about the unfairness of the competition, the locker room, the silencing that we face, but swiftly move on.
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This is not something that I ever wanted to do.
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I still don't necessarily want to be doing with my life.
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Um, but when I was ambushed, I mean, I was being shoved.
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I was punched in the face by these men wearing dresses, which fortunately for me, their punches really don't hurt that bad.
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Uh, they held me for ransom throughout the night.
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I mean, four hours, um, held me for ransom, demanding that if I wanted to make it home to see my family safely again, I had to pay them money.
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And you might be wondering, okay, well, where are the police?
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And it's San Francisco, the police were being held for ransom with me.
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I realized, oh my gosh, this is what we're up against.
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My message from the beginning has been that there are two sexes.
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And each sex is deserving of equal opportunity, privacy, and safety.
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I mean, it's, it's really the bare minimum what I'm advocating for.
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Uh, but for saying that the amount of vitriol and violence that I was met with, that's when it, I was really reassured, uh, that what I was speaking to was in fact the right thing, the fair thing, just moral, ethical thing.
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Um, what was it, what was the name of the university again?
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We pulled the tape just to refresh the audience.
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So that's only a snippet of what I endured for hours, hours, uh, hundreds of these protesters, again, so disorienting at that because they, they come in the room that that's after I had been escorted, kind of carried off out of the room after having already been ambushed.
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Um, but they come in the room, they turn the lights off, rush to the front.
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The lights are flickering before they're indefinitely turned off again, men and dresses running at me, women with beards.
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I was so confused, uh, incredibly disorienting.
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Some of the most heinous, profane things you could possibly imagine being said were said to me.
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They were yelling at the officers, calling the officers racist pigs for protecting a white girl like me for hours.
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That chant trans women are women is behind all of the problems we're seeing that they believe that's true.
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That's the whole premise of the entire gender ideology debate.
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So whether it's the sports side, whether it's what we see in corporate America, whether it's the medicalization side of things, that's, that's the premise of the whole debate.
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And we spent so much of our time on this issue saying or, or hearing trans women are women, women, but it's, it only seems like it goes one way, especially in sports and prisons and different places.
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We don't hear of, of women identifying as men, infiltrating into men's spaces.
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The, I know you went, uh, our audience may remember we covered the Kappa Kappa Gamma lawsuit.
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Um, they claimed that this man, biological man, well, we know that he got into Kappa Kappa Gamma out in Wyoming and a bunch of the sorority sisters objected.
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And they objected mostly to their own sorority, allowing it.
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And then they filed a lawsuit against Kappa Kappa Gamma national saying you've, you've changed the definition on us.
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You've done a bait and switch that you said, we were only going to allow women.
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And you went to the arguments that that simple concept of what is a woman, does it include more than women is now being argued in front of the 10th circuit court of appeals.
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That's one step down from the U S Supreme court and they were really wrestling with it.
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Well, we shouldn't be surprised considering when a sitting Supreme court justice was asked this question, what is a woman by, by Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn?
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She said, well, I, I don't, I can't answer that because I'm not a biologist.
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I'm not a veterinarian either, but I know what a dog is.
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And it's no surprise that this is the same Supreme court justice who recently said she felt like our, uh, first amendment rights were hamstringing the government precisely.
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That's precisely what our first amendment rights are supposed to do.
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But nonetheless, um, it was wild to sit in that court.
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There were, they pulled a panel of judges, uh, three judges.
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It's like some sort of like joke, like you walk into a bar and, and this is your scenario, but that's what the girls drew.
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So we don't know the verdict yet, but I'm not overly hopeful just based on, uh, the, the panel of judges, but to sit there and listen to, to the Kappa attorney say that woman has multiple definitions.
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She was even then pushed back by the Biden appointee judge who said, okay, well, if you're sitting here telling us that woman can mean anything, does that include the definition of, of cisgender men, men who identify as men?
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Is that a reasonable definition for woman to what she responded back with?
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I don't have enough research right now to tell you if a male who identifies as a male, if that's a reasonable definition for the word woman.
