Riley Gaines kicks off college speaking tour to save women’s sports

Former University of Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines spoke at Georgetown University Monday night about her experience competing against transgender swimmer Lia Thomas and the need to protect women’s sports.

Gaines competed against Thomas during the NCAA Women’s Swimming Championship last March. The pair tied for 5th place and Gaines was forced to pose with the 6th place trophy following the race. 

“It was at this point that I realized not only were we being forced to compete against biological men, and change in a locker room with biological men, we as female athletes were being sidelined to biological men,” she said. “We’re being put on the backburner.”

Gaines attested to the discomfort athletes felt on the pool deck and in the locker room, and stated that athletes were discouraged from speaking out. However, she explained that the issue goes beyond women’s swimming and impacts dorm life, scholarships, and academics.

[RELATED: WATCH: Female swimmer wants to hold the NCAA accountable]

“For the longest time I waited for someone to stick up for us, and I thought surely a coach, someone within the NCAA, someone with some sort of political power, someone with any sort of power would stick up for us. But that’s not what we were seeing,” she explained.

“But then, it hit me. How can we as women expect someone else to stick up for us if we’re not even willing to stick up for ourselves?”

She also spoke out against the Biden Administration’s attempt to revise Title IX to protect transgender students from gender-based discrimination, which was struck down by a federal court in Texas Monday. 

The ruling rejected the administration’s proposal to interchange “sex” with “sexual orientation” or “gender identity” and asserted that “Title IX’s protections center on difference between the two biological sexes.”

Gaines praised the decision as “a big win for women across the country and female athletes.”

“I realized I totally took Title IX for granted my first four years of college,” Gaines told Campus Reform. “Knowing how hard people fought for equal opportunities, to see what we’re seeing now and it be totally just doing a 180, this is not progressive. We’re not moving in the forward direction, we’re moving back 50 years in time.”

She explained that she decided to speak out to preserve women’s sports “for the past female athletes who fought for Title IX.”

“I’m doing it for the future athletes who have no idea the implications of what time might have on them. And, of course, I’m doing it for the present female athletes who are silenced across the assembly,” Gaines told Campus Reform.

“There are so many girls who are just intimidated and emotionally blackmailed into remaining silent, and I think how we’re going to make a change is by using our voices,” she said. “I am just grateful to be a part of that.”

Gaines was invited to speak by the Network of Enlightened Women chapter. Approximately 27 people attended the event, and attendees applauded the bipartisan respect from both sides of the political aisle.

NeW told Campus Reform that attendees benefited from the event by asking “thoughtful questions.”

“Last night’s event was an opportunity for the campus community to hear one athlete’s experience and engage in respectful civil discourse,” the group stated in an email.

The event was also sponsored by the Leadership Institute, which is the parent organization of Campus Reform.  

[RELATED: Female swimmer fights for women athletes as Lia Thomas goes all in on transgender ideology]

Brigid Higgins, a student at the university who attended the event, told Campus Reform the topic was a very important issue for her.

“At the end of the day, if you can’t define what a man is and what a woman is, that is the fundamental basis of every single other level of society,” she said. “If you have no certainty about that, then you really can’t be certain about much on anything and that leads to a fundamental crumbling of society.”

Ana Guzman, another event attendee, told Campus Reform the issue hits home to her because she is the mother of two young daughters, one of whom competes in sports.

“I feel like the conservative movement is not vocal enough about these kinds of issues,” she said. “We still need to keep fighting and especially for the younger generation, for our children, to not have to be put in these kinds of situations where they’re losing scholarship money, losing prizes, losing titles, because it’s just wrong.”

“I’m going to keep doing more for my daughters, for my who runs track, because I don’t want her to be put in the same situation as [Gaines],” she continued.

Gaines will speak at the University of North Carolina- Wilmington tomorrow at 7:00 PM.

Campus Reform contacted Georgetown University, the NeW chapter, and NeW for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.

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