This month will mark the three-year birthday of the infamous Riley Gaines tie with Lia Thomas at the NCAA 2022 women’s swimming championships.
At the time, Thomas, previously known as Will Thomas, was praised by the Liberals as the next “Civil Rights icon” in sport, making interviews with ESPN, NBC News and “Good Morning America”.
Gaines was a budding dentist who had to wait to hoist his own trophy until Thomas finished with photo sessions.
In 2025, things are different.
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After a failed offer to qualify for the Paris Olympic Games, Thomas is the subject of multiple proceedings against NCAA, the Ivy League and the University of Pennsylvania, led by sheaths and other swimmers who had to share areas with Thomas. Penn is also the subject of an investigation by the Ministry of Education for the potential violations of the title IX.
Gaines is now praised as an icon of sporting civil rights by conservatives with a bill appointed according to its progress through the Legislative Assembly in Georgia, the site of its equality in 2022 with Thomas.
Other states have taken their own steps to prevent the inclusion of transgender in female sports, and President Donald Trump signed an executive decree to prohibit it at the national level. The data show that the majority of Americans have opposed transgender inclusion in female and girls sports and that the problem even influenced voters in the 2024 elections.
“I think we should send a note of thanks to people like Will Thomas, I really do, signed and sealed by me. I will sign the thank you note, I will write it, because I think he has given us the election,” Gaines to PK Press Club Digital.
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“There was a lot of bad things with Joe Biden, his administration and the Democratic Party as a whole outside of sporting stuff … But it was the perfect visual. It’s like the South Park episode.
A National exit survey Directed by the Legislative Action Committee for women concerned for women for America revealed that 70% of moderate voters saw the question of “Donald Trump’s opposition to boys and transgender men playing sports of girls and women and transgender boys and men using bathrooms for girls and women” as important to them. In addition, 6% said it was everyone’s most important problem, while 44% said it was “very important”.
And Trump has outperformed the survey among women, especially young women.
Riley Gaines, former swimmer of the All-American University of Kentucky, speaks before the governor of Florida Ron Desantis, presidential candidate, at the Greenville Convention Center on June 2, 2023. (McKenzie Lange / Staff / USA Today Network)
As much as Gains wants to thank Thomas for drawing attention to the problem, she also feels sympathy for the athlete and even tried to express this sympathy to Thomas.
“I stretched my hand several times, especially at the beginning. Honestly, I hate saying it, but I stretched out my hand, as the feeling that I had to explain myself and almost excuse myself for feeling the way I did it because we were so conditioned to believe that it was injuring, it was exclusive, it was not the nice thing to take the position I had,” said Gaines.
The former teammates of Lia Thomas Sue Upenn, Ivy League on the push of pro-Trans ideology
“So, at the start, I reached out, hoping to have a conversation to explain myself more and to express my apologies for feeling the way I did it. And, as I said, it hurts that.”
Thomas did not respond to the request for comments from PK Press Club Digital.
If sheaths and Thomas have reconnected today, the sheaths could be less excused. But even then, she still hoped to offer Thomas a little suspended.
“I would still be, of course, welcome a conversation, but it would not be in a way that apologizes for having felt the way I do it. It would be in a way that I could, of course, always constructive and encourage Thomas to come on the side of common sense,” she added. “But there will be no tremor in my voice. I do not apologize for anything.”
Since the ascent of Thomas in 2022, other transgender athletes have attracted a similar national controversy and political involvement, in particular the former volleyball player of the State University of San Jose, Balaire Fleming and the athletics runner openly transgender Sadie Schreiner.
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And while Gaines is opposed to that these athletes are authorized to participate in sports with organic women, it considers them as victims of a movement to allow transgender athletes of female sports.
“I also consider them as victims. I really do it. They were victims of the movement. Unfortunately, they fell into the lie that they were created unique and intentionally in the perfect image of God. And it is a horrible message to send to anyone,” said Gaines.
Fleming was put under national spotlights in the fall after several opponents were lost when prosecution was deposited alleging that the school has retained the birth of Fleming of teammates.
The situation prompted Trump to comment Fleming during the campaign in October during a PK Press Club town hall event.
The SJSU Trans Blaire Fleming player and his teammate Brooke Slusser went to a magic show and were Thanksgiving Together in Las Vegas despite a current trial on Fleming being transgender. (Thien-An Truong / San Jose State Athletics)
Like Upenn with Thomas, SJSU is also under investigation by the Ministry of Education for its management of Fleming.
Unlike Thomas, the identity of Fleming gender was an alleged hidden secret because the volleyball player has no known history of competition in male or boys. Thomas competed in the male team of Upenn two years before going to the woman.
Schreiner became one of the first known victims of Trump’s recent decree. After the NCAA changed its eligibility policy between the sexes to prevent organic men from participating in the competition of women to comply with Trump’s order, the Schreiner school, the Rochester Institute of Technology, PK Press Club Digital told that the athlete would not participate in future competitions.
Then Schreiner defeated a handful of adolescent opponents at the US Athletics Masters Championships last weekend.
“I have my own thoughts on the behavior of these men,” said Gaines. “I certainly believe that there is a level of narcissism. I believe that there is a level of rights and total contempt for all the others around these people. But, in the end, I believe they are also victims, which is the sad reality of the movement of sexist ideology.
“The movement of ideology between the sexes is destructive for everyone, with the exception of people who take advantage of it. … It is the greatest medical scandal that this world has ever seen.”
