In The Booth with Shawn Booth
You may know Shawn Booth from The Bachelorette, you may know him as a fitness guy who owns a gym in Nashville, or you may just know his dog, Walter.
Tune in as Shawn sits down with people from all walks of life: artists, athletes, entrepreneurs, military personnel, badass moms, fitness professionals, and everything in between. You'll hear motivational stories, healthy habits that lead to success, relationship tips, and more.
However you know him, you'll get to know the real Shawn and his guests right here on In The Booth.
In The Booth with Shawn Booth
Swimming Against the Current (w/ Riley Gaines)
When Riley Gaines—a name synonymous with dedication and a powerful voice in women's athletics—stepped into our studio, we knew we were about to uncover layers of her story that resonate beyond the pool's edge. As a former elite swimmer for the University of Kentucky (12x All American), Riley has navigated the turbulent waters of competitive sports and emerged as a champion for equality, diving headfirst into the complex debate over transgender athletes in women's events. Our conversation takes you through her exceptional journey, where personal achievements and hard-fought battles intertwine with the broader struggle for fairness in sports.
Riley has made waves for speaking out after tying UPenn’s Lia Thomas, a biological male swimmer on the women’s team, at the 2022 NCAA Division 1 Women’s Swimming & Diving Championships. After Riley directly experienced competing against a man in women’s sports, being forced without warning or consent to undress before the fully intact male, and subjected to discrimination by the NCAA, she became one of the most powerful voices to speak out against the injustice, challenging the rules of the NCAA, USA Swimming, International Olympic Committee (IOC), and other governing bodies.
Riley now works for the leading women’s organization making real and lasting change, legally defining ‘woman,’ protecting Title IX, and defending women’s rights to single-sex spaces and equal opportunities. She has traveled the country speaking and has testified before the U.S. Senate, U.S. House, and countless state legislatures.
Join us for a powerful narrative that illustrates the relentless pursuit of equality, the resilience of the human spirit, and Riley Gaines's unwavering commitment to 'Swimming Against the Current.
welcome back to in the booth. I'm sean booth and thank you guys for tuning in. Wherever you're listening from, we appreciate the support. Whether you're listening from florida tallahassee, maybe you are out in Sam Cat, nebraska.
Speaker 2:Sure, I was going to say Peoria, illinois, that's where I just was, or that.
Speaker 1:Peoria, illinois. We appreciate it. If you guys aren't watching us on YouTube, head over to that channel now to see the full episode. And we are super, super excited for today's episode. Sam Cat we've been working on getting this guest here for over a year now. That is correct.
Speaker 2:Quite, literally one year, almost like to the date.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's been a wild year for her. We're excited for you guys to listen to the story, but first let me set up the scene for you. Here, sitting across from me is my son, lox, right now, and he's staring at me. He's wearing some blue overalls with a white tank top and he's barefoot today and sitting on the lap of Auntie Cat. She's got on cowboy stilettos. Is that a thing?
Speaker 2:That is not and these are just called booties. But we can go with cowboy stilettos.
Speaker 1:All right, we got booties, we got jeans and a cowboy T-shirt. What does it say?
Speaker 2:It says Make America Cowboy Again.
Speaker 1:Okay, Make America Cowboy Again. We got Cowboy Cat in the building Sums out.
Speaker 2:guns out with Loxie B over here.
Speaker 1:And to my left. She's a former competitive swimmer at the University of Kentucky. Go Wildcats.
Speaker 3:Go Wildcats.
Speaker 1:I'm just going to read one of her recent tweets that I think kind of sums up and explains her life right now. Quote, unquote. I can't believe I reached one million followers on X for simply saying men and women are different, lol. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the voice of women's rights and athletics and, I believe, the voice of common sense and reason. We got Riley Gaines.
Speaker 3:Hey, oh my gosh, thank you, thank you. It's great to be on. I can't believe, being a Nashville native, we didn't make this happen sooner, but that is entirely on my end. So I could not be more excited to be in this chair with you guys and, most importantly, lox.
Speaker 1:Yes, so it's been a wild ride for you the past year.
Speaker 3:I'm sure you didn't have this year on your bingo card. No, how could you Certainly have done some things, been some places, met some people that I never in my wildest dreams would have imagined, for the sheer fact of I never would have imagined. The conversation that we're having is one that is necessary to be had, certainly not by me, but really by anyone. But here we are so, day by day, learning, adapting, rolling with the punches, sometimes even quite literally. So yeah, it's been a whirlwind.
Speaker 1:Well, let's take it back to the beginning. Swimming Division I elite swimmer top in the country. How did you get into that sport?
Speaker 3:So I come from a family of athletes. My dad, he was a football player. He played right here at Vanderbilt. He went on to play professionally in the NFL for many years. My mom, she was a division one softball player. All my uncles played professionally, won Super Bowls, all the things. So playing sports was never or I guess, not playing sports.
Speaker 1:That was never an option for me.
Speaker 3:No way, um, but I'll tell you. When I did the thing that a lot of kids do, you know, you play softball, you do soccer or basketball. I started swimming and my dad told me Riley, that's not a sport Like, you need to pick an actual sport. Uh, that's not one. And his justification was any sport where or any activity where a guy is wearing what is equivalent to what he called panties, that's not a sport. So I started doing other things. High school rolls around. I'm still. Swimming and softball. Those are my two sports at the time, and so I started getting recruited for both, and so I had to make a choice and ultimately I chose swimming, which did not enthrall my dad at first, but I'll say, he's come around Now he knows that swimming is a sport. So, man, I started swimming when I was four, graduated when I was 22. So really dedicated 18 years of my life to my sport.
Speaker 1:So does your dad think wrestling is a sport? How does he feel about the leotards that they wear?
Speaker 3:He'd probably call that gay too. To be honest with you, If it's not football, it's not a sport.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and swimming is very difficult to do and I think a lot of people don't realize how difficult it is. I did a triathlon, I did an Ironman a few years back and I was like, oh, I could swim. Because I always thought about when I was a younger kid I could beat my friends down to the end of the pool and back. But swimming more than a lap is a whole different ballgame.
Speaker 3:Oh, totally yeah, and in college we swam 15,000 yards every single day, which is equivalent to about 10 miles. We did that daily. So it's definitely a lot more taxing than I think people realize. So, swimming six hours three of those hours are before 8am it's a huge time commitment. It's pretty grueling the hours, the practices, the sacrifices that you have to make. So, yeah, I don't think people realize it either.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's a lot of alone time with just your mind, because it's not like you're wearing headphones Like you would in another workout. But I remember just going to the YMCA and just going back and forth and I would just swim for an hour and I'd have to really pump myself up to get into do that workout.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you don't get to talk to people. You don't get to breathe. That's not very fun. You stare at the same black line at the bottom of the pool. Hours and hours every single day for years.
Speaker 1:So so when did you know that you were kind of a really good swimmer and that you wanted to do that in college?
Speaker 3:Gosh, I think I started to excel when I was maybe 12 or so years old. When I was 12, I was the fastest 12 year old in the nation, which I was so oblivious to this. I didn't really know what this meant, I just got out there and did as best as I could do. I would have parents coming up to my parents at these swim meets and they would say, hey, like do you know that time your daughter just went is such and such, it's a quadruple, a standard. I still don't even really know what half this stuff means and my parents were just kind of like, okay, cool, uh, they didn't put a lot of emphasis on it. Neither did I, to be honest.
Speaker 3:I got older, you know, 15 ish years old, and that's when I qualified for, uh, olympic trials to, you know the, the meat to eventually then make it to the Olympics. But I mean, it's the highest caliber meat. Um, really it's. It's even more competitive than the Olympics because of the depth that the United States has, and so qualified for this meet at 15 years old I was one of the youngest ones there Um, I distinctly remember again, I was still so, just like, didn't really know what this entailed. I was kind of just going for the experience.
