Twelve-Time All-American Swimmer Riley Gaines Goes to War for Women in New JDFI Interview

[Music] the whole American experiment is up for grabs we're going to hopefully encourage Christians to get involved in election 2024 and do now what we can't do on November 6th hello I'm Alison Cante welcome to another edition of countdown to decision 2024 with the James Dobson Family Institute I'm so excited to be joined today by Riley Gaines 12-time All-American swimmer Southeastern Conference female swimmer of the year and an amazing leader and advocate for women's Sports women's privacy and the Integrity of having a Level Playing Field for women now and far into the future she is really looking out for all of our children and grandchildren thank you so much for joining me Riley of course thank you uh it's an honor to be on with you guys uh the platform that you have and the impact that you're having uh is remarkable so I'm thrilled to be on with you well you know in a house like mine where I'm raising three little girls your name is a household name we talk about often what it's like to be a boy and to be a girl and the differences and beauty of both that were equal but different but to those who may not know your story I'd love for you to take our viewers back to the beginning the start of your career and what really launched you into the platform you're in now so please share with us what got you into swimming your background and then what you faced in the past couple of years absolutely um so I come from a family of athletes and so my dad he was an NFL player my mom she played uh Division One softball my older sister played softball at Old Miss my brother he's in college playing football now my youngest sister uh she's only 15 but she's an elite level gymnast and we go on to do incredible things um all that to say I come from a family of Athletics of sports of playing sports of competing of winning to be honest with you uh and so playing a sports uh playing a sport wasn't really an option for me or my siblings um I started swimming when I was about four um graduated when I was 22 so I mean I really dedicated 18 years of my life to my sport which uh parents listening to this grandparents listening listening to this maybe former athletes yourself uh you know what this is like right you know the time you know the hours you know the dedication the sacrifices that you have to make to compete at but ultimately be successful at the highest level I was no different right you don't get to go to prom uh you don't get to have sleepovers on Friday night because guess what you have practice at 6:00 a.m. on Saturday morning uh you don't get to go on family vacation no none of that but uh I was willing to do that because again I knew I had to uh I was very fortunate to be pretty heavily recruited uh truth be told I I could have gone anywhere in the country that I wanted to go to uh continue pursuing my athletic dreams uh and continue my uh further my academic career and so I ended up choosing the University of Kentucky uh which there really could not have been a better place for me uh this is ultimately when I uh won my first individual SEC title this is when University of Kentucky when its first ever team title uh in program history and ultimately my junior year I ended up placing seventh in the country which I was proud of right to be top a you're an All-American it's a pretty high honor um but I knew I was capable of more I didn't go my best time and so it was really right that in there that I play seventh in the country my junior year that I set a goal for my senior year to win a National Title which would of course mean becoming the fastest woman in the country and so uh senior year rolls around and I I'm right on Pace to achieve this goal uh about Midway through my senior year I was ranked third in the country uh trailing the girl in second a girl I knew very well um by a few 100s of a second but the person who was leading the nation by Body links might I add was a swimmer that none of us had ever heard of before not me not my coaches not my teammates not my family not my other competitors none of us uh and this is the first time we became aware of a stummer named Leah Thomas there were a lot of red flags at the time um keep in mind we hadn't seen a photo of this person or else things probably would have been a little more clear but for all I knew at the time this was a senior from University of Pennsylvania which is not a school that has ever historically produced that caliber of sober leading the nation Again by Body links and events ranging from the 100 freestyle which is a Sprint all the freestyle events in between through the mile which um I mean if you don't understand swimming uh I mean think about that last piece in terms of your Olympic Runners that's like saying your best 200 meter Runner is your best marathon runner it doesn't happen but that's what we were seeing in this person and so I'm scratching my head uh talking to my coaches who is this we didn't know and we continued to stay in the dark until an article came out disclosing that Leah Thomas was actually will Thomas and swam three years on the men's team at University of Pennsylvania before deciding to switch to the women's team and so I remember when I read this um I was shocked naturally we were all shocked my whole team we were shocked this was never even a possibility um in our minds of how this could be um so while I was shocked