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It's a promising thing that the judge, that the judge pushed back a little.
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I mean, she's recognizing that there must be some limitations on how we define it, but I don't have high hopes.
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I mean, the 10th circuit normally is not the most liberal court in the country, but I don't have high hopes.
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I realized the audience is thinking Gorsuch title seven.
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He said, you have to be able to hire trans people, but that I do think is very different from this issue.
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I do not like the chances of the trans activists.
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The Supreme court hasn't heard a title nine case yet.
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There's a couple, I think that are on, on the docket that could hopefully get there.
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And I say hopefully, because I, I am in full agreeance with you.
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I think the Supreme court would rule in our favor on this, that they would understand that sex-based
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categories and protections and rights are necessary when again, opportunities are threatened.
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So if the Supreme court were so to rule, or if, you know, we just had complete sanity reign
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at the Olympic level, at the NCAA level, I know I've read the, the, the stories in the
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You only look forward, but how do you think it would make you feel as somebody who actually
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came up in the time of madness in the time where we were forcing young women to deal
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Well, it's wild to me that so much of what we see now by the Biden administration, um,
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this new title nine rewrite from the administration and the department of education, not to mention
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all of the other things, whether it's the sports issue or not, that they're doing under
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Indicating we are moving in the positive forward direction.
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Uh, at least half a century title nine was implemented in 1972.
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So 52 years ago, um, that's what we're going back to by asking women to smile, to step aside,
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to allow these men onto our podiums, telling us that we're the problem if we don't want
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to, or feel totally comfortable undressing next to a fully naked, fully intact man.
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That's not what progress that actually happened to you, that you were at the NCAA, uh, championships
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where Leah Thomas was present, who was 550 something as a man, but was coming in fifth
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in your race, quote, as a woman, um, you had to change in a locker room with him.
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And keep in mind, we knew going into this beat, this was in March of 2022.
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We found out a couple of weeks before the meet, the NCAA, of course, they were pandering
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Ultimately, they just, they decided like three weeks before they announced that he is, his
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participation in the women's category was non-negotiable.
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We did not know we would be changing in the locker room.
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There was no ways that we could have made other arrangements for ourself.
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If this was something that we felt uncomfortable with the first time that we became aware, we
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would be undressing next to this six foot four, 22 year old man, fully intact, fully exposing
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himself was when we were inches away from said man, fully exposing himself.
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And I'll kind of set the scene because the swimming locker room, it's not a place of modesty.
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Uh, these suits that you put on it, I mean, they're skin tight, they're paper thin.
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It takes about 15, 20 minutes, your racing suit to, to really poke and prod yourself into
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these suits, uh, 20 minutes of what you're fully exposed, very intimate.
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You have friends oftentimes like helping you get yourself into these suits.
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Then I think we can all agree, you know, a locker room is not a comfortable place, but growing
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up a swimmer, you almost become comfortable feeling vulnerable in that environment.
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But I want you to put yourself in our shoes or, or your daughter in our shoes.
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You have your back turned again, putting on your suit.
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And all of a sudden you hear a man's voice in that locker room.
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You turn around, you look up because he's so tall and there's a six foot four man undressing,
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taking off his women's swimsuit and putting on his street clothes.
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It's feelings of, of course it's awkward, it's embarrassing, it's uncomfortable.
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It was innate, inherent for every girl in that changing space to, to cover themselves, whether
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it was with their hand or their clothes or their towels and to get out as quickly as they
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But I, I think the best way to describe how we felt was, I mean, it was an utter violation.
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It felt like betrayal and really it was traumatic and not even just traumatic because of what we
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were forced to see or how we were forcibly exploited.
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It was traumatic for me to know just how easy it was for those people who created these
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policies and forced these policies to totally dismiss our rights to privacy without even
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a second thought, without even bare minimum for warning us that this would be the arrangement.
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And when you think about, about the messaging before he got to you, he was swimming with the
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And those girls had quietly tried to raise objections because they'd been going through
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this all season and were told they needed therapy to work on their bigotry.
