By now, my story is pretty well-known. I (Riley Gaines) swam against Lia Thomas (who had previously competed on Penn’s men’s team before switching to the women’s team) in the spring of 2022, and we tied for fifth place. Officials told me Thomas needed to hold the trophy for “photo purposes” and that they would mail me mine. What a degrading way to finish my swimming career.
Thomas made headlines early this year after suing World Aquatics (and losing) in hopes to compete as a woman in the 2024 Paris Olympics. World Aquatics, understanding that testosterone suppression doesn’t eliminate male athletic advantage, prohibits individuals who have gone through male puberty from competing in women’s events.
If Thomas would have been allowed to compete as a woman, it’s very possible that the women’s Olympics might have had a different outcome. Thomas had the fastest time in the nation in the women’s 500 freestyle in 2022. And, as we’ve seen in various sports across the nation and the world, over 500 medals, honors, and trophies meant for women have gone to males who identify as such. This is demeaning and discouraging at best.
That’s exactly what Title IX protects against. Under the Title IX Congress passed 52 years ago, women were promised equal opportunities, including in athletics, in an educational program (like high school and college) that accepts federal money, even indirectly.
But radical and illegal interpretations of Title IX say it doesn’t protect women, but rather subordinates women to males who identify as women. The Biden-Harris administration released a controversial revision in April (in effect as of August 1), unilaterally rewriting the landmark sex equality law. This is a dangerous game to play. Several states have challenged the law and preserved single-sex sports in their states. Arizona is not one of them, thanks to Democrats in charge deciding to support the Biden-Harris regime.
Not only did Arizona leaders fail to sue, but Congress had a chance to undo the Biden-Harris Title IX revisions. A Congressional Review Act (CRA) joint resolution was introduced and voted on by the House to overturn this rewrite, but the Senate failed to act.
U.S. Congressman Ruben Gallego (AZ-3), now running for a hotly-contested Senate seat in Arizona, was one of 205 Democratic members of Congress who voted not to protect women’s sports, signaling his disdain for the integrity of women’s spaces.
As both of us have said before, the allowance of men in women’s sports is discrimination at the highest level. I (Sami) played women’s disc golf professionally since 2012 and recently stepped down so that I could join the fight for women’s rights.
This is truly one of the top civil rights issues of our time, and so much is at stake.
It’s not just sports that are affected, either. Across the country, we’ve seen males dominate women’s prisons, sororities, locker rooms, and other intimate spaces. This is nothing less than the attempted erasure of women.
This year, the Arizona legislature passed the “Arizona Women’s Bill of Rights” to codify common sense definitions of sex-based terms, such as “woman,” “man,” “female,” and “male.” Sadly, it was vetoed by Governor Katie Hobbs.
Time and time again, elected officials on the federal and state levels have signaled that they do not stand with women. And we’ve had enough.
That’s why I created the Riley Gaines Stand With Women Scorecardwith Independent Women’s Voice. This first-of-its-kind resource scores every candidate for federal office on whether they stand with women and promise “to uphold legislation that preserves female opportunities and private spaces.”
Senate Candidate Kari Lake, for instance, signed the Stand With Women Commitment, making her the only Arizona Senate candidate to be Riley Gaines-Approved.
As former athletes, we desperately hope the next generation of girls have the same opportunities we had to compete and win, with privacy and safety in mind. The integrity of women’s spaces hangs in the balance. Do your leaders stand with women? Visit the scorecard to find out.
Riley Gaines is an ambassador with Independent Women’s Voice and a former 12x All-American swimmer at the University of Kentucky. She is the host of “Gaines for Girls” on OutKick and author of Swimming Against the Current: Fighting for Common Sense in a World That’s Lost its Mind. Sami Keddington is the Chandler, Arizona, Chapter leader of Independent Women’s Network and a former professional disc golfer.
Governor Katie Hobbs has a rare opportunity to do something with the overwhelming support of her citizens, and that would make her a groundbreaker. She could become the first female governor to sign the Women’s Bill of Rights.
This shouldn’t take courage. This legislation, which was just passed by the Arizona state house, defines words like “woman” and “female” so when it comes to laws that use these words, we can all speak a common language. The bill also declares the state’s important interest in preserving female-only spaces and opportunities when privacy, safety, or fairness are implicated. Importantly, this law doesn’t prevent policymakers or local leaders from deciding to allow trans-identifying individuals from being included in any arena, but it gives us a language so that there is truth in advertising, and we have the ability to reserve some spaces and opportunities just for women.
We both know personally why this is so important.