though I think more so I was there's this overwhelming sense of relief is how I felt uh because I went to look up who will Thomas was uh and I saw that this was a mediocre man competing in his rightful category ranking in the 500s and 400s nationally the year prior again when competing in the men's category which is why I thought the NCAA would see it how I saw it again how my teammates saw it how anyone with with any amount of of functioning brain capacity would probably see this nothing nothing hateful about it nothing even opinionated about it the mere facts on the paper in front of us that this was not a lateral movement um but lo and behold the NCA did not see it that way they saw absolutely nothing wrong with this and so it was about 3 weeks before our national championships in March of 2022 that they announced that Thomas's participation in the women's category was a non-negotiable meaning there was nothing that we could do about it there were no questions that we could ask no concerns that we could raise uh we were quite literally told we had to accept this with a smile on our face um I saw the tears from girls from their parents their moms and the SS I saw I felt actually the extreme discomfort in the locker room when you turn around there's a 6'4 22-year-old man fully intact fully exposing himself naked um inches away from where you were simultaneously fully undressed um I Heard the Whispers of anger and frustration from those girls who just like myself had worked our entire lives to get to this meet again the the highest level of our sport um that first day I watched as Thomas swam to a national title in the 500 freestyle this is not an event that I do and so I was on the side of the pool he beat out Olympians I mean females women we just saw win Olympic medals in the Olympics he beat them all by Body links um the next day of competition was the 200 free which was the event that he and I raced in and so you know we get on the blocks and we dive off and we swim eight laps of freestyle and and touch the wall at the end um and I look up at the scoreboard and almost impossibly enough uh Thomas and I had gone the exact same time down to the hundredth of a second meaning that we had tied which is pretty rare right when you're Racing for a minute and 40ish seconds and not even one/ 100th of a second separated us which against a man yeah a fullblown 64 male yeah kind of embarrassing on his part he couldn't even beat me um but also looking back it's it's I mean the only way to explain it is divine intervention um and so we get out of the water and we go behind the awards Podium uh where the NCAA official looked at both Thomas and myself and this is what really um thrusted me over the edge personally the official looked at me and actually appre appreciate his honesty um he said to me you know Riley I'm so sorry and he looks sad understand his face change his voice changed I could tell he didn't even believe what he was about to say but he said Riley I'm so sorry uh but we have been advised as an organization that when photos are being taken it's crucial that the trophy is in Leah's hands um that's all I needed to hear that's when I decided that uh I was no longer willing to wait and I say wait because truthfully that's what I was doing I was waiting for someone else to say something I thought you know a coach a parent um an official someone within the NCAA someone with political power someone who was supposed to be protecting us would protect us uh but it was in that moment on that Podium holding the trophy I have to give back sharing my placement with a man um that this realization hit me of Riley how in the world can you you expect someone to stand up for you if you not even willing to stand up for for you this has to come from you yeah as women as female athletes yeah so you're there on the platform you've got a huge man I mean if anyone seen a picture of Will Thomas Leah Thomas tall man he was 400th at his at upen but now he's number one uh in the women's competition and what did that feel like I mean no one did did people boo was everyone shocked I mean this was the beginning of us starting to see things like this yeah I mean to answer pretty frankly how it felt in in kind of looking back now and being able to digest our our emotions and I say are because it really was a general consensus of how we felt I don't speak for every single girl of course not but I do claim to speak for the overwhelming majority of us when I say we felt betrayed uh we felt violated especially in the locker room that was total and utter violation we felt um traumatized truthfully and not even necessarily again speaking to the locker room not even necessarily traumatized because of what we were forced to see or how we were forcibly non-consensually exploited I think it was more traumatizing for me to know that this was an organization that I trusted that I loved um really I I I worked my whole life to be the best that I could be for and in this organization and they threw us under the bus without even a second thought without even I mean bare minimum forewarning us I mean it was the ultimate Act of betrayal they were prioritizing inclusion over safety number one over fairness number two over our dignity our feelings I mean they reduced all of that down to a photo op um that's how I think we felt in that moment um the response um it it was it's interesting because this meet this NCAA championships it's a week