Speaker 3:And so I go to the the center, the aquatic center, where this meet was. I get on the elevator, I press the button and the elevator doors open and there's Michael Phelps and I'm like, oh my gosh, like this is actually a pretty big deal that I'm here. So that's kind of when it set in, to be honest with you that this was something that if I really dedicated myself to it again, my time, my effort, this is something that I could see myself pursuing in college. So you know 15, 16, of course, ups and downs, there's no doubt about that. You go through periods where you plateau. It feels as if there's nothing you can do that will allow you to drop time, to better your times, to go PRs or things like that. But I was very happy with my career. I ended on a very. A lot of people end very bitter with their sport because it's hard to continue improving for, like I said, 18 years of your life. But I was very happy with my career.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and especially improving in a sport like that. I mean, you're talking about a half a second, a hundredth of a second.
Speaker 3:Hundreds of a second. Yeah, which is wild. Yeah, minimal.
Speaker 1:That's insane. And so Kentucky, how'd you end up there? And I'll preface this by saying I'm from Connecticut, I'm a UConn fan, uconn basketball, so I apologize, uconn has a team.
Speaker 3:No, no, no. Long as we're not singing rocky top, then I'm good.
Speaker 1:Um, I knew I wanted to say in the sec uh, by far the best conference sorry to big east.
Speaker 3:Yeah, sorry guys, you can just join though that's what texas is doing and oklahoma is doing, everyone's doing it just join the sec, um. But I knew that's where I wanted to be, and so, um, really, I thought I was going to be a Florida Gator, though, and so I took my trip to Florida, had a couple trips planned, took my trip to Florida. I remember talking with someone close to me before this, asking you know, how do you know if it's the right place for you? And they told me okay, well, they'll take you to a football game or a basketball game or what have you, and they'll play the fight song. And if you get chills when you hear the fight song, that's how you know you're at the right place. And so we got to go to a football game, and the fight song starts playing, and I just couldn't help but think why are people doing this?
Speaker 3:And again, I, don't look that good in orange. I don't want to go here, but this was like a total shock to me. It was like someone had just thrown a wrench at my plans.
Speaker 1:Um, I didn't really fight song all because the fight song.
Speaker 3:I really let that weigh on me and again the color orange, ew.
Speaker 3:And so I kept taking my trips. Never once did I think I was going to go to university of Kentucky. Um, admittedly, I thought the only things that came from Kentucky were like meth and Mountain Dew, uh, which I was interested in. Neither of those things. But, funny story, my boyfriend at the time who is not my wonderful husband now he was a big Kentucky fan, and so this coach constantly was emailing me, reaching out to me, calling me, texting me, asking if I would come on a trip there, which, again, I totally just ignored him. To be honest with you, I wasn't interested. But he told me, hey, we'll bring you to a basketball game, and totally just ignored him. To be honest with you, I wasn't interested, but he told me, uh, hey, we'll bring you to a basketball game.
Speaker 3:And this was before Kentucky was losing to, like the St Norseburg Peacocks or whoever we lost to a few years ago in the tournament. So I thought, okay, this will be like a cool Christmas gift for my boyfriend, I'll be able to bring him, we can leave. I'll honestly just take advantage of this coach in this university. But I went there and I'll tell you I fell in love. I fell in love with the team, the coaches, the campus, the resources that they poured into us outside of even just athletics, and to our academics and our service, both things that really mattered to me. And so, on a whim, I committed there and there could not have been a better place for me.
Speaker 1:On a whim. I committed there and there could not have been a better place for me, right, all right. So University of Kentucky and the life of a D1 athlete is very challenging. We're all athletes here. Sam Kat was a gymnast and I played soccer not the D1 level. Speak for yourself Booth. I know I feel very unathletic sitting in this room.
Speaker 2:Sorry about that yeah.
Speaker 1:But explain the day-to-day life of a college athlete at the D1 level.
Speaker 3:Gosh, I thought I worked hard before college. Wrong, this was a different kind of working hard. As I said, we practiced six hours that's just the time in the water every day. Again. Three of those hours are before 8 am. So you get to the pool at 5am, practice till 8am, you go to class, you come back, you practice again from 1.30 to 4.30, ate our dinner at old people time of 4.45 because we were starving, did your homework, iced your shoulders, went to bed, woke up. You did it all again the next day. Again, that's not including any of the weight sessions, the lifting sessions we had. That's not including what we call dry land or extra ab workouts that were mandatory we had to do.
Speaker 3:It's hard to balance, honestly, your athletic side of things but also the academia side of things. You're missing weeks at a time for meets, during finals, of course, always, so constantly trying to catch up with school. Um, forget your social life. You just don't really have one. Uh, all of your friends are people who are on your team, which I'm so fortunate. Uh, for my teammates and for my friends. I met my husband at university of Kentucky. He was a swimmer. Of course he was a swimmer and, as you can imagine, my dad was not happy when I started dating one of these boys who wears the panties. Um he, he said Riley, he's gay.
Speaker 3:I'm like dad? No, he's not.
Speaker 1:Riley, what about, like one of the football players?
Speaker 3:No, totally, but he loves him now, of course. So it's um. It just taught me so much, honestly playing sports, balancing all these things. It taught me how to be a leader. It taught me how to set goals and work to achieve those goals, of course. Perseverance, resiliency, all things that I find myself using in my day-to-day life. Now, I wouldn't have these attributes or characteristics had I not been fortunate enough to play at the collegiate level.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think athletics shapes somebody, more so than academics.
Speaker 3:For sure.
Speaker 1:And you know I always say I'm going to let Lox choose what he wants to do. Obviously I'm not going to peer pressure him, but I really hope that he does want to play some type of sport, just to get that team work and the chemistry, like you said, dedication, everything so he looks like he's gonna play sports yeah, what do you think?
Speaker 3:oh, I don't know, he's pretty beefy yeah, yeah, we're beefing him up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he's pretty beefy huh, buddy yeah we're talking about you so then, how many people are on the swim team at kentucky?
Speaker 3:gosh, we had. Uh, just on the girls team, which I was captain of, we had 40 girls, which is that's insane. Oh, totally, it's like our own little sorority. We didn't have time, or we weren't really allowed, to join a sorority, and so we called ourselves Kappa, kappa, goggles. It was like a sorority and again, being captain of this, the drama that ensued.
Speaker 3:It's inevitable, right, you can't be best friends with everyone, but, again, another added stress and pressure to my day-to-day life being this liaison between the team and the coaches, having to, um, punish certain teammates if they were acting out of of our policies and things that we had in place. Holding everyone accountable, knowing everyone's goals, um, again to for the purpose of of holding them accountable to those goals, to our goals as a team. Uh, so it was, uh, it was a lot.
Speaker 1:It's a lot 40 girls. I was way off then, cause I thought you might've had five or 10 swimmers on a team in college.
Speaker 3:No way. Um, some of those were divers. We had about four or five divers, not too many so, majority of those being swimmers A lot to deal with.
Speaker 1:All right, so then your career at Kentucky.
Speaker 3:Getting used to that much volume in the pool lifting. That was new to me. I had never lifted before college. So improving steadily, but again certainly adjusting. Sophomore year, this is when I felt like the adjustment had. Finally, I was settled in. I had really started to develop this sense of consistency. I was consistent in my workouts, consistent with my attitude and my work ethic, consistent in my diet, my sleep schedule, my study habits. Which I look back now and I think that's the most admirable trait, or I guess, really the most useful trait someone can develop, is being consistent. I certainly saw it and felt it in my life um athletically, but again transcending beyond that. And so this is when I started to have this breakout season, uh started doing some some pretty incredible things.
