A version of this story appeared in the Higher Ground newsletter from The Washington Times. Click here to receive Higher Ground delivered directly to your inbox each Sunday.
The question remains nearly two years after Riley Gaines surfaced seemingly out of nowhere to embody the national resistance to the transgender sports agenda: Why her?
Gaines wasn’t even in the same conference as Lia Thomas during the transgender athlete’s record-smashing 2022 collegiate run. They didn’t swim against each other until the last meet of the season. By that time, hundreds of women had shared a pool, a deck or a locker room with Thomas.
None of them was willing to risk public vilification by openly challenging the fairness of competing against a biological male, yet Gaines did. She said she couldn’t have made the decision without the support of her family and her faith in God.
“I’ve thought about this before: Why was I different? Why weren’t more people willing to say it?” she told The Washington Times in an interview. “I think, one, having a very strong family foundation has been pretty monumental in my life. I have two parents who love each other and always taught me to do the right thing, regardless of what the consequences were.”
Both of her parents were also standout athletes. Her father, Brad Gaines, was a running back who played at Vanderbilt University and then for nine years in the NFL. Her mother, Telisha Gaines, played Division I softball at Austin Peay.
“They understand the value of playing sports, and I think that transcended into the life lessons and characteristics they instilled in me,” said Gaines, a 12-time All-American swimmer at the University of Kentucky.
She grew up in Gallatin, Tennessee, and attended the Old Hickory Church of Christ. She described her upbringing as “very spiritual.”
She said she had no doubt that her opposition to male-born athletes competing against girls and women was “objectively the right thing in terms of biological reality.”
“But I also understood in terms of biblical truth that God created only man and woman, and our God doesn’t make mistakes,” she said. “[The NCAA position] dissented from biblical truth. That made me feel compelled to speak out as well.”
Her faith has also helped keep her grounded as she deals with sudden prominence. She appears regularly on conservative media outlets such as Fox News and speaks on college campuses. She has testified before Congress and state legislatures on fairness in women’s sports.
At 23, she hosts a podcast, “Gaines on Girls,” produced by OutKick. Her show features interviews with guests such as former ESPN anchor Sage Steele, policy experts, scientists and athletes challenging the rules that allow male-born athletes in female sports based on gender identity.
“I get to talk to policy experts, I get to ask the questions that a lot of people are thinking but not a lot of people have the opportunity to ask,” Gaines said. “That’s been really cool for me and I think really influential for people who listen. Here are the things people have been dying to know but just haven’t had the opportunity to ask.”
The latest episode of the Gaines for Girls Podcast …
— OutKick (@Outkick) December 27, 2023
Riley interviews @sagesteele
TIMESTAMPS
02:04 Sage’s Experience at ESPN
06:35 The Impact of Cancel Culture on ESPN
15:12 The Support from Women at ESPN
16:42 The disappointment with ESPN’s coverage of Lia Thomas
18:33 Being… pic.twitter.com/AFG66zglop
The Riley Gaines Center at the Leadership Institute helps train “courageous leaders to protect women and America.” She also serves as an ambassador for the Independent Women’s Forum.
Last week, The Daily Signal, the news and opinion arm of the conservative Heritage Foundation, named her as its “Problematic Woman of the Year.”
“Although it’s hard to pick just one, few female leaders acted with more integrity and reached more Americans with a message of common sense than swimmer Riley Gaines,” the Dec. 21 article said.
Drones over her house
That celebrity has come with pitfalls. Her college appearances routinely attract noisy protesters. She was chased by a hostile student mob this year at San Francisco State University, where security hustled her into a classroom for protection for four hours.
“The list goes on. I’ve had drones flying above my house. I’ve been spit on, I’ve had glass bottles thrown at me, drinks poured on me. Just crazy,” she said. “But I think why I’m able to do that with — with a smile on my face and feeling incredibly lighthearted — is because as a Christian and as someone who reads the word, we already know who wins this battle.”
Gaines was a college senior planning to attend dental school after graduation when she arrived in Atlanta in March 2022 for the NCAA Division I women’s swimming championships. The event changed the trajectory of her life.
She had never met Thomas, a University of Pennsylvania student who swam for three years on the men’s team before transitioning. Both qualified for the finals in the 200-yard freestyle. Thomas had won the 500 freestyle by defeating two Olympic silver medalists, Emma Weyant and Erica Sullivan.
Gaines’ critics often accuse her of being a sore loser, but she didn’t lose to Thomas. They tied for fifth. The NCAA official gave the only fifth-place trophy to Thomas for the podium shot. Gaines was handed the sixth-place trophy and later mailed a fifth-place duplicate.
What happened next set her apart. During the season, some Penn swimmers had complained about competitive fairness but always under the cloak of anonymity. Gaines and another swimmer who attended the championships, Virginia Tech’s Reka Gyorgy, became the first to use their names while speaking out.
Gaines made waves shortly after the finals by declaring in an interview with The Daily Wire that the NCAA “turned their backs” on female swimmers to “appease a small minority.”
“What I realized is people were desperate to hear this,” said Gaines. “Especially on college campuses, it seems as if people are hungry for the truth. That’s not a big revelation. But someone had to be willing to say that ‘the emperor wears no clothes.’”
She was soon deluged with interview and speaking requests. She faced a choice: Stick to her plan to attend dental school or focus on advocating for single-sex women’s sports.
“I didn’t know what to do,” Gaines said. “I saw the importance behind this fight, but I felt conflicted, knowing I was giving up a safe and secure option.”
She contacted the dental school to discuss her options and was stunned when program officials offered to hold her spot indefinitely.
“They said, ‘Understand that dental school will always be there, but the relevance and importance behind what you’re fighting for might not,’” Gaines said. “It felt like God was winking at me. That was kind of the reassurance I needed to pursue this.”
Given her high public profile — she has more than 1.5 million followers across her social media platforms — Gaines has been mentioned as a candidate for public office. For the time being, however, she is holding out for a career in dentistry.
“If this issue could be solved tomorrow, I would like to go back to being a dentist, because who in the world would ever want to voluntarily put themselves in politics? Certainly not me,” Gaines said. “I would have to really feel God tugging on me to fully submerge myself into that space.”
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