long basically a week long meet and so that first day when he won the national title um I remember kind of the vibe on the pull deck was it was it was like I said it was like Whispers and people would would kind of say under their breath like oh my gosh look there is there he is you know he's so tall um but the next day after watching him win a National title that first evening we came back the next day and The Whispers were getting louder um people were being more bold in what they said to one another the people around us coaches were were it it turned less from a whisper and then more so into a quiet conversation but getting louder and by the end of the meet people were pretty vocally saying what we all already knew it wasn't anything profound even now what I say what I've spent two years of my time saying until I'm blw in the face it's it's nothing profound it is what we all already know and that is that men and women and you said it in your intro we're different and we're different not in a way that makes women inferior no we're different in a way that's beautiful in a way that compliments one another and we deserve to be recognized and celebrated and honored based on our own physical ceilings and our own uniqueness well yeah and that's what Title 9 was set up to defend right so when Title 9 passed in 197 people knew what sex and gender meant they knew okay we need to protect women's ability to compete in their own sports against each other because there's no way we would compete against men and win and in fact now we're seeing women getting hurt competing against men we just saw that at the Olympics with the Algerian boxer we're see we have your story you hurt obviously this is your life's work um and now it was being ripped away from you by a cheater a man who wanted to cheat a man who wants to crush the dreams of girls and so I we shouldn't even use the word man that is not a man that is most cowardly thing to do and you know I've been following you and hearing that you're not alone in this you're hearing from girls all over and so I just want to thank you on behalf of James Dobson Family Institute Christians and women and moms everywhere for speaking up I know that wasn't your plan maybe you could talk to that about God's plan maybe taking a turn for you in this you know what did you think you were going to do and now what are you doing to to to end this Insanity I I don't think people realize that we all may be called at some point in our lives to make a decision to either before the truth of the Gospel the truth of the way that God created the world or we have to lie we have to lie to ourselves and lie to other people and so I'd really love for you to share what that felt like for you as a Christian young woman but you were just in college to step into that Act of Faith yeah it's um it's been a whirlwind to say the least I mean you hit the nail on the head this is never something that I sought after this is never something that I wanted even still this isn't something that that I want you have to be clinically insane to want to be fighting this fight to want to take the arrows that I find myself taking daily but nonetheless it is worth it 100 I mean 10 times out of 10 it's worth it but um I was in dental school after college uh to be a dentist actually set to specialize in Endodontics which is root canals weirdly enough um and it took me a while to to Really lean in right I grew up a Christian and so um I mean church every Sunday morning Sunday night Wednesday night I'm very very grateful for that Foundation now especially as I've gotten older into the real world and have a better understanding you know spending more time in scripture and prayer uh with people who are are anchors in my life strong in their faith around me uh I I I understand it more now but it took me a while to really lean in to that uh to be receptive to to you know hearing the knock on the door and then allowing myself to open that door because again not what I wanted um I felt like I needed to to almost justify God's calling in some way especially being an athlete right you you set goals and you work to achieve those goals and I had set this goal of becoming a dentist and when um I I realized that the path could go one of two ways right I could continue on with d school which instinctually felt wrong it felt like I was betraying my younger sister is how it felt you know my future daughter I've been married for two years I can only hope to have a daughter of my my own one day um going down that road instinctually felt like betrayal or I could fight the fight which again uh is is no doubt um filled with ups and downs and everything in between um but in justifying his calling I now say I um am still working on getting to the root of the problem coming out of people's mouths so it's basically like still a root canal oh that I love that yeah and to really quickly address your point because I think it's important people hear the story it's become seemingly well known of Leah Thomas right the the man who was less than Med mediocre competing against The Men Who switches to the women's side to become a record smash that story is well known but that same story um the same um premise because it is the every time it's the same basically where less the mediocre man switches to the women's side to be again Excel it it's happening every level every state every division every sport so the NCAA doesn't stand up for you your