Speaker 3:Um March of 2020, about three days before we were supposed to leave for our national championships, which is the meat you work all year for um your life, for the pinnacle of collegiate sports. Three days before we were supposed to leave, we're in the water, we're practicing, gearing up, ready to go. Our coaches come over, they pull us out of the water, take us back to the team room, they sit us down and they say NCAAs has been canceled. Pack your stuff up. If you live in the dorm rooms, you have to leave campus. Tonight, of course, covid had hit, which there was a lot of uncertainty around this. We didn't know what this meant. No one did. I thought we would go home for the weekend, maybe the week, the next week, and very swiftly return back to campus, which was of course not what happened.
Speaker 3:We, upon going from Kentucky back home to Tennessee, it was kind of like this abrupt realization that there were no gyms open or nothing, no setting where I could continue improving, dedicating myself to my sport, which, in the sport of swimming, it's detrimental. To take time out of the water. You're very quick to lose your skillset, your technique, of course, your speed, all those things. And so I knew what two, three, four months out of the water meant. It would have been the end of my career. Honestly, it would have taken me more than a year and a half or so to get back to the level that I was. So I knew I had to do something. So very fortunate here to have Old Hickory Lake, which I put on a wetsuit every single day. I jumped in the boat dock down at Saundersville boat ramp, jumped in, swam miles aimlessly. I'd swim down by Johnny Cash's house, come back. I did it every single day.
Speaker 1:That's not the cleanest water.
Speaker 3:Not the cleanest water, the amount of dead catfish that are like floating on top that hits you as you're? Yeah, no, not pleasant. Snakes that swim by, yeah, things that touch your feet, no, no, thank you. But I knew I had to do this If I wanted to continue this breakout season. I was having my sophomore year into my junior year and understand, I don't think I was overly unique in that sense A lot of us were willing to do whatever it took and I think it just shows the mindset of an athlete who wants to compete and again succeed. And so we're finally able to come back junior year and I did continue this breakout season. This is the year that I won my first individual SEC title. This is when University of Kentucky won its first ever SEC title in program history and ultimately, this year I ended up placing seventh in the country, which Not bad.
Speaker 3:I was proud of it. You're top eight, you're an All-American it's a pretty high honor. But I didn't swim my best time. I felt unsatisfied to a degree with this. I knew I was capable of more, and so it was right, then and there, that I placed seventh in the nation my junior year, that I set a goal for my senior year to win a national title, which would, of course, mean becoming the fastest woman in the country and my respective event. And so senior year rolls around and I'm right on pace to achieve this goal.
Speaker 3:About midway through my senior season, so about November of 2021, I was ranked third in the nation in the 200 freestyle uh, trailing the girl in second, a girl who I knew very well, because, I mean, like in most sports, your top tier athletes know of each other, regardless of where you compete, because you've grown up competing against each other. And so she swam at University of California, again trailing her by a few one hundredths of a second. But the swimmer who was leading the nation by body lengths, might I add, was a swimmer that none of us had ever heard of before Not myself, not my teammates, not my coaches, not my parents, uh, and this is the first time we became aware of a swimmer named Leah Thomas. Lots of red flags at the time upon seeing this name and the times that this person was posting Um, what were your initial thoughts.
Speaker 1:You were just like this girl's, really like you've never heard of her.
Speaker 3:That's it Um.
Speaker 3:that doesn't happen for for a variety of reasons, but it just didn't. I mean, it didn't make sense. But I'll tell you, the thought that never crossed my mind was that this was anything other than a female. It never even crossed my mind. I thought that was such a far-fetched presumption I figured that I mean it never even crossed my mind. Again, looking at this on paper, we hadn't seen a photo of this person, or else things definitely would have been a little more clear. But for all I knew at the time, this was a senior which no one just pops out of nowhere, their senior year from University of Pennsylvania, which, sorry you Northeasterner, they don't have good swim teams up there.
Speaker 3:This is not a school that has ever produced that caliber of a swimmer, again leading the nation by body lengths, ranging in events from the 100 freestyle, which is a sprint, and all the freestyle events in between, through the mile, which is, of course, long distance.
Speaker 1:So every event.
Speaker 3:Every event, and so that doesn't make sense either, because I mean, you think about this in terms of your runners, your Olympic runners. It's like saying, your best 200-meter runner is your best marathon runner, which?
Speaker 1:doesn't happen, it doesn't happen.
Speaker 3:They're two totally different systems that you're using, but that's what we were seeing in this person. And so I'm so confused. I'm talking to my coaches, I'm talking to my teammates who is this? We had no idea. I went to this database where, for example, if you looked up the name Riley Gaines, you would see my times and my progression, from when I was eight years old all the way through college and this trend line. And so I'm looking up the name Leah Thomas. There's no history of this person until that season.
Speaker 3:Again, so confused, and we continued to kind of stay in the dark until an article came out disclosing that Leah Thomas was formerly Will Thomas and swam three years on the men's team at University of Pennsylvania before deciding to switch to the women's team. And so when I read this, it was actually my coach who sent me the link, because of course, he knew my goals, he knew how hard that I worked. He said you need to read this, and so I read it. Uh, and of course, naturally, I was shocked we all were but really, upon reading it, it was like this sense of relief, like oh oh that makes sense.
Speaker 3:This person's not a threat to me because they're a man. There's no way the NCAA will allow this person to compete with us at our national championships. And it was at this point where I went to that same database and looked up the name Will Thomas, because I was curious, you know, was this a lateral movement? Was this someone who went from ranking amongst the best of the men to now continuing to rank amongst the best of the women, which is, of course, not what we saw? Uh, we saw this was a mediocre man. That's actually generous, um, ranking at best in the nation the year prior, in the same event, 554th in the country, which, again, is why I say I felt relieved. I'm like, oh, the NCAA will see this. How I saw it Again, how my family saw it, how my coaches saw it, how my teammates saw it, how anyone with any amount of brain activity would probably comprehend this. Nothing hateful about it, nothing even opinionated about it. The mere facts on the paper in front of us, that this was not a lateral movement. But, lo and behold, the NCAA did not see it that way. They saw absolutely nothing wrong with this, and so, about three weeks before our national championships in March of 2022, they announced that Thomas's participation in the women's category was a non-negotiable, indicating that there was nothing that we could do as female athletes. There was no questions that we could ask or concerns that we could raise. We were told we had to accept this with a smile on our face. So that was kind of the lead up to that national championships, which that's a whole different scenario.
Speaker 3:This is when I got to really personally witness and feel the effect that this infringement, or what I would call an injustice, had on myself and my teammates and my competitors. Of course, I don't claim to speak for every single girl on that pool deck, but I do claim to speak for the overwhelming majority of us Right, because I can wholeheartedly attest to the tears that I saw, not just from the moms in the stands watching as their daughters are being obliterated in the sport that they once loved, but the tears from the girls who placed ninth and 17th and missed out on being named an All-American by one place. And I can wholeheartedly attest to the extreme discomfort in the locker room when you turn around and there's a 6'4" 22-year-old man, fully intact, fully exposing himself, inches away from where you were, simultaneously fully undressed, and I can wholeheartedly attest to the whispers, because really that's what they were the whispers of anger and frustration from those girls who, just like myself, had worked our entire lives to get to this meet. And so that first day was the 500 freestyle, which is not an event that I do. And so I watched on the side of the pool as Thomas swam to a national title to literally no one's surprise.
Speaker 3:Again beating Olympians, beating American record holders. These aren't scrubs, they're the most impressive and accomplished female swimmers this world has ever seen. And he beat them all by body links. One second might not sound like a lot of time, but in the sport of swimming again, a sport measured down to the hundredth of a second one second is significant. Uh, he beat the entire nation of women by two seconds. Even the time he went that year would have beat every girl the next season by two full seconds. Uh, so he became the first man to win a division I NCAA women's title trailblazer.
Speaker 2:What was the reaction from the Penn State team and those parents in the stands and other opposing? I mean, obviously it wasn't just you and Penn State, so any other universities Like? What was the collective mood?