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16 of the girls signed on to an email to university of Pennsylvania.
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Some of these girls, even victims, um, previous victims, survivors of sexual assault.
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Uh, I know of one girl who was raped in a bathroom setting prior to going to college.
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And so this was understandably a very triggering and traumatic experience for her.
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And so 16 signed on to the school expressing their discomfort in the locker room to which
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the school, I swear, I have a screenshot of the email.
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The school responded back with, if you feel uncomfortable seeing male genitalia, here's
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some counseling resources that you should seek in an attempt to reeducate yourselves.
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They had to go to mandatory LGBTQ education meetings weekly to learn about how just by
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being cisgender, they were oppressing Leah Thomas, uh, their school even went as far as to tell
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these girls that if they did speak out, uh, and any harm whatsoever were to come towards
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Thomas's way, whether it was physical harm, um, mental harm, emotional harm, self-inflicted
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for that matter, they said, then understand you girls are solely responsible and that
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would make you responsible for a potential death.
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So I suggest you be kind and I suggest you be inclusive.
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This is so stomach turning just to hear you describe it is deeply alarming because it's
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Not that it was easy at the college level, but you and I both know it's happening to 10
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year olds to 12 year olds who don't have any sort of maturity yet to deal with this
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kind of a thing and not for nothing, but there's no question in my mind and in the minds of
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many experts on this issue that it's not normal in any way for an actual gender confused person,
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an actual trans person to show off his penis in a women's locker room.
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The people who are make up the 2% of trans people who are legitimately gender confused
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and have been since birth and have lived their lives like that, they don't want you to see
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They're actually trying to hide that and to blend in with women.
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People who do what Leah Thomas did tend to be overwhelmingly autogonophiles who are aroused
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sexually by dressing as women and being around women while they're pretending to be women.
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And so the odds of this guy getting off on the fact that you were uncomfortable are extremely
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And, and yeah, to your point, which I haven't really thought of it this way, but it's such
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a good point because someone who is gender dysphoric, they're so uncomfortable with their
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own body that they would never expose themselves out in the open in that way because they're
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Um, that was not the case with Leah Thomas, which he's actually been on social media and
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liked posts and commented on posts and reposted things that say he is an AGP.
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The daily wire did a whole expose on it, pardon the pun.
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And we've invited Leah Thomas to come on the show and talk to us about it and deny it if
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No, but what we're doing to our young girls, it's morally wrong.
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Um, that's so that court ruled against the young woman.
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That's a 13 year old girl, I think, who was playing against a male.
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And this young boy said, I'm a girl and I, um, I've been a girl.
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But this, the young actual girl said, okay, you may say you're a girl, but you're, you
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keep threatening to do things to me with your penis in the most vile and offensive terms
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And you keep winning races with faster times than most of the girls have in all of that.
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And the court in West Virginia sided with the trans student.
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Um, and this is something I see across the board.
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For the most part, conservative state, uh, we've got great leaders in our state who do
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Um, but I, in talking with people, community members, parents, even kids in the state,
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they say, oh, well, well, that's not happening here.
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Well, that would be your first, that would be your first mistake because it certainly
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I think complacency is ultimately how we've got here because we said, oh, it won't affect
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Um, but those West Virginia girls, um, that case is, is the girls who refused to do the
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Um, but really, I couldn't be more proud of, of those five girls because look, these
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are five 13, 14 year old girls in middle school.
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Um, they reached out to me a few weeks prior to, to ultimately conceding and the video that
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went totally viral and they said, Riley, we're set to compete against a boy.
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He goes by the name of Becky pepper Jackson or Becky Jackson pepper, whatever his name
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And they said, but we don't want to compete against him.
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They said, Riley, it's not because we don't like him or, or that we're hateful towards
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But Riley, are we not worthy of being called champions?
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How sad is it that they're left to contemplate if they're worthy enough to be called champions.