University doesn't stand up for you the adults in the room don't stand up for you so what what were the intimidation tactics like I mean what what is the response when you're like hey guys this is wrong th this is not okay it's probably I mean I'm sure a lot of listeners viewers I'm sure they have seen it in their own lives I mean what it is what we faced is effective emotional blackmail I mean we were told you'll be you know you'll lose all your friends you'll lose your scholarship you'll never get a job you're going to now you know Riley you want to be a dentist no grad school will ever accept your application will ever allow you into their school because you'll be a transphobe and you don't want that do you no I suggest you be kind and I suggest you be inclusive they they even went as far to I mean I had to go to sensitivity training and and um you know these education sessions to learn about how um my cisgender status was oppressing people who um weren't cisgender as if that's even a real term um lgbtq education meetings and and we were told that we were the problem if we weren't okay seeing male genitalia they even went as far to tell us that we would be equivalent to murderers if we spoke out because we would have blood on our hands we would have blood on our hands someone could inflict some sort of self harm and it would be our fault and then they would follow up and say well and you don't want that do you you know you don't want to be a murderer no I suggest you be kind and I suggest you be inclusive but believe it or not it works it works when you're talking to a bunch of 18 19 20-year-old girls telling them they're going to be murders who would want that of course not yeah merely for advocating for fair play and privacy and areas of undressing yeah and it seems like we have this you know societal epidemic now of young people who have decided I was born in the wrong body and I'm going to do everything I can to change that so for our viewers who aren't aware you know this is something that our generation and younger is facing in droves we have boys saying that they want to be girls and medically castrating themselves we have girls saying they want to be boys and removing perfectly healthy breasts to change who they are to fit some idea that they have in the middle of sometimes gender dysphoria or confusion or abuse and instead of actually meeting people where they are and honoring who God made them to be and helping them walk through puberty to the other side because studies show they'll be okay and they will realign and be okay with their gender the adults in the room the medical entities the universities corporations are all saying no we will absolutely help you medically mutilate yourself and so this idea of diversity Equity inclusion Riley lean into that explain to our viewers how that's impacting the grown-ups in the room who should be looking out for the innocence of minors and are instead looking at profit and this Progressive Narrative of course I think it's important how you mentioned profit how you mention mention uh the dollar signs because that's what this is that's what um the medical field sees this as again that's what Corporate America we see ESG scores we see companies even like you know your All-American companies like John Deere and Tractor Supply and even Harley-Davidson who you would never ever in a million years think would lean into the Dei initiatives and and funding the Trevor Project and different things well they are and it's because they receive federal funding if they do that that's what drives believe other I mean from a worldly perspective um above anything I think what we're seeing is spiritual but from a worldly perspective the the derailing really of society of virtue of morality of humanity I mean it is it's the sheer essence of humanity man and woman hate to break it to every single person on this planet every single person listening to this every single person on this planet you're all here from man and woman and we're being asked to deny that that's as if we're being asked to deny that the sky is blue actually better yet not even being told to to lie and say that the this or to deny that the sky is blue but being asked to lie about it and say that it's purple or else yeah um which breaks my heart you mentioned these these kids who are being chemically and surgically castrated um and in a lot of cases these kids are victims too uh which is why I think it's important as Christians as everyday people but especially as Christians we handle this topic with um Grace of course with compassion we don't let them contort the word compassion how they want to contort it um I heard in my my sermon uh just maybe two Sundays ago and it really struck me um my pastor said you lead with Grace and you land with the truth and I started thinking of accounts in the Bible where we could see this right how does how does um this kind of relate to a Christlike life and I thought of First John where uh there's the adulterous woman it it was punishable by death and so um she's brought before the soldiers uh Jesus shows up and he says you know those without sin cast the first stone to which you know that's his perfect display of Grace uh no one is able to do so but then at the end of this conversation at the end of every encounter in the Bible with um prostitutes and collectors and sinners every account Jesus says now go and sin no more and that is him Landing with the