Speaker 3:Gosh, it's so crazy to me because again, we were at least on the pool deck operating through, like, through whispers and points, and in secrecy, which I look back and I think why in the world, myself included is like, why in the world did we feel as if we couldn't say out loud that I mean really the parable of the emperor wears no clothes, quite literally in this case, like why, why couldn't we say that? So it was super unique that first day after Thomas swam, after he won that national title, the applause and the stands from the fans, which are really just the parents, their applause and cheers said what they didn't say with their mouths. Their applause and cheers said what they didn't say with their mouths. So when the girl, emma Wyant in the 500 got up, who placed second, ultimately the rightful national champion, the crowd went wild. All the parents cheered so loud.
Speaker 3:But then when Thomas' name was announced to stand atop the podium, crickets. So that was the general consensus. Again, no one publicly saying anything but that right there and me hearing that. That was encouragement to me, honestly, um, because and we can get into all the silencing tactics that that we face, the intimidation and different things that that we faced prior to this meet that led me to believe that my thoughts that I was having were in the minority, but that kind of thing it inspired me. A couple people would yell from the stands cheater and I think I needed to hear that honestly.
Speaker 1:Right, it almost feels like an SNL skater, something that's so outrageously.
Speaker 3:Like a Babylon Bee headline yeah, south Park episode.
Speaker 1:You just picture college women lining up on the blocks and then a six foot five guy hops up on the block next to you In a women's swimsuit, fully intact in a women's swimsuit, and it's like all right, let's go. Girls, and nobody's like. This is the most outrageous thing ever.
Speaker 3:And when we would watch that SNL skit we would laugh because it's objectively hilarious is what it is, and that was my mood going into this. It still felt like this circus. Admittedly, I was almost intrigued. Of course, I knew the whole time it was wrong and unfair, I knew that, but there was a sense of entreatment until I actually saw this with my own eyes and I felt ashamed for laughing at this or for thinking this was some kind of comical scenario that we were in. Those feelings shifted to heartbreak.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 3:Total demoralization that the people who were supposed to be protecting us, the people who were supposed to be ensuring our privacy, our equal opportunities, our safety in our sports, had failed on all accounts.
Speaker 1:What was the process for Thomas to go from competing with the men to then, in a year's time, to competing with the women?
Speaker 3:So the policy that the NCAA had in place since 2010, so at the time this policy was 12 years old was just 12 months of hormone replacement therapy and then you're set to compete with whoever or wherever you want, which, as we know, there is no amount of HRT that can mitigate male advantage entirely. But 12 months of hormone replacement therapy I mean as made clear by his national rankings when competing against the men, to competing against the women, that's obvious. But even things that testosterone doesn't necessarily affect, like your lung size, like your heart size, like your height at that point, like the size of your feet, like even something as silly as the size of your throat it might sound again pretty irrelevant that men have on average a 40% larger throat than women, but when you're playing a sport where you're grasping for air, that makes a huge difference, that's a huge factor of success in our sport, and those are all things that won't change with testosterone suppression zero nanomoles per liter of testosterone, those things don't change.
Speaker 1:So do you even think there's any scenario where you would be okay with that, even if they transitioned when they which would be insane 10, 12 years old?
Speaker 3:no, still, it's still super unfair it's still just wrong.
Speaker 3:I mean, this is what, ultimately, you think of title nine, uh, the federal civil rights law that prevents sex-based discrimination, most notable for giving equal opportunities in sports. I mean, this was only 52 years ago. I think we forget that women were using their buzzwords here, once a historically oppressed group, and now they're undermining everything they once fought for entirely. So I think any opportunity that is deemed for a woman, for a female, that's who the opportunity should go to. I don't care, I've received flack for even chess. Of course they have men and women's chess when competing. And I know nothing about chess, let's be very clear. Or darts, for example, or pool billiards All these sports are infiltrated with men competing in the women's category and it's still wrong.
Speaker 3:And I'll have people say oh well, if you don't think men should compete with women in chess, you're just calling women dumb, you're saying they're not as smart as men. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying if it's for a woman, that's who it should go to. And we hear this word inclusion all the time. But understand the woman's category, any category in sport, whether it's age, whether it's weight class, in sports like wrestling or boxing. Right, you have heavyweights, you have featherweights. They were created purposefully to be exclusive. That's not a bad thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:It's actually necessary when safety and fairness are are at jeopardy here that's why we have categories, that's why we have the paralympics versus the olympics. It's not because we're shaming or being right able phobic I don't know if that's a word um to people who aren't, who don't have full ability yeah but we have that in place for a reason. So any opportunity entitled for a woman all that to say should go to a woman.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that that's the most frustrating part. It has nothing to do with transphobia or anything like that, and people want to criticize people who think that what Leah Thomas did was wrong. They're like oh, they're just transphobic and it's like no, this whole Title IX that we've implemented and there's been so much progress over the years for women's rights in sports and you've seen it, and it's like we've made so many great big strides and all of a sudden, just like that, it's like what was the point of any of that? And where are all the feminists now?
Speaker 3:Don't even get me started on this question. It's crazy to me. Well, let's lay it out, okay? So you think of your traditional radical, feminist, left-leaning groups, right? You think of groups like the National Organization of Women. Now, I mean, they were the leading feminist group for what I mean, 60, 70 years now. They just posted a piece this past week that said that I was a white supremacist patriarchist. The National Organization of Women here I am fighting for women and they call me a patriarchist. It's like what in?
Speaker 2:the world.
Speaker 3:It's insane. Even most recently, when I testified before Congress, I'm sat next to the president of the National Women's Law Center, a law center dedicated to fighting for and maintaining the rights and opportunities and protections of women, and in her opening testimony she says that women should just learn how to lose more gracefully to men. And it's like do you not hear yourself? Even think of someone like Billie Jean King? This is a woman who we really have to accredit Title IX to If it weren't for her. I mean we really have to accredit Title IX too if it weren't for her. I mean she propagated women's sports, really women as a whole forward astronomically in the 60s and 70s. She played in the Battle of the Sexes and she won, and it was this huge feat for women. She is now actively fighting for male inclusion in women's sports and women's spaces. Megan Rapinoe same thing.
Speaker 3:Sue Bird we just saw comments from Dawn Staley recently, the South Carolina women's basketball coach. She's a remarkable coach. She was a remarkable player. She's a Hall of Famer. In her coaching career she's won, I think, two national championships the past three years. Her record's like 193 over the past three seasons. I mean that's unheard of, it's unprecedented. But you can be two things at once. You can be a remarkable athlete, a remarkable coach, while also being a total sellout, which is exactly what she is. A reporter asked her you know, I believe it was right before the national championship game would you be okay with allowing trans women males onto your team? And she stutters and she drinks her water and she, I think, in this moment, realizes that she has to walk this line of being politically correct, but she says outright yes, I would be okay with it.
Speaker 1:There's no way, Cause I'm like there's no.
Speaker 3:Imagine the Yukon men's team.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, sue Bird, I mean, that's disappointing to hear that she's now.
Speaker 3:Oh gosh.
Speaker 1:Saying, yeah, of course, it's fine. It's like, okay, sue. So if you were LeBron James, transition to women and all of a sudden he's guarding you down the block stronger, bigger, and you're not getting the points that you need to get, you're not getting the championship that you want to get, you're not getting drafted at the position that you want to get drafted. Because of this guy, nobody would know who you are. Same with Megan Rapinoe it's like there's a six foot five center back who's guarding her. She's not going to do anything she wants to, but she's going to sit up here and say that because she needs to be politically correct.
Speaker 3:And she's done with her both.
Speaker 1:All of these people are done with their careers you know, and they don't have daughters to defend, so it's a classic case of a virtue signaling is what it is, and also I feel like people not stepping up or expressing the disadvantage of somebody like Thomas. I also think that that is people who are afraid to get quote unquote, canceled in, canceled culture. They are afraid to say it out loud.
