Riley Gaines: Transgender issues are about the ‘sheer essence of humanity’

Riley Gaines sat down with Campus Reform to discuss why the social implications of transgender ideology extend far beyond women’s sports.

Gaines is an NCAA champion swimmer who rose to prominence after speaking out about her experience competing against Lia Thomas, the first trans woman (biological man) to win an NCAA swimming title. Recently, Gaines gave a presentation at the University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) in Pennsylvania regarding the injustice of women being forced to compete with transgender athletes, who have the physiological advantages of being biologically male despite self-identifying as women.

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In her exclusive interview with Campus Reform, Gaines explained how the debate over trans sports is a “perfect display” of political division.

Take, for example, the juxtaposition of ESPN highlighting Lia Thomas for Women’s History Month within the same week that World Athletics announced it will not let transgender women athletes compete at the elite levels of women’s track and field.

Lia Thomas is not a brave, courageous woman who EARNED a national title. He is an arrogant, cheat who STOLE a national title from a hardworking, deserving woman. The @ncaa is responsible.

If I was a woman working at ESPN, I would walk out. You’re spineless @espn #boycottESPN https://t.co/DF3n5RWsmV

— Riley Gaines (@Riley_Gaines_) March 26, 2023

“I feel like there is no listening to one another anymore,” Gaines said. “It is just you believe this bully or you believe [that] bully. How can we work together to find solutions … without compromising on our own morals and our own values and … basic fairness?”

Although Gaines has been clear that the World Athletic decision is “foundational” to protecting women’s sports and is a good first step, she expressed dismay that there is such difficulty in bridging the ideological gap on such a basic issue.

“We want everyone to be able to participate because I don’t think trans individuals should be banned from sports. I don’t think they should just not be entitled to play at all,” Gaines added. “It’s just a matter of playing where it’s fair and where it’s safe …. Why can’t we work together to find this?”

In the spirit of finding common ground, Gaines commented on Caitlyn Jenner’s stance on trans women in sports as an example of being able to work together.

Citing Jenner’s Olympic titles won as a male prior to transitioning in 2015, Gaines said that Jenner understands “the sacrifices you have to make to compete at that level.”

Gaines has “a lot of respect for Caitlyn Jenner. Obviously, there are some things we disagree on. But I will say it’s so powerful to have someone who is trans … acknowledge, hey, you know, we say that we are trans women, but that does not mean we are women. There is a difference between trans woman and woman, and we should not be in their spaces where we are violating their privacy and their safety and their fairness. They’re entitled to their rights as we are entitled to ours.”

Part of the problem, as Gaines sees it, is that objective reality is at the core of the transgender debate.

At the Pitt event, Gaines interacted with Pitt anthropology professor Gabby Yearwood, who contradicted Gaines when she questioned him as to whether there are skeletal differences between men and women.

When he did so, Gaines said “everyone in the room was jaw-dropped because every archaeologist knows that men and women have different skeletal structures, regardless of how you identify.

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Gaines said the experience “was kind of eye-opening for people to hear, especially students at University of Pittsburgh, because it highlights who is teaching them their information. This is a man who has a PhD in anthropology … yet is trying to actively deny that men and women have different skeletal structures. And everyone in the room, all the students who were in the room, were like we want a refund, I can’t believe you’re teaching us.”

But this type of denial, according to Gaines, is a common feature of transgenderism as an ideological framework.

“They’re changing our language, how they’re asking us to deny objective truth, like men and women, which is the sheer essence of humanity,” Gaines concluded.