truth again something I think all of us including myself um can learn from and live by you know I think you said something really profound there is and you've done a great job at this Riley to show compassion to show love to the enemy right as as Christians you've never I've never heard you speak poorly of Leah William Thomas I've never heard you speak poorly of anyone struggling with your sexuality and that's what we should do as Christians we should love them enough to say hey I love you I want the best for you I want God's best for you and that's going to be becoming and growing into who he made you to be get out of my pool though because I can't beat you in a race that's fair there there is a fairness issue so with the sense of urgency to create a Level Playing Field for women once again and the love and compassion of like hey I don't want to lie I've actually been commanded not to lie I can't lie to you I can't lie to me and others about biological re ity how should we view this particular season as Christians we've got just a couple weeks couple months leading into the election and a lot is on the line not just the candidates of course but who they will appoint and we've got right now a Supreme Court Justice katoni Jackson Brown who said I don't know what a woman is I'm not a biologist and she was appointed by Joe Biden we've got people at city courts district courts and legislators who are so afraid to touch this issue I know you've been working on your own pieces of legislation talk about that and share with our viewers how we should view this election season as a way to write the wrong that you faced yeah absolutely yeah we have seen remarkable impact and momentum these past two years uh now 25 states have enacted some sort of fairness and women sports Bill uh eight states hopefully nine soon have defined the word and cified the word woman in law whereas you said we have a sitting Supreme Court Justice who can't even do so which is the silliest thing ever in her rationale being well I'm not a biologist guess what I'm not a veterinarian but I know what a dog is that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard in my whole entire life um all of that to say uh we have seen some radical and again severe harmful attacks from the people who are in the white house right now um abolishing sex-based protections basically saying I mean the message that I've received loud and clear is that we're not worthy we're not worthy as as women as female athletes your daughters they're not worthy of safety privacy protection equal opportunities maintaining their dignity they're not worthy of that no they exist to validate the feelings and the identity of a man um you hear it every single election season uh where where people say you know this is this is the most important election of our lifetime and granted I'm only a young 24 years old but um and and I haven't been overly tuned into politics for for much of my life as most 24 year olds are um but what I will say in understanding history um we are at a precipice as a country uh there are two options here one is America first one the other option is America last one is um wanting secure borders one wants close or open borders uh one ticket knows what a woman is and the other ticket believes that men can become pregnant I mean that is it sounds insane but that that's reality that's the platforms that's the policies that that both of these tickets uh have promised or have already actively put into place therefore it is it is imperative imperative that we as Everyday People maybe people who who have considered themselves previously apolitical who haven't voted before who maybe people who hate Trump people who um regardless of of any identity Factor really it is imperative that you get out and vote I'm not even going to tell you who to vote for um I believe as a Christian that the option is is very clear forget conservative values for for Christian values uh the option is is very clear no one is perfect no ticket will ever be perfect no ticket has ever historically been perfect but there is one option that will fight to represent as a Christian I believe um our values which matters to me which is why I will be voting in November and again why I believe every Christian a group a demographic that historically does not get out and vote in the numbers uh that we should uh every single person every single Christian should get out and vote yeah that's powerful well thank you so much Riley I know everyone listening who either is a woman knows a woman is a mom a grandfather a parent this is an issue we all have to take seriously because I think think truly like you said we're on a precipice and over the next four years there could be a lot of changes where our girls can never compete and win again and that is not the America that we want to see we want strong amazing women like yourself uh leading in their areas of Interest following God's call in their life giving their talents over to him and we're so grateful that you've used your talent and your time for him and the way he created the world so we're with you in that thank you on behalf of Dr Dobson and J doson Family Institute and we will continue guys on these episodes sharing with you the truth of what's going on in the news and how you should be thinking about it as a Christian thank you Riley and thank you all for joining us we'll see you on the next edition of countdown to decision 2024 [Music]