Speaker 3:Definitely 100%. And it goes back to, like I said, um, being in this environment where it was super hush hush, we talked in secrecy, behind closed doors. Um, we'd call our parents on the phone, hoping our roommates wouldn't hear us on the other side of of our dorm room, but really they were doing the exact same thing too. Um, I, I couldn't be more appalled with the lack of authority, the lack of morality, what I would say of these coaches, of people within the NCAA, of people with political power, um, who are unwilling to do the right thing, really, what they are, I think, what our nation is governed by, whether it's whether it is our government, whether it's academia, whether it's corporate America, whether it's even, seemingly, our spiritual leaders. We have so many weak-kneed, spineless, morally bankrupt cowards leading this country which, ultimately, that's, I think, for a couple reasons we're at this place and really in this decline that we are, one of which because we live in a godless society, but two, because we have weak, weak leaders.
Speaker 1:And it's sad because of the amount of work that you girls put in. There's not a single swimmer, and you said that you speak for the majority of people. There couldn't be a single person who thought that that was right and you can't do anything about it, and it's people who are in charge who are making these decisions, but everybody who's competing knows it's not right. The girls know it's not right, but you have people that have higher power trying to tell you what to do and what's fair.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and then telling us that we're the problem if we disagree. Back to the locker room piece Thomas's teammates. I mean, they were forced to undress in front of him 18 times every single week. I only competed against him at this one week long championships. They dealt with it all season Again, 18 times, fully undressing.
Speaker 3:Many of these girls, after talking with them, are survivors of sexual assault themselves. One girl in particular was raped in a bathroom setting prior to coming to college. And so experiencing this again this is based off what she's told me, experiencing this going to her coaches saying hey, this is really hard for me to deal with. It has nothing to do with Leah Thomas, it has to do with my experience and the fact that I don't want to see a naked man and I don't want a naked man seeing me naked. And her coaches said well, I suggest you learn how to be kind and I suggest you learn how to be inclusive. That's what these girls I know. That's what these girls were dealing with 16 of them actually.
Speaker 3:Thomas's teammates sent an email to their administration um, specifically what their parents signed on, specifically expressing their discomfort in the locker room, and their university responded back with if you feel uncomfortable seeing male genitalia. Here's some counseling resources that you should seek and an attempt to reeducate yourself. Here's some counseling resources that you should seek in an attempt to re-educate yourself. And, of course, the counseling resources were provided through the campus's LGBTQ education center.
Speaker 1:Do any of these people have kids at home? Do they not put themselves in that situation if that was their daughter?
Speaker 3:If they do, I think CPS needs to be called, because it's disgusting, it's perverse and again you're a sellout, but at this point, to your own child, which is just sickening. That's what I think when I see a lot of our elected officials. This issue has fallen almost entirely on party lines, at least in the way that the media portrays it and how again our elected officials are voting. It certainly isn't party lines among the general public, but I see these Democrats voting in opposition of protecting women and girls in sports and it just, I mean it breaks my heart honestly, for their kids, for their daughters. Disgusting is what it is if you're comfortable.
Speaker 2:You mentioned earlier silencing techniques that you experienced. I would really like to revisit that if you can elaborate on what you guys experienced. I feel, like it's important to hear, because sometimes I feel like silencing techniques are almost a Jedi mind trick and the fact that you don't even realize you're being silenced until you're almost out of it or on the other side of it, or someone else presented it to you in a different light or something along those lines 100%, and that's certainly what we all, I would say, experienced Leading up to this meet.
Speaker 3:We knew at least our administrators knew this meet was going to get a lot of national attention Swimming is not a sport that typically has national attention and so they sat me down. They brought in an outside professional, whatever that means, who. It was like this mock interview setting. They knew that I would probably be in the final with Thomas, so they wanted to give me training on how to approach this topic, and so they sat me down. It was like a mock interview setting. They threw interview questions at me and they taught me how to use she, her pronouns. If I didn't answer the questions to their standard, I had to re-go through the training.
Speaker 3:We were told at University of Kentucky look, you will never get a job if you speak up about this. You know your employer is going to look you up. They're going to see that you're a transphobe and you don't want that, do you? You know you're never going to get into grad school. And, riley, you know you're set to be a dentist. You're never going to get into dental school if you speak up about this. They said you'll lose your friends, you'll lose your scholarship. Oh yeah, and really, speaking of that scholarship, now they told me remember you signed that and when you sign that, you gave away your rights to speak in your own personal capacity. Remember you represent us, whose name is across your chest and across your cap, because it's not yours, it's ours. And understand, we have already taken your stance for you Again.
Speaker 3:Thomas's teammates I mentioned the emotional blackmail, really, that they received in that email. They were forced to go to mandatory LGBTQ education meetings weekly to learn about how, just by being cisgender, they were oppressing Leah Thomas. Their university even went as far as to tell them that if they did speak up about this and any harm whatsoever were to come towards Thomas's way whether it was physical harm, emotional harm, self-inflicted, for that matter they said then understand, you are solely responsible and that would make you responsible for a potential death, and you don't want to be a murderer, do you, no again? So I suggest you be kind and I suggest you be inclusive, but I mean, let that really sink in. I'm upset too, logs.
Speaker 2:I'm so sorry for hearing this.
Speaker 3:This is crazy, I know, but I mean really. They were telling these girls that they would have blood on their hands if they advocated for fair play and privacy in areas of undressing. They would be murderers. And believe it or not, that's effective when you're talking to a bunch of 18, 19, 20-year-old girls? Of course it's. And again, I could keep going about the different ways to get us to submit, to coerce us into silence, because, again, I am not unique in the way that I feel, but unique in the way that, despite the tactics they use, still willing to do the right and the fair and the just and the moral thing.
Speaker 1:Right. Is there any part of you that feels bad for Leah Thomas?
Speaker 3:Of course, I think Leah Thomas is entirely deceived as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I mean, look, he was lied to, which is what this whole movement, the gender ideology movement as a whole, is built on manipulation. It's built on deception. Um, and so he was deceived yeah which, again, ultimately, who do you blame?
Speaker 3:do you blame someone like thomas or do you blame the people who ultimately deceived him? Right, I don't. I mean, I think he thought he was doing the right thing, which, again, more importantly, as a Christian, I believe it's our purpose on this planet to spread his word, his gospel, his message. Yeah, and he's very clear in saying that he and when I say he, I mean our wonderful and just creator created man and woman perfectly and intentionally in his image. So I think it's up to us to teach these people, or at least try to highlight, spread awareness to what is right and what is wrong, because, again, these people, people who identify as trans, people who are pushing this movement, people who don't see this movement as harmful, they've ultimately been deceived.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. Because when I look at that picture of him on the podium and then is it, you and another swimmer are kind of off to the side together I'm like this is just a sad situation for everybody, for Leah, for you guys, and it just shows like how the people at the top just messed everything up.
Speaker 3:Entirely. So. Yeah, I have no animosity towards Thomas.
Speaker 3:I really don't. What Thomas does behind closed doors, I don't care. That's the beauty of America. I don't want someone infringing on my rights, my freedoms. I don't want to infringe on his rights and his freedoms, but that can't come at the expense of my rights, of our privacy and safety and equal opportunity endowed to us through Title IX, and I don't want it to cost my taxpayer dollars. So look, if that's the way things can on. But again, it's important is, at the same national championships where we had Leah Thomas, again a six foot four man identifying as a woman, who we were told we fully had to treat as a woman, we had another athlete who was transitioning, but this athlete is a female who began to self-identify as a man, who we were told we fully had to treat as a man. Izzy now goes by the name of Isaac. They never pick creative names. Izzy now goes by the name of Isaac swimming at Yale, which, like, of course, she was.