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Um, but anyways, they decided on conceding, uh, five of those girls, they got up in the
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They had their shot put, they, they loaded up as if they were going to throw.
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I hate to say I'm inspired by girls not competing in sports because I know the benefits of playing
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For something far larger than just winning that one meet or far larger than even themselves.
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The allegations against this man claiming he's female, uh, included that he, again, haven't
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received his response to this, assuming it's a denial, but, uh, alleging that he made multiple
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sexually explicit remarks to, um, this one girl in particular, Adelia Cross, two to three
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times per week was looking at her saying, suck my D. Um, same thing to her other teammates as
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well saying, I'm going to do this with my D and to you here or there and elsewhere that
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he would taunt her after beating her in competitions.
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You have more testosterone than I do, and I'm still beating you.
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Uh, and then he eventually took her spot away from her by her eighth grade season.
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Uh, puberty appeared to be setting in and he was suddenly taller than her and throwing
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That looks like they worked to get the comments shut down, but he was never removed from the
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And these girls too are forced to change in a locker room with this intact young man.
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Now, the problem is the courts in that one case in West Virginia seem to say, well, it's
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somebody who tried to live as a girl for, you know, since age nine.
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And if they go on the puberty blockers, uh, and then cross sex hormones, I mean, the court's
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basically saying they're kind of a woman except for the penis.
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And I was, I had a couple of left wingers on my show recently who I like, but they were
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like, do you think jazz Jennings should have to use the boys room and playing the boys sports?
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So what's your answer to the people who say, well, he got, you know, he started the puberty
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blockers, didn't have male puberty or jazz Jennings had the operation.
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First and foremost, even, even a decision as simple as if I don't get out of bed in
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And so look, I'm not here to police on what someone does.
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I think a child, anyone under the age of 18, um, chemically or surgically castrating themselves.
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I think that's criminal, but an adult, that's the beauty of America.
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You can do what you want as long as it's not costing my taxpayer dollars and it's safe for
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Um, so I'm not here to police that, but that decision has consequences.
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So if your girl, let's say who begins taking testosterone, no, I don't think it's fair for
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you to compete with the girls because that's, that's cheating.
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That's, that's called using performance enhancing drugs.
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Um, but that might be a decision that you have to make.
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Fine, but you might not be able to play your sport, um, anymore.
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But the more I think about it, if safety and fairness still matter, which to me, every
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person, whether trans identifying or not, I think every person is entitled and should
00:24:19.240
Um, if we create a third category, um, if we create a third category, it's still very much
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going to be males competing against females, um, therefore safety and fairness.
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Because you think female people posing as males will go into that category and just get beaten
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Even if you have this third category for non-binary or, or males identifying as women or females identifying
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I don't think we're going to have the females who posing as males who compete in that, right?
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They're center left, but they, they were left a little bit on a couple of things.
00:25:01.120
And you know, I, it's look, it's not, the problem is not with women who poses men
00:25:06.820
making their way into men's faces, nor is there a danger posed by that, nor is there an
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I don't know whether the third category could work.
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I just know it's not, it shouldn't be my daughter's problem until they figure it out.
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We shouldn't be, it shouldn't be up to the women to create a solution.
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Plus it's like, look, my daughter loves sports, but she also really likes to act in the school
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She has to create a hierarchy of what is most important to her on her value list.
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That's what these trans people are going to have to do.
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Males who identify as women, women who identify as men.
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Then if, if fairness and safety still matter, do you split the men's division, men who begin
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taking hormone blockers before puberty and men who take HRT after puberty?
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And sports are the one place that you go to abandon all identities.
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And, and rightfully so, because those things don't matter when we're playing sports.
00:26:16.280
Well, look at the blowback against Caitlin Clark, right?
00:26:19.120
Like somehow she's committed a sin just by being so popular with the WNBA.
00:26:26.300
Well, what do you think of the testosterone things?
00:26:30.300
In the book you address, what does it really mean when there's a biological male who's taking
00:26:35.360
estrogen to lower his testosterone or puberty block, whatever, they're trying to lower their
00:26:40.380
And then there's still many athletic bodies that say that'll work.
