WASHINGTON (TND) — She is on the front lines leading the charge to ban transgender athletes from competing in girl’s and women’s sports.
NCAA champion swimmer Riley Gaines joined The National Desk’s Jan Jeffcoat to speak about the issue and discuss the latest transgender sports ban in North Carolina.”So like most athletes, I trained my entire life to reach the pinnacle of my sport, which is the National Championships it’s the fastest meet in the world,” Gaines said. “And so I had reached that point and I was competing for a national title, which would of course mean the fastest female in the country. And I was right on pace to achieve that until the NCAA allowed a six foot four male who competed three years on the men’s team at the University of Pennsylvania to compete with the women and their words were it’s nonnegotiable.”
Gaines added that even though there was a tie, officials told her there was only one trophy and Lia Thomas was going to have the trophy when photos were taken.
“When they reduce everything we had worked our entire lives for down to a photo op. I knew I was done waiting for someone else to stick up for us,” she said.
As a result, many states have passed bans on biological males competing in girl’s and women’s sports.
Just three years ago, according to Gaines, Idaho was the only state to have passed that law. Now, 23 states are protecting women’s sports.”North Carolina especially is huge because now nine out of 15 of the ACC schools are protected and North Carolina was never given. It’s a blue state,” Gaines said. “But that’s what we’re seeing more of, this is something that is getting bipartisan support. I think if you were to watch the media and just see how politicians vote, you would think this is a really divisive issue. But it’s special because it’s really a unifying issue. The overwhelming majority of Americans can acknowledge how this insanity as it pertains to sports has gone too far.”
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