Speaker 3:Yeah, of course she was, because what's up with the ivy leagues? Yeah, these are supposed to be places of higher education, but daily they are proving that to be more and more false. Um, is he now I isaac? Uh, again, optics purposes. Follow along if you even can. It's the finals of the. The women's hundred freestyle, you've got a six foot four man and a women's swimsuit. Of the women's 100 freestyle, you've got a six foot four man in a women's swimsuit with a bulge, next to a woman wearing only a Speedo with nothing covering her top. They both wrote on their arms in big black Sharpie let trans kids play. As if they both weren't playing in the category that best suited them.
Speaker 3:I'm sitting there watching this and I'm like it's me, I'm the crazy one. It must be. This is the freaking Twilight Zone, to your point. An SNL skit is what this was.
Speaker 3:But it begs the question of if we were really basing this off gender identity, like the NCAA claims, like the Biden administration claims, like the IOC, the International Olympic administration claims, like the IOC, the International Olympic Committee claims, then why did we have someone identifying as a man competing with the women? And of course, that's rhetorical, because anyone with a brain, or heart for that matter could answer this question, and that's because Izzy now Isaac would never and will never be able to compete at the same level against the men. She ended up placing fifth in the country in the 100 free, which is an incredible achievement if you're not taking performance enhancing drugs. But now she is competing with the men Finishes dead last every single time. The one meet I watched of hers this year, the only male swimmer she beat was a man who had one arm. Yeah, and I don't say that to make a mockery, I don't say that to be funny.
Speaker 1:I don't say that to do anything other than highlight reality.
Speaker 3:Men are different than women, exactly.
Speaker 2:So was there ever any conversation? So they're pushing, they're asking you to be inclusive and to essentially make Leah Thomas feel as though she is one of you guys at any cost, at any point. Did anyone say, well, what about us? What about like? Okay, if you're going to, what about me? Who has been getting up since five o'clock or four o'clock in the morning since I was four years old trying to make this dream come true? No one, I just I have a hard time connecting the narrative of being inclusive and making sure everybody feels like they have a place, except for the ones that have been there the whole time, or I guess I don't know how to connect the two. Did anyone ever bridge that gap for you when you were in the NCAA and say this is why?
Speaker 3:Anytime. I raise this concern to anyone again, whether it was a coach, whether it was an official or what have you. Every single time they said well, our hands are tied, we can't do it. Who's?
Speaker 2:tying them, though You're the governing body.
Speaker 3:Exactly, um, but that was their response every single time, um, which is, again, it does just leave you baffled and to your point about, about banning almost I mean prioritizing the men instead of the women in women's sports.
Speaker 3:Just this past week in west virginia there was a middle school track and field meet.
Speaker 3:Um, there's actually a fourth circuit us court of appeals ruling a couple weeks ago that ultimately shot down West Virginia's Fairness and Women's Sports Act, specifically in the case of one boy, 13 years old, who began taking hormone blockers at eight that would ultimately allow him to compete in the sport that aligns with his gender identity, which is with the girls.
Speaker 3:And so there were five girls again middle school track and field meet, who were set to compete against this boy in shot put. And they, they said we don't want to, we don't want to compete with the boy, we don't want to fight for second place, we deserve to win, we deserve to be called champions, we're worthy of that. And so they decided we're not going to compete, we're going to get in, we're going to step in the ring, the circle, and we're going to walk right out. That will be our form of of showing or expressing our opposition is by conceding those five girls. Oh my gosh, so brave, so inspiring. It's so sad actually that the 13 year olds have to be the adults in the room. But their school, their middle school, responded with their coach banning them from future competitions because they took that stand Banning the girls from girls sports rather than the boy from girls sports.
Speaker 1:I mean none. Of it makes sense.
Speaker 3:No.
Speaker 1:None of it. I feel like we're just in such a time of overcorrection with everything in society, 100%, where we're going to look back one day and just be like that was stupid, what have we done? What have we done? Look, back.
Speaker 2:I'm feeling it right now.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Was there ever a time in your career or obviously, like you said, you were set up for dental school You're going to have a different path. This path is not what you imagined. Was there a defining point that you were like all right, I guess it's going to be me. I'm going to be the one that's going to say something, because this is not an SNL skit. This is reality and this is, you know, for your potential future children, for the other little girls that have looked up to you, cause I know that you shared a pool with younger generations of girls that were like, oh my gosh, that's so cool, because I I know that existed. I've been that little girl, I've been the leader that's been in the gym with the younger girls and it's just a responsibility that you feel naturally and organically to grow with. And when did that become more so than just like, all right, I'm not just going to be a role model here inside the pool, I'm taking this outside as well.
Speaker 3:I think I had two. If I think about this, I think there were kind of two defining moments for me. The first one was when he and I competed against each other, um and the 200 free, which was the day after he won the national championship in the 500. And so, of course, you know, we get on the blocks, dive off, swim eight laps of freestyle, touch the wall at the end.
Speaker 3:I look up at the scoreboard and, almost impossibly enough, we had tied, meaning we went the exact same time down to the hundredth of a second, which one is incredibly embarrassing for a six foot four man. One is incredibly embarrassing for a six foot four man, but two. It's rare. When you're racing for a minute and 40 seconds and not even one 100th separated us, which you can't tell me. That's not divine intervention. But anyways, we get out of the water, go behind the awards podium where the NCAA official looks at both Thomas and myself Thomas, who's towering over me again at six foot four. This official says great job, you two, but you tied and we only have one trophy. So we're going to give the trophy to Leah. Sorry, riley, you don't get one.
Speaker 2:And this is at the national championship.
Speaker 3:Yes, and so, having just competed, my heart rate is so high, my adrenaline is still pumping, and so the first thing that I thought was the first thing that I said, and the first thing that I thought was isn't this everything that Title IX was passed to prevent from happening? What do you mean? You're going to give the trophy to the man in the women's 200 free? This is really when I just I this was I let loose. Um, I didn't care who was around me, I didn't care that Thomas was two inches away from me, I didn't care. Um, I said what is your justification again for giving the man the trophy here? Never once did Thomas offer the trophy or say we could share no, not once. Which I mentioned.
Speaker 3:I don't have any animosity towards Thomas. That doesn't mean I don't think he's a total narcissist and displayed an utter disregard for us as women and our feelings, our privacy, our opportunities. But ultimately he was following the rules. So again, no animosity there, but I do have thoughts on how he portrayed himself Anyways there. But I do have thoughts on how he portrayed himself, anyways, when asking the question, the dreaded question that no one dared ask all season, of why the NCAA official didn't know how to respond. They didn't give him a script of what to say when someone asked why, and so he stumbled on his words and he's well. And the first excuse he said was well, we're just doing this in chronological order, clearly choking on his words, having no idea what to say chronological order.
Speaker 3:We tied that's exactly what I said. I'm like, do you mean alphabetical, because g comes before t, otherwise, like there's like what are you being chronological about? Um? And it was at this point he realized he was in a corner and there was nothing that he could say that that could actually justify this. And so this is when and understand, this is when his face changed. Okay, he looked sad, his voice sounded sad. I could tell he didn't even believe what he was about to say. But he looked at me and he said Riley, I, I'm so sorry, but we have been advised as an organization that when photos are being taken, it's crucial that the trophy's in Leah's hands. That was it for me. What did you say back to that? I kind of was in this state of disbelief really how it went. I'm explaining it a lot more mild. I mean, I'm like this is BS and you know it. My coach is back there.
Speaker 2:I was going to say I thought you kept it together this whole time and I was like good on you.
Speaker 3:No, my coach is back there too, and my coach is incredibly supportive of me and this stand, and so he's back there. He's going off on this official. This poor official is like not knowing what to do Again, all the while thomas is saying absolutely nothing. And so, like I said, we knew all season the unfair competition was wrong. We knew the locker room was wrong, we knew the silencing that we faced. We knew all that was wrong. But it wasn't until this official reduced everything that we had worked our entire lives for down to a photo op to validate the feelings and the identity of a man at the expense of our own. That's when I was like I'm no longer willing to wait, wait for someone else. And it hit me. I remember distinctly. I'm standing on the podium again, sharing my placement, my spot, with a man towering over me holding this trophy. I know I have to give back. They let me pose with a different one, but they said you have to give yours back.
