Riley Gaines on the Lia Thomas “Woman of the Year” Nomination

BUCK: You know, it feels like the libs read 1984, Orwell’s 1984, as almost a how-to guide. You know, they changed the Merriam-Webster Dictionary definition of woman to add the definition of “one who identifies as a gender other than a man.” That’s actually now on the Merriam-Webster website.  So the official definition online, at least changed.  Here’s somebody who has some thoughts on the gender identity politics at the moment.

Riley Gaines, University of Kentucky swimmer, who tied with Lia Thomas in the 200-yard freestyle, NCAA’s women championship. Riley, thanks for being with us.

GAINES:  Yeah.  Thank you, guys, for making some time to talk to me.

CLAY:  Yeah, I mean, look, you are the actual 200-yard freestyle women’s champion.  So, congratulations on that.  Sorry you’ve had to deal with some nonsense around it.  What was your first reaction to hearing that Lia Thomas was put forward by the University of Pennsylvania as NCAA woman of the year?

GAINES:  Yeah.  It was just this feeling of heartbreak.  I never thought this would ever happen.  But, of course, the NCAA proved me wrong, yet again.  Just thinking of all those amazing female athletes at UPenn who lost out on this nomination, for the most elite, the pinnacle achievement in all of collegiate athletics, to someone who has only spent maybe spent 5% of their life as a “female,” and I’ll say that with quotations around it.  It’s just heartbreaking.

BUCK:  Clay.

CLAY:  Riley, what percentage of women out there, in swimming, when you would have conversations with them, would say, I completely agree with everything that you are saying, but they were terrified to actually say that publicly?

GAINES:  Definitely the majority.  Obviously, I cannot I cannot speak for absolutely everyone.  But there were few encounters I had, where people did not thank me or agree with me.  I actually had a ton of Thomas’ teammates reach out to me and just thank me, because what they have to go through it every day. They said it’s really taking a toll on them.

CLAY:  Riley, can you tell us about that? When they’re saying what they have to go through, what are some of the things that the actual female athletes on that team are dealing with?

GAINES:  Well, one, the locker room situations, it’s incredibly uncomfortable.  It just kind of puts them all in a place, that they didn’t sign up to be in.  And so they’re threatened.  They’re intimidated.  Their coaches, obviously quiet them down.  I actually saw an email, that the Ivy League sent out to the swimmers, that said, if you feel uncomfortable seeing male genitalia in the locker room, you should seek counseling.  And so what an infringement.  I mean, that just seems that it should be illegal, should it not?

CLAY:  And look, and I think that’s kind of crazy.  And I want to circle around on it.  Because I think our audience may not be aware of this.  Not only does Lia Thomas get to claim that she is now a woman.

BUCK:  He is a she, Clay.

CLAY:  Yeah.  It’s all crossed up.  Right?  But he’s using the women’s locker room as well, and still has male genitalia.  I mean, this is Crazytown stuff.

GAINES:  Right.  And under Biden’s new administration of Title IX, it’s actually sexual assault now to refer to a transgender as the wrong pronouns.  But it’s not sexual assault to have male genitalia in the female locker rooms.

BUCK:  It is my understanding — I saw reporting on this –is that Lia Thomas still claimed sexual attraction to women, right?  So, you’re having to get undressed — and not you.  Because you’re not on that team.  But a woman on the UPenn team would have to be getting — you know, it’s a swim team — getting fully naked next to an adult male with male genitalia, who is still attracted to women, because he has long hair now.

GAINES:  Right.  I actually talked to girls who had dealt with sexual assault in the past.  And the locker room situation at NCAA was enough to cause enough trauma, to where they actually had to seek some help again.  Which is just crazy, we’ve gotten to this point.

CLAY:  So Riley, where does this go?  Because one of the questions that’s out there.  You probably have heard this as well.  Is, “Well, why do you care?”

Well, my answer is always, this is leading to men taking over and beginning to dominate women’s athletics because they’re bigger, stronger, faster.  Let’s just talk about the competition element of this.  I believe Lia Thomas is 6-3, 6-4.  How much fairness in competition is there you, a woman who has swam for her entire life, I bet you started when you were four or five years old, training for this, to suddenly be competing against someone who was a male swimmer, up until a year or two ago.  And now the greatest woman’s swimmer ever? From a purely competitive perspective, what is that like?  And what advantages exist for Lia, as a swimmer, that do not exist for the other women I swim against?

GAINES:  Right.  So there’s obviously the blatant physical advantage of height.  But that’s clearly not everything.  A sport like swimming, there’s certain aspects like your aerobics capacity, your lung capacity.  All of those things, men have larger hearts.  Men have larger lungs.  And that’s not something that would ever change with testosterone shockers.  And so having those advantages, it really, really is obvious.  Even if you just go back and watch the race videos.

BUCK:  Riley Gaines, thanks so much for being with us.  We appreciate it.