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Reducing women down to a testosterone threshold.
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And even if, even if a male could get to zero nanomoles per liter of testosterone, which
00:27:06.140
is incredibly dangerous for a man to, to reach and achieve these levels that are being set
00:27:13.200
But nonetheless, if a man could get to zero, there are still advantages that males possess
00:27:19.280
that testosterone doesn't affect that women will never have like lung capacity, like your
00:27:24.260
heart size, like your height, like your limb size.
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It even sounds silly, but in swimming, your throat size matters.
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Men on average have a 40% larger throat than women.
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So these, I think the whole testosterone threshold, again, it's just incredibly misinformed
00:27:55.860
We did an hour on men's and then we did an hour on women's.
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And I was asking the expert about women taking testosterone because a lot of the women I know,
00:28:05.300
I do not take testosterone, but some of the women I know are taking it.
00:28:12.660
And they, she said, you, you can do it, but you certainly couldn't let your child get anywhere
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near it because those patches are like powerful and you wouldn't want a child coming near you.
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And I remember asking, well, what about, you know, your husband?
00:28:25.120
And she was making the point that if you had any idea how much testosterone is raging through
00:28:31.040
the average male body, your husband can rub the patch all over him and he's fine.
00:28:38.420
The average man, not, not guys who have a problem, but brimming with, with testosterone.
00:28:45.120
And the refusal, because there's still many sports out there that don't require any lowering
00:28:48.880
of testosterone by these men like soccer, which soccer, um, yes, I I've, when talking about
00:28:56.200
swimming, I often forget the safety aspect of things because swimming isn't a sport where
00:29:01.060
you're colliding or running into one another, throwing something at one another, but in sports
00:29:06.760
like soccer or softball or volleyball, again, where you're hitting a ball at each other or
00:29:13.020
what have you, you do have to worry about safety.
00:29:16.320
So could you imagine on a soccer field, uh, a male running up, um, with his forceful and
00:29:24.920
I imagine the amount of power a woman can exert with her kick kicking you in the shin or
00:29:34.640
Um, what about Peyton McNabb in North Carolina?
00:29:37.960
A high school senior who, uh, playing on a girl's team has a boy playing on the opposing team.
00:29:44.180
The boy jumps up, spikes the ball, hits Peyton in the face.
00:29:47.560
She's immediately knocked unconscious where she laid for, for minutes before finally coming
00:29:57.580
I mean, almost two years later, a year and eight ish months later, she's partially paralyzed
00:30:05.680
She has to have special accommodations for testing at school because her memory is impaired.
00:30:10.060
She can't retain information like she once could.
00:30:15.000
He's actually done the exact opposite and has continued to mock her through social media,
00:30:19.840
uh, messaged her and said, Oh my gosh, you know, you can't stop talking about me.
00:30:24.860
I mean, awful, but it goes to show the narcissism.
00:30:32.320
This is why Riley is not in dental school right now, which was your plan.
00:30:38.960
What was your, what was your dreams, which is, um, basically root canals.
00:30:45.040
Well, you're kind of doing that in some, in a different way, in a metaphorical way.
00:30:48.440
Getting to the root of the problem coming out of people's mouths.
00:30:54.340
I'm going to take a break, but I want to get into your backstory.
00:30:56.060
Cause I, I love some of the stories in your book about you and your dad and creating
00:31:00.740
All of this is with, these are the building blocks of the Riley gains.
00:31:03.460
We now know are all in there and there's some good advice on how to toughen up your
00:31:07.900
kid, lest he or she wind up being forced into activism on an important story or cause.
00:31:14.160
Her new book is called swimming against the current quick break back with Riley right
00:31:20.740
Swimming against the current Riley gains here with me.
00:31:23.240
Still Riley gains author of the brand new book.
00:31:29.620
And there's all sorts of amazing facts and stats and reality in this book about what's
00:31:36.480
But it also has some fun stories about Riley and how she got here.