Speaker 2:How nice of them. Oh, so sweet right.
Speaker 3:Holding this trophy. I know I have to give back to them. And it hit me All the while again, I'm clapping, I'm cheering, I'm smiling. I didn't know what else to do in these moments. And in that moment I remember thinking to myself why in the world am I smiling? Why in the world am I applauding? Because what am I cheering on? I'm cheering on our own erasure, our own demolition. And that's when I decided, really again this realization of how in the world could we expect someone else to stand up for us if we weren't even willing to stand up for ourselves? This has to even willing to stand up for ourselves. This has to come from us as women, as female athletes. So that was, I think, the first, the initial push that I needed, and secondly, the second defining moment.
Speaker 3:About a year later I'd been outspoken at this point. Um, I had dedicated a lot of my time to talking about this. You know different news outlets, I had been to different press conferences and testified and different things, not nearly to the caliber of this activism role that I've taken on now, but I was speaking. There was a group, a turning point chapter at San Francisco State University that invited me to come out to San Francisco, at their campus and speak to their students. I thought this is great. You know, I understand I'm kind of entering into the belly of the beast. I know San Francisco is a lot different than here in my home state of Tennessee, but it almost excited me because these are the people who needed to hear the message. You can preach to the choir all day long, but what impact are you really having? And so I was excited.
Speaker 3:I was naive to think that these students would come with an open mind and the willingness to have their heart softened. Because they did not. They came with pitchforks and fire and upon delivering my remarks, to a room full of opposition I'm talking a room full. Everyone in that audience hated me. They were all there strictly to show their face and make it be known that they hated me, which I didn't care Again. That's who needed to hear it.
Speaker 3:But in delivering these, uh, a group of protesters from the outside, hundreds of them, entered into the room. They turned off the lights at the back of the room. They rushed to the front where I was standing. It was a classroom setting, so I was at the front, you know, by a whiteboard with the podium. Uh, and that's when these protesters start just ambushing me. I'm talking, I'm being pushed, I'm being shoved, I'm being punched in the face by these men who are wearing dresses, which, fortunately for me, their punches really don't hurt that bad. But ultimately these protesters ended up holding me for ransom for hours through the middle of the night, demanding that if I wanted to make it home to see my family safely again, I had to pay them money.
Speaker 3:All the while, while you might be thinking okay, well, where are the police? It's San Francisco. The police are being held for ransom with me. I'm looking at the officers in this room and I'm like, pretty sure we're being held against our will. Pretty sure we call that kidnapping. Isn't there something you can do? To which even the officer said no, our hands are tied, there's nothing we can do. We're not allowed to do anything because we're not allowed to be seen as anything other than an ally to that community or else we'll lose our jobs. Then, of course, this is the same community on the other side of the door calling the officers racist pigs for protecting a white girl like me, and the dean of students shows up again in the middle of the night.
Speaker 3:Midnight starts negotiating with the students how much I owe each of them to leave which. The price they agreed upon was $10 each, which makes me mad because I think I'm worth more than $10.
Speaker 1:Damn.
Speaker 3:Granted, there was a lot of them.
Speaker 2:Wow, that negotiation, though I know $10. I know.
Speaker 3:Okay, no-transcript, and we stand with you so sad um, that was the second defining moment where I, honestly, it was at that point that I realized, um, just how desperately they don't even want you to share your lived experience. I wasn't there to share opinions, I wasn't there to spout off any sort of hate. I mean, what we're talking about, what we went through reality, they so desperately don't want you doing that. So that, I think, was the second defining moment for me in terms of understanding what we're up against. Number one understanding how crucial it is that we find our voices, that we be bold, we be courageous, we stand up to the bullies, because that's what they are they're bullies. So I would say those two things.
Speaker 2:And that was how long ago.
Speaker 3:That was a year ago. Okay, what's?
Speaker 1:crazy about that is. I sent you a message. You were here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we were here.
Speaker 1:I sent you a message that morning before all that happened.
Speaker 3:That's wild, like a few hours and then that's probably why I got lost in the mix.
Speaker 1:I know that's why like the next day I was like well send her a message at a pretty bad time because all of a sudden you were all over the news and you must have got a million messages. It was that same day.
Speaker 2:It was. I'm sorry. I just want to go back to the school invited you out.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Then they were threatened by your presence, but not by the fact that you were held hostage with police. That's okay.
Speaker 3:Yeah, okay, that's okay, I just want to make sure, yeah.
Speaker 2:And then, on top of that, we're going to not even double down. We're going to triple down. Yep, take the day off of school.
Speaker 3:Yep.
Speaker 2:You might need to recover from that traumatic experience you had of what Needing $10? That sounds pretty traumatic.
Speaker 3:You can't even get me out of bed for $10. Oh God.
Speaker 2:You are so much more eloquent and well-spoken and maybe you've just been living this reality much longer than those of us that have been afforded the luxury of not necessarily having to confront this head-on like you have. I give you mad props because I would be in jail. Yeah, and it's You're sweet. No, I'm not. That's the thing is that I just I give you so much credit for not only being educated but well-spoken and, like you said, I'm not spouting opinions that I've just created. I'm just sharing reality.
Speaker 3:Boom.
Speaker 2:It's important to hear.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, it is Um, and you're right, it's. It's been a a process of learning how to talk about it, even literally, in the language that I use. I thought it was kind at first to use the preferred pronouns. I wanted to be respectful, I thought that's what respect was, and then I realized I'm like who am I respecting? Because that's not respectful to Leah Thomas. This is someone, as I said, who's been deceived and I'm only further participating in the farce if I go along with this. That's not what respect is. Even the verbiage of trans woman I won't say that now, because I think that implies that I believe that a male identifying as a woman is some subset of a woman, and they're not. It's just male. Even saying bi, I get so sick of it. It's biological, oh my gosh. Biological female, biological man like I. Again, I, I adhered to this. I thought it was necessary um, and making the distinction right. Like I'm. I mean I'm, I'm a biological being, I'm made of biological matter and I'm a female.
Speaker 3:I'm a biological female, thomas is a biological male. And I'm sitting there one day, uh, having taken many upper level math courses in college, and I'm like, huh, if this was an algebra equation, wouldn't that word biological just like cancel out? Like why are we saying that? And it hit me what we were doing. It's like, like why are we saying that? And it hit me what we were doing?
Speaker 3:It's like when we do that, we are subconsciously, even if we don't know it. I mean, we're playing their game, we're adhering, we're admitting that there's some sort of unbiological alternative to being a male or a female, or a man or a woman or a girl or a boy. And there's not so learning so much. Even the verbiage of sex reassignment surgery. I just won't say that Because, again, it's admitting that I think someone can reassign their sex, and it's the first step to playing the part. And you can't. You can get a mastectomy, a radical double mastectomy, but let's call it what it is. That's not a sex reassignment surgery, it's a mastectomy. The verbiage of gender affirming care it sounds so positive.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just a man. Reassignment, yeah, using that word.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I've had to learn all that to say like it really has been gosh. I mean two years at this point of learning and adapting and framing my messaging, because ultimately, what I want to do here is help people understand exactly what we felt and experienced. And it's not hatred, that's not how we felt. We felt betrayed, we felt violated, we felt heartbroken. So, understanding that the framing of this argument and my stand as a whole it really is pro, it's pro fairness, it's pro reality, it's pro transparency, it's pro safety, pro privacy, pro equal opportunity, it's pro woman, the stand that I have taken I'm standing for something rather than standing against anything.
