Few public figures have been as vocal in their support for banning biological males from girls’ and women’s sports teams as former NCAA swimmer Riley Gaines.
Her activism stemmed from her own experience competing against Lia Thomas, who was born male but identified as a female and was allowed to dominate the college women’s swimming circuit.
Transgender swimmer Lia Thomas is taking legal action in a bid to compete again in elite female sport.
Political commentator Peter Barnes: "It's absolutely outrageous."
📺 That Was The Woke That Was – tonight at 10pm.@andrejpwalker @SuzanneEvans1 @Barnesy19 @LoisPerry26 pic.twitter.com/F4DLcKuB4Q
— TalkTV (@TalkTV) February 17, 2024
Although Gaines has attracted widespread support for her efforts to protect women’s athletics, she has also faced sharp criticism from leftist activists who believe boys and men should be allowed to compete against girls and women despite their inherent physical advantages.
One example of such backlash resulted in Gaines being confronted by a mob of protesters at San Francisco State University in what she has since described as a physical attack.
While the incident was initially said to be under investigation by the university police department, the case has since been dropped — and Gaines used her platform to rail against the “abysmal” decision.
“The police have finally informed me the case has been suspended as all charges are ‘alleged’ & ‘unfounded,” she wrote on social media, adding: “I guess audio, video & eyewitness evidence aren’t admissible in SF.”
Gaines expressed her indignation in greater detail during a segment of “Fox & Friends” on Friday.
“There’s audio evidence, there’s video evidence, there are eyewitnesses who were there at the time,” she declared. “Heck, the officer who sent me the email saying that the charges were unfounded was being held for ransom in the room with me.”
Declaring that the agency’s decision to drop its investigation “sets a terrible precedent for every single American” and essentially encourages more violence against women in the future.
“This would have been handled entirely differently had this been the other way around, had this been flipped, had a bunch of conservative students, Christian conservative students been protesting a liberal speaker on campus,” Gaines asserted in a previous statement. “But that’s not happening.”
Such protests against leftist speakers is not a common occurrence, though, she said, adding: “This violence is only going one way and I testified before Congress a few months back about the rise in violence among left-leaning protesters.”