00:31:41.680
A lot of people may not know any of this stuff.
00:31:44.260
So tell us about mental toughness and how your dad made sure you had it.
00:31:49.220
Well, I'm so fortunate to have, I didn't realize this at the time, but of course, as you get
00:31:53.660
older, I realized now how fortunate I am to have two amazing parents who love each other
00:32:00.100
very much, who taught me how to be an independent thinker, how to call out an injustice when you
00:32:08.480
So I could not be more grateful for my parents who were both high level athletes.
00:32:12.680
My mom, she was a division one softball player.
00:32:14.660
My dad, he's an SEC Hall of Famer football player, went on to play for the Eagles.
00:32:23.480
And so them having that background inclined was a big part in me playing sports, I guess
00:32:32.380
But when I was young, probably eight years old, my dad, he did some different business
00:32:39.300
And so I went with him on a business trip to Memphis, Tennessee.
00:32:42.280
And I will never forget, we're at this hotel, I normally, of course, you know, never really
00:32:48.860
traveled with just my dad, it was always all of us as a family, but it was a fun little
00:32:54.500
And he says, Riley, come, come down to the lobby with me.
00:32:57.140
And I'm like, Okay, you know, what are we doing?
00:33:26.940
I jumped in, confused, you know, what is this for?
00:33:30.940
Finally, after five minutes or so of treading in the water, he said, Okay, you can come
00:33:39.380
He said that, like I said, you need to learn mental toughness because physical toughness.
00:33:50.220
Riley, he said, there's such thing as an absence of heat.
00:34:00.580
And every time when I was swimming or practicing and I began to, you know, your legs burn, you
00:34:16.240
So this is the difference between you and virtually everybody.
00:34:18.660
I mean, I remember talking to some Navy SEALs about this and that's how they get through
00:34:24.860
I tried that at my very next workout and it was not true.
00:34:33.360
But it's those lessons that I learned when I was young.
00:34:37.120
My dad was right because they have transcended beyond athletics.
00:34:42.160
I'm able to do what I do now with a smile on my face with an incredibly light heart, not
00:34:48.860
worrying, not caring, not feeling anxious or stressed about what we're up against.
00:34:55.820
Because I know what I'm standing for is the right thing.
00:34:59.000
This brings me to something I've always wanted to ask you.
00:35:01.840
So my audience knows I used to be on the wrong side of this whole issue.
00:35:06.460
You know, and I played clips of myself at NBC feeding into all of this.
00:35:11.080
You know, I was still in the mindset of be compassionate.
00:35:16.180
They're very badly bullied and using the pronouns.
00:35:18.300
Even when I launched the show, um, not so much on the other stuff, but on the pronouns,
00:35:22.700
I was still using, uh, when I launched the show.
00:35:24.920
And then I started, you know, I remember when you, I like, it was a defining moment for me
00:35:31.320
to watch you kind of go off on, it was, it was very powerful.
00:35:38.160
So I don't know if, if you know, just how many people you've inspired and influenced
00:35:45.700
That, that was a big decision for me to, to turn on the pronouns naturally.
00:35:49.500
And you know, like you, there've been so many women who've inspired me.
00:35:52.380
You're one of them, but Kelly J Keen, Helen Joyce, Abigail Schreier's book.
00:35:57.260
There's just been, you know, all these other great women who were to this party nice and
00:36:01.540
early and have been waving the flag saying, hold on, hold on, hold on.
00:36:05.220
Um, JK Rowling, how, how brave she's been all of it.
00:36:08.480
But I always wanted to ask you about when you were swimming and Leah Thomas, you found
00:36:17.900
So what, how did your mind work at the time to say, I'm going to do it?
00:36:24.060
So we found out in about November of 2021, actually, let me take you a little further
00:36:30.100
So I finished my junior year, um, at university of Kentucky, ultimately placing seventh in
00:36:35.680
the country, which it wasn't a best time, but I was proud of this.
00:36:41.020
It's a pretty high honor, but I knew I was capable of more.