Speaker 3:So the people who say this is anti-trans, it's pro-woman, and if being pro-woman is immediately deemed anti-trans, then wouldn't being pro-trans inherently be anti-woman? And what do we call those who are anti-woman? We call them misogynists. So their argument always folds on itself. It really does. But learning how to kind of manipulate to a degree that conversation using their own intersectional language against them. They hate it If I say, well, I'm just speaking my truth. That was a phrase that the left coined for so long, and they're like factory resetting when you say that. So again, it's never stooping to their level, but learning how to play the game as well as they do.
Speaker 2:Over the last two years that you've been, you know really the face of I feel like arguably one of the most important conversations and correct me if I'm wrong, guys I feel like this entire I don't even like topic, I guess really presented itself during the pandemic 100%.
Speaker 2:Was I just naive in thinking that I just missed out because I was too concentrated on my own life? Maybe, but I feel like it really became more public social media on every news outlet and very much like a hot topic for people to discuss. But you've been the face of that for two years now. What is something that you can say? You've been the face of that for two years now. What is something that you can say you're the most proud of, that you feel has moved in a positive direction from this?
Speaker 3:A couple things I really have, I feel like, been impactful in many different ways on many different fronts. So, from the legislative side of things, uh, there are now 24 States that have enacted some sort of fairness and women's sports law that basically, just, I mean it just says you compete with your sex. Um, so that's been huge. I've testified and in virtually all of these States, um, most recently, recently, I think, in Alaska. So that's been, um, certainly a big push, um getting legislative bodies to do the right thing here. Uh, there are now five states. I've I've helped work and develop and implement a bill called the women's bill of rights, which is I can't even believe it's necessary.
Speaker 3:It's a bill that defines and codifies the word woman. It's wild to me, like I said, that this is necessary, but we have a sitting Supreme Court justice who can't even answer what a woman is because she claims she's not a biologist. Well, guess what? I'm not a veterinarian, but I know what a dog is. That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. And it's no surprise that this is the same Supreme Court justice who, just a week, two weeks ago, in an interview she said she felt like our First Amendment rights were hamstringing the government Precisely. That is precisely what our First Amendment rights are supposed to do, and if our government can't understand or abide by that, that's precisely why we have the Second Amendment. So no surprise there. It's necessary and I would argue that it's urgent we define this word woman. So that has been done in Kansas, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Nebraska, most recently in Idaho, and to really highlight how this movement, the feminist movement, has flipped on its head, Tennessee was the 36th state to pass laws that allowed women to vote, but they're the second state to define what a woman is. It shows you the 180 that this movement has really done here. So very proud of those things.
Speaker 3:It's, you know, testifying before Congress and the Senate many times. I was so intimidated when I first testified before US Congress because I mean, these are the heavy hitters, these are the people who govern the entire country and me being, I think, 22, 23 years old at the time. I'm sitting there and within five minutes I realized, oh my gosh, why was I intimidated? These people are stupid. These people are actually dumb. They have counsel and staff who do everything for them. If you can get them off that little sheet of paper that their handlers have prepared for them, they don't know what they're talking about. So I think my own of Keith Olbermann. I'll be proud of that for a while, yeah own of Keith Olbermann.
Speaker 2:I'll be proud of that for a while. Yeah, I was going to bring that up because, obviously, when Sean let me know that you guys are, or you were, coming in, I obviously went to your Instagram. This first thing I'm going to do millennial, I'm going to creep on it. I couldn't have liked I could. I almost broke my phone liking it because you're like oh sorry, I actually broke this one when I just was here to prove you incorrect. I don't even have to try because, look, I have 24 more right here.
Speaker 3:It's so cool, though, cause the SEC saw that video and they saw where I broke the trophy and they sent me another one. They're like we hate that you had to waste a trophy proving a point to a seen out old man. So here's a new one, which I thought was incredible.
Speaker 1:That's fantastic, yeah, and you should be very proud of all that, and I could talk about this all day long with you. We're gonna get things wrapped up here. A couple quick questions for you.
Speaker 3:uh, I want to know what your dad was thinking during all this yeah, um, so we weren't forewarned about the locker room portion, and so, uh, the first time we became aware that we would be undressing next to him was when we were inches away from said man, again fully naked, fully male genitalia so he was just hanging out like not even trying to like just dress in the corner or he wasn't like this is kind of weird just hanging out thing is he's still, at the time, sexually active with women
Speaker 3:that was my next question he called himself a lesbian, though, but it's just a man, it's just a straight man at this point so it's a man in the locker room naked who's attracted to women exposing himself in front of him and so I called my dad.
Speaker 3:After, like after this scenario, of course, every girl in that locker room covered themselves and got out as quickly as they could, and I I called my dad. I'm like, oh my gosh, every girl in that locker room covered themselves and got out as quickly as they could and I called my dad. I'm like, oh my gosh, he's in our locker room, dad. He's like I'm coming down there and I'm going to handle this myself. To which I had to say, dad, we already have one man in the locker room, we don't need to and you'll go to jail. He really would be in jail. And that was another push of of look, I'll handle it. I got this dad like I don't want you in jail, behind bars, that's where he would be.
Speaker 3:So yeah as would any good dad of course, could you imagine, um, and as you would teach your son to be a respectful and honorable man who would never, even in a million years, dream of doing that. Yeah, any good parent would respond in the way that my dad did.
Speaker 1:Right, and you said the girls on Thomas's team had to deal with that all season. Were they friendly with them, do you know? Did they have relationships with him, or was he just secluded the entire time?
Speaker 3:It was weird. It was, first of all, again, Penn doesn't have NCAA qualifiers. Normally they only take 40 people in each event or so not even 40. So it's a very exclusive meet, so he didn't have other. I think he had maybe one other teammate there, but his team wasn't there. But the gaslighting and emotional blackmail that they faced all season it really did mess with a lot of girls. Some of them initially weren't okay with this, but then, after meetings and coaching and re-education, we're okay with it. Some of them weren't okay with it the entire time, so it was it's. I mean, again, they're tactics, they're effective, it works.
Speaker 1:Crazy, it's all crazy. Well, where can everybody find you? What are you working on now? You got your own podcast.
Speaker 3:I do. I have a podcast with Outkick. It's called Gains for Girls. It's super fun to be on the other side of things, talking with policy experts and people who have been impacted by this movement. What have you? I just wrote a book which was exciting. It's called Swimming Against the Current Fighting for Common Sense in a World that's Lost Its Mind. So that's, I think, on Amazon or wherever people get books nowadays. And that's, I think, on Amazon or wherever people get books nowadays. Um, and that's out now. It is comes out in may, but it's available for pre-order and different things. So that was fun. It was a unique process to be able to, you know, write your own book. Um, I did the audio recording.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh my gosh Brutal.
Speaker 3:No one told me how hard that was going to be. I mean it was it was brutal.
Speaker 1:I'm a big, a big audiobook guy, so I'll probably download the audiobook.
Speaker 3:There we go, yeah um, so just finish that. You can find me on x or twitter at riley, underscore, gains, underscore. Um, that's where I do most of of my posting. God bless, elon musk. Yes, for creating an environment of free speech and no censoring. My stuff gets censored. I imagine you're similar everywhere, tiktok, I mean, forget it. They won't let me keep a video up for more than five minutes. Even saying nothing bad, they'll just delete it right away. Meta so X is where I do most of my day-to-day posting.
Speaker 1:yeah, that's crazy. I had uh tommy in here and she my posts with her got taken down and what was the reason how suspicious? I mean, it wasn't even. It was like a preview of the episode and it said uh, it was like controversial or it was creating conflict and it wasn't even anything bad.
Speaker 2:I'm like well, you have to remember, people are threatened by presence when they get the day off school. So, yeah, probably what they were feeling it's wild.
Speaker 1:Well, keep doing what you're doing and you guys.
Speaker 3:uh, very grateful, like I said, to be able to hang out with you guys. Super cool what you've been able to do, both of you, so I'm honored to be here.
Speaker 1:We appreciate it Everybody. Riley Gaines hey, rap.
