On Wednesday, September 27, 2023, we attended the Kentucky Commonwealth Policy Center (CPC) sponsored event titled An Evening with Riley Gaines. If you have not been following the news, Riley Gaines was a world-class swimmer for University of Kentucky (UK), being one of the most decorated in UK history. She was also the 2022 Southeastern Conference Women’s Swimming and Diving Scholar-Athlete of the Year. Riley has gained respect from conservatives and notoriety from progressives for her defense of competitive women’s sports after being forced to swim against a male. She was also forced to share a locker room without warning with the same man, William Thomas, who has used the name Lia since 2020. More about Riley Gaines can be found on her website https://www.rileygaines.com/
A video of the event, An Evening with Riley Gaines is available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaCMIkXoWv8
Now a bit about the event itself and our impressions. Our estimate of the event attendance was between 250-300 people, with a sizeable representation of young women. The guest list also included more than a couple dozen state and local representatives. The level of support for the event was inspirational. According to the announcement, finger-food was to be served, so we ate a full meal before arriving. That was a mistake. The food was an extraordinary array of hors-d’oeuvres and small sandwiches, so of course, we loaded up our plates. After a prayer and the pledge of allegiance, we had about 40 minutes to socialize with our table mates.
After a brief introduction by Richard Nelson of CPC, Riley spoke about her rigorous life growing up in Tennessee to become a world-class athlete. This meant long practice hours and no social life. Her original career goal after college was to attend dental school, but all that changed after competing against Thomas. As a young woman, Riley briefly considered attending University of Florida, but decided to attend UK after visiting the campus. After her freshman year, COVID hit. Riley was forced to leave campus and go home. No gyms or pools were open, so Riley put on a wet suit and swam in Old Hickory Lake during her sophomore year. She discussed the immense pressure that was placed on all the athletes to get the COVID vaccine. The thinly veiled threats, intimidation, and theatrical tactics used by UK to try to force her to become vaccinated were later useful in teaching her to say no and helped her become an advocate for women’s rights.
Nonetheless, Riley was permitted to swim and prepared for the start of her junior season.
Expecting fair competition, Riley stated there were several red flags that led her to question the entry of William Thomas as a swimmer in female competitions, one being that he was formerly a mediocre male swimmer. Even a mediocre male will dominate in female sports. Conversely, top-ranked women who compete as men are never competitive in men’s sports. Gaines tied Thomas in the 200m freestyle, but the trophy for the race was given to Thomas without proper explanation. It turned out that the primary reason was a media photo opportunity.
Riley was also forced to share a locker room with Thomas, experiencing extreme discomfort, anger, and frustration. Even though there were numerous whispering complaints from the female athletes, there was no advocacy for the women from the coaches, trainers, or athletic directors. The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) was complicit in this blatant violation of Title IX. No woman should be forced to share a changing space with a fully intact male. She stated the event was traumatizing for all the females.
The NCAA guidelines at that time stated that a male could compete as a female after 12 months of hormone treatment, which is not enough. Ironically, there were no guidelines for sharing a locker room with a male. The institutions side-stepped this issue by making the locker room unisex. Further, they did not share this information with the athletes until the time of the event. This was sexual harassment. While uncomfortable, none of the female athletes publicly objected at the time for fear of being canceled or disqualified. This was how the institutions were able to get away with it. Riley’s insight was that if a woman is not willing to stand up for herself, then nobody else will either. These were young women who were taken advantage of.
UK told Riley that she could not speak freely for herself, rather the university would speak for her regarding her experience. During the season, she was forced to undergo pronoun training and reminded that she represented the university. Riley subsequently ignored the university’s threats and contacted the media directly to discuss her experience. Only Mitch Barnhardt, the UK Athletics Director, publicly supported her. After initially being denied access under her real name, Riley bought a booth under an alias at an NCAA conference, so she could tell her story to other coaches and athletic directors. While most privately supported her, including the NCAA President, they all refused to sign public statements protecting the rights of women. She rightfully called them spineless cowards.
Swimmers from other universities were not so fortunate. They were told they would lose their scholarships, potential employment, and social standing by speaking out. They were told they could be held liable for their statements and could be accused if something bad happened to a transgendered athlete. They were also informed that counseling resources would be available to help them cope with their feelings of resentment toward having a naked man in their locker room. They were told to deny reality and accept the situation as being their problem, not his.
Kentucky Sports Radio personality Matt Jones refused to interview Riley stating he did not want to get “political”, which is ironic as Jones repeatedly discusses politics on his radio show and wrote a book critical of Sen. Mitch McConnell. He also called Riley a bigot for standing up for her rights. Many other left-leaning outlets also refused to give her time to speak, citing hate speech.
Women’s feelings and safety don’t matter to many public officials, but 23 States have passed laws that ban men from competing in women’s sports. Even Title IX Federal law prevents discrimination in sports and requires higher education to allocate equal funding to both men’s and women’s sports. The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill at the federal level this year that would ban transgender athletes whose birth was male from competing on girls’ or women’s sports teams at federally supported schools and colleges. The bill approved by a 219-203 party-line vote is unlikely to advance further because the Democrat-led Senate will not support it and the White House stated President Joe Biden would veto it. It seems that Democrat legislators are perfectly happy to throw their own daughters under the bus. They should be referred to Child Protective Services!
The International Olympic Committee bylaws claim there is no presumptive advantage that men have over women. These bylaws were followed by the NCAA until recently. Because NCAA knows this is wrong, they allowed the governing bodies for each sport to set the rules for competition. Some governing bodies, such as the World Chess Federation are favorable to women, whereas FIFA, the governing body for Soccer, is considering allowing transgenders to compete. U.S. Women’s Soccer player Megan Rapinoe has stated publicly that she absolutely supports trans players on the women’s squad. Interestingly, the women’s team under Rapinoe lost a match to an under 15 boys’ team during an informal training match in 2017.
Riley ended her talk with a discussion on the spiritual warfare taking place in our world. The breakdown of faith, family, objective truth, and changing of the language. There is power in words. She said to never refer to someone as a biological man or woman as this supports the left’s narrative. This is textbook Marxism. Men and women only. There is no slippery slope. We are being pushed off a cliff. Be willing to defend your wives and daughters. She said we need strong men. During WWII, men lied about their age to fight Fascism; now men lie about their sex to compete in women’s sports. That tells you where we are at in the spiritual warfare battle. Enough is enough.
For more Riley Gaines, I recommend the following:
September 2023, Freedom Night in America with Charlie Kirk: A TPUSA Faith Event. This video has similar content to the above but includes an insightful Q&A at the end. View the video questions at the 48 minute mark. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMuBe8wE3K8
The Independent Council on Women’s Sports (ICONS) Summit: Psychological War on Women – Riley Gaines, Paula Scanlan, Holly LaVesser, Kylee Alons. This is a chilling video on the similarity between domestic abuse/violence against women and the participation of men in women’s sports. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZIh_Le19ic
Mark Doggett, PHD
About Mark
Education: Doctorate at Colorado State University Interdisciplinary Studies with B.S. and M.S. degrees in Industrial Technology from California State University Fresno.
Mark has twenty years of experience in higher education with thirteen years as a full-time educator. Twenty years of experience in business and industry including defense aerospace, food and beverage manufacturing, farm and irrigation products.
To contact Mark, email mark.doggett@wku.edu.