00:36:44.540
So it was kind of right then and there that I placed seventh, my junior year that I set
00:36:48.300
a goal for my senior year to win a national title.
00:36:50.520
And so I'm right on pace to achieve this goal about midway through my senior season.
00:36:55.640
I was ranked third in the nation in the 200 freestyle trailing the girl in second, a girl
00:36:59.980
I knew very well, uh, by a few one hundredths of a second.
00:37:04.140
But the swimmer who was leading the nation by body links, might add was a swimmer that
00:37:12.480
Not me, not my teammates, not my competitors, not my family, not my coaches, none of us.
00:37:16.900
It was the first time we became aware of a swimmer named Leah Thomas.
00:37:22.760
Keep in mind, we hadn't seen a photo of this person or else things probably would have been
00:37:26.720
Um, but we really continued to stay in the dark until an article came out disclosing
00:37:33.980
that Leah Thomas is actually Will Thomas and swam three years on the men's team at UPenn
00:37:40.780
Whereas you said ranked, I mean, was mediocre at best.
00:37:45.120
He was a less than average male swimmer still competing at the division one level.
00:37:51.560
But just not compared to the other men, but not when it came to national rankings or achievements.
00:37:57.000
Um, when I found out about this, naturally we were shocked.
00:38:02.740
Um, but really when I think about how I felt, it was like this, this overwhelming sense of
00:38:13.140
That's why he's beating everyone in the country by so much in multiple events.
00:38:17.780
And I didn't think much about it because I thought surely, I mean, it didn't even cross
00:38:21.840
my mind that the NCAA wouldn't see a problem with this.
00:38:24.240
They won't let him compete with us at NCAAs that the pinnacle of our sport, they'll put
00:38:34.360
Uh, so I was, I was very relieved, um, until I found out that the NCAA did not see it that
00:38:40.800
They didn't see it the same way that me, again, my teammates, my coaches, uh, anyone
00:38:45.120
with any amount of brain activity saw this issue.
00:38:47.480
They saw no problem with it, but even still those three weeks, I mentioned how we found
00:38:53.160
out about three weeks before that meet in March of 2022, even after finding out leading
00:38:58.840
up to that meet, I am almost ashamed to admit it, but I still felt this like sheer sense of
00:39:10.760
Is he as tall as Instagram pictures make him look, uh, is he going to sandbag it?
00:39:16.780
I mean, there were so many questions that we didn't have answers to that there was a
00:39:21.140
sense of intrigue, but I'm ashamed for feeling intrigued.
00:39:24.600
I really am because upon getting to that meet, um, seeing the tears that I saw from the girls
00:39:31.700
who placed ninth and 17th and missed out on being named an all American by one place, seeing
00:39:36.460
the tears from the moms in the stands watching as their daughters are being obliterated in
00:39:41.540
the sport that they once loved, feeling the extreme discomfort in the locker room, hearing
00:39:48.140
They were whispers of, of anger and frustration from these girls who just like myself had worked
00:39:57.480
Uh, I remember specifically actually when my feelings really shifted because, um, this was
00:40:02.920
like a week long meet and you swim prelims in the morning.
00:40:07.060
You come back that evening, you swim finals, and that's where you'll achieve your overall
00:40:11.680
And so that first day of competition, I'm watching prelims of the 500, um, which is the
00:40:18.340
event that Thomas would that evening go on to win a national title in, and I'm watching
00:40:27.320
One of the swimmers from Virginia tech, she swam in one of the earlier heats she had just
00:40:38.520
I really only knew her name and what event she swam.
00:40:44.400
This is the event where she knew she was right on the cusp of making top 16.
00:40:52.940
She looks up at the scoreboard and she realized she placed 17th.
00:40:55.780
And I will never forget because she looked at me again, not even really knowing her.
00:41:00.740
And she grabbed me, my hand with tears running down her face.
00:41:04.660
And she said, Riley, I just got beat by someone who didn't even have to try.
00:41:10.660
And that's when those feelings shifted to utter heartbreak.
00:41:14.180
And I realized the severity of what we were dealing with.
00:41:17.180
This wasn't just a circus or a funny ha ha, like SNL skit moment anymore.
00:41:22.260
And that's when, that's when I decided what cowards we have leading us, our coaches, even
00:41:29.160
coaches who I love and respect and who knew this was objectively wrong.
00:41:34.720
But then it was very hard for you to say anything about it as the competitors that they knew
00:41:40.400
But they were more worried about their own heights.
00:41:42.760
And again, I understand because the risk and the threats, they're real.
00:42:03.360
People think it's either, either, of course, they're terrified.
00:42:07.340
They believe it when, when their universities or administrators tell them they won't get
00:42:10.740
a job or they'll not, they won't get into grad school or they'll lose their friends.
00:42:14.400
Or people genuinely think it's not their problem.
00:42:27.140
And the, the, there's a story out of Oregon that's, I saw, I know you've seen it and have
00:42:31.880
tweeted about it, but this is kind of reminding me of this.
00:42:37.040
There were the Oregon track and field state championships were this past weekend, high
00:42:40.760
school track and a biological male 10th grader at McDaniel high school ran.
00:43:00.760
When he crossed the finish line against the girls, he was booed when they announced the
00:43:05.160
first place winner, because these girls fully understand, understood what had just happened
00:43:16.480
He had a background in weight training reports, the Washington times, but had not even competed
00:43:23.060
in track and field before joining the girls team this season.
00:43:28.440
And now he's a state champion, the fastest girl or woman in the state of Oregon, the whole
00:43:36.780
It's the same story every single time, mediocre men, less than mediocre men become record smashers
00:43:50.380
I think we should take a minute and recognize the real state champion, Aster Jones, the girl
00:43:55.960
who got second, but the rightful state champion.
00:44:00.040
He also plays second in the 400 meter behind a girl who is going on to be an SEC runner.
00:44:15.540
And him being mediocre is still able to beat even the most, I mean, the fastest girls in
00:44:21.980
Oh, the mother of one of the female runners told the Publica, a publication, that the Oregon
00:44:30.760
School Activities Association threatened to ban any students who complained about this
00:44:40.200
She has to compete against this person who just won at state and took spots away from our
00:44:50.720
Uh, and you know, more and more, what we're being told by some is the girls don't mind.
00:45:12.300
It's so silly when people say that, because first of all, it's people who have never played
00:45:16.380
sports in their entire lives who are saying that.
00:45:18.440
Um, and second of all, that could not be further from the truth.
00:45:22.260
Um, again, 16 of those UPenn swimmers signed on to an email saying that they weren't okay
00:45:31.360
Um, they're forced into submission, um, through emotional blackmail and gaslighting, being told
00:45:39.660
If they speak out telling them that they will be murderers, that's why these girls are quiet
00:45:44.820
and the loss of everything they've trained their whole lives for everything.
00:45:48.600
And the number of hours in the pool, I can only imagine.
00:45:51.960
Um, yeah, it's, I mean, at the collegiate level, we practice six hours every single day
00:45:59.060
Um, so you wake up, you go to the pool, you swim from 5am to 8am, you go to class, you
00:46:04.300
come back, you practice again from 1.30 to 4.30, ate your dinner, did your homework, iced
00:46:09.360
your shoulder, went to bed, woke up, did it all again the next day.
00:46:12.500
It's very easy for people on the outside to say you should, you should stand up.
00:46:17.900
You know, you showed the shot putters, we talked about them in West Virginia, but it's
00:46:23.780
It comes from women and men totally on the outside to stand up for these athletes who
00:46:29.700
shouldn't be asked to sacrifice everything to stand up against the insanity.
00:46:36.380
I'm so happy you exist and that you've taken this on and that you're not in dental school
00:46:47.040
And I can't wait to see what you do with all this talent and drive.
00:46:54.960
Again, this was long overdue, but I'm thrilled to be just next with you in this fight with