I, Paula Scanlan, was a teammate of Lia Thomas at the University of Pennsylvania. Governor Hobbs, you’ve undoubtedly heard about how Lia Thomas – formerly Will Thomas when he competed on the men’s team – took competition spots, won titles, and smashed female records from female swimmers like me. But perhaps you haven’t heard about what it was like to have to share a locker room with him. As a sexual assault survivor, I was forced to change next time him, and have him undress just a few feet away from me, often several times a day. When I tried to tell administrators that I was uncomfortable sharing such private spaces with fully intact men, they told me I should get counseling, that I shouldn’t complain, and that they didn’t care about how this felt to me or the other women on my team.
I, Christy Narsi, serve as a chapter leader for Independent Women’s Network in Phoenix, and I hear daily from moms who are concerned about the message that we are sending our daughters today. We hear of mothers who are concerned about their daughters’ safety when they are forced to face bigger, stronger male-bodied athletes on the athletic fields. My colleague, Payton McNabb, had to face a male volleyball player on the court when she was a junior in high school. He spiked the ball in her face so hard that she had a serious concussion and brain injury. More than two years later, she still has partial paralysis. Why are women and girls’ safety concerns being brushed aside? Why is it that women and girls are being told that they need to step aside, that their dreams and aspirations don’t matter and have to be sacrificed for male-bodied athletes who want to join the women’s teams?
Governor Hobbs, as I’m sure you know, this is about more than just sport. Women’s rights—and the very concept of womanhood—are under assault as never before in history. Inmates in women’s prisons are being put at risk when they allow male prisoners—including violent sex offenders—into women’s prisons around the country. Men are entering female sororities, domestic violence shelters, and educational training programs that were created specifically to encourage women’s engagement.
Overwhelmingly Americans recognize that it isn’t fair to force women to compete against biological men. To back up this common sense is hard scientific data, like that outlined in the Competition Report, which shows that a human being who goes through male puberty, when testosterone levels rise by about 20 times, enjoys an irreversible advantage in strength and athletic power. Taking testosterone suppressors later in life doesn’t change that reality. Data shows that men have physical advantages—not just in terms of strength and speed but in lung capacity and how their hearts process blood—that are hard-wired in their bodies. This is why there are women’s leagues and competitions in the first place, and why it is simply dangerous and inhumane to have female inmates forced to share their spaces with men.
We are so grateful that Arizona’s state legislature decided to do something about it by passing this truth-in-advertising legislation. We hope that you will sign this bill into law and stand up for women’s rights in Arizona—and be a model for others across the nation.
Paula Scanlan is an ambassador with Independent Women’s Voice and a former swimmer at the University of Pennsylvania. Christy Narsi is the co-leader of the Independent Women’s Network Arizona Chapter, and is based in Surprise, AZ.
On Wednesday, Riley Gaines urged Congress to pass Rep. Debbie Lesko’s (R-AZ-08) bill defining a woman.
Gaines is the former University of Kentucky swimmer forced to compete against a biological male who identifies as a transgender woman: Lia, formerly Will, Thomas. Gaines and other swimmers were also made to share private spaces with Thomas, such as locker rooms.
Gaines, who joined Lesko in a press conference on Wednesday, asserted defining the term “woman” was necessary to ensure equal protections under the law.
“Elected bureaucrats and judges and officials and administrators have altered the legal meaning of these sex-based terms to interpret it as they want, and to reflect identity rather than biology, and to require that men and women be treated not just equal but the same,” said Gaines. “The public knows what a woman is, and it’s time that our laws did, too.”
Lesko’s bill defines sex as the biological sex, either male or female, at birth. It also defines women and girls in reference to human females, and man and boy in reference to human males. Likewise, mother is defined as a “parent of the female sex,” and father is defined as a “parent of the male sex.”
“[T]here are important reasons to distinguish between the sexes with respect to athletics, prisons, domestic violence shelters, restrooms, and other areas, particularly where biology, safety, and privacy are implicated,” states the resolution.
Gaines lamented that modern political discourse has come to reckon anyone as “brave” for speaking the truth of biological reality out loud.
“In my mind, I can’t fathom how it is brave to say that men and women are different. I can’t fathom that requires courage. When I think of courage, I think of people on the front lines,” said Gaines.
Lesko noted that in one of her local school districts, two of the board members have fought to prevent boys from gaining access to girls’ bathrooms. However, the board members of the unnamed district were in the minority. Lesko noted that there have been violent assaults and rapes of girls and women in bathrooms by males pretending to be female.
“The left has declared a war on women,” said Lesko. “It is now more important than ever to affirm the biological differences between men and women to protect women’s hard-fought rights and ensure women have spaces reserved for them in society.”
Gaines also stressed that women’s feelings, privacy, safety, and self-esteem were sacrificed to spare the feelings of men suffering from gender dysphoria.
“What mattered to the left was protecting the feelings of a male at the expense of our own,” stated Gaines. “It’s 2023, we have the right to vote as women, we can own property. But we have to plead and beg for privacy in our locker rooms so we’re not violated. And when you do plead and beg, you’re called a ‘bigot,’ you’re called ‘transphobic’ for wanting safety.”
Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ-05) has also cosponsored the bill.
The 25 other cosponsors of the bill, titled the Women’s Bill of Rights, are Reps. Diana Harshbarger (R-TN-01), Mary Miller (R-IL-15), Kevin Hern (R-OK-01), Claudia Tenney (R-NY-24), Robert Aderholt (R-AL-04), Andrew Clyde (R-GA-09), Randy Weber (R-TX-14), Michael Guest (R-MS-03), George Santos (R-NY-03), Andrew Ogles (R-TN-05), Virginia Foxx (R-NC-05), Ralph Norman (R-SC-05), Burgess Owens (R-UT-04), Ronny Jackson (R-TX-13), Harriet Hageman (R-WY), Jeff Duncan (R-SC-03), Jake Ellzey (R-TX-06), Jim Banks (R-IN-03), Buddy Carter (R-GA-01), Greg Steube (R-FL-17), Ben Cline (R-VA-06), Doug LaMalfa (R-CA-01), Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL-13), Michael Burgess (R-TX-26), and Brian Babin (R-TX-36). The bill hasn’t gone further than its introduction in February.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
In a joint letter last week to the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), University of Arizona (UArizona) current and alumnae swimmers and coaches criticized the decision to allow transgender University of Pennsylvania (Penn) swimmer Lia (née William) Thomas to compete in the Division 1 national championships. The UArizona group asserted that the NCAA “failed everyone” by trying to “appease everyone,” insisting that Thomas worked against the equality of women in sports enshrined by Title IX.
“We are celebrating the 50th anniversary of Title IX this year. From the birth of the NCAA in 1906 until 1972, women had to fight to earn the law that provided equal opportunities for women in sports. It took a male to female transgender person one year to take the women’s swimming national championship title,” wrote the group. “This is not equality. Women’s standings, titles, records, and scholarships are suddenly at risk again. Opening the door to allowing natural born men to acquire precious, life altering financial aid packages often split up between multiple women per team defeats the very essence of the flagship legislation we are ironically celebrating this very year.”
The swimmers and coaches also noted that the UArizona Athletics Director, Associate AD for Diversity, and Senior Women’s Advocate remained silent on the issue of transgender women — men — in women’s sports.
Thomas won the 500 freestyle race, but lost in the 200 and 100 freestyle races; however, Thomas reportedly has lost races intentionally in the recent past. Teammates who reported his intentional losses claimed that he was trying to prove that males don’t have biological advantages to females, observing that it was clear Thomas wasn’t trying. They speculated that Thomas colluded with a transgender male swimmer from Yale University, Iszac Henig, so Henig would beat Thomas and make it appear as though women could outperform men.
“Looking at [Thomas’] time, I don’t think [Thomas] was trying,” the Penn swimmer alleges. “I know [Thomas and Henig are] friends and I know they were talking before the meet. I think [Thomas] let her win to prove the point that, ‘Oh see, a female-to-male beat me.’”
The UArizona swimmers credited their decision to submit their letter based on a letter submitted by University of Texas (UT) alumnae and coaches a week prior. Among those on the UT letter were Olympians and UT Hall of Honor inductees, as well as pro golfer and UT Hall of Honor inductee Cindy Figg-Currier.
The letter, first published in Swimming World Magazine, is reproduced in full below:
Dear NCAA Board of Governors,
Do we have a voice?
It’s hard to express the anguish the women’s swim community has experienced this past week watching the 2022 NCAA Swim & Dive Championships. On one hand, we feel we are witnessing irrevocable damage to a sport that has transformed our own identities for the better. On the other, we have reconnected with each other in sisterhood after many busy years living our lives beyond the water’s edge. We are grateful for the many women who have stood up to publicly speak up in protest of your policies including UT’s swim alumni who penned a thoughtful letter to their Athletic Director and inspired us to write from the University of Arizona alumni perspective. We have collected some of our own thoughts on paper to plead to swimming leadership at every level to take immediate action to protect our women athletes.
In 2008, USA Swimming chief Chuck Wielgus was asked to comment on a “culture of fair play” regarding a female swimmer who had tested positive for a banned anabolic agent called Clenbuterol. He claimed at the time “within the culture of swimming, if you’re doing something you shouldn’t be doing, we want to catch you and throw you out of the sport. In other sports, it’s about excuses and justifications and being innocent until you’re proven guilty.” According to the USADA website, Clenbuterol is prohibited in sport because it “promotes muscle growth through anabolic properties.” The Mayo Clinic reports “the main anabolic steroid hormone produced by the body is testosterone” and that it “has anabolic effects promoting muscle building.” In a little over a decade, USA Swimming, the leading organization of swimming in the world has surrendered its firm stance on fair play. This has encouraged other organizations such as the NCAA to make accommodations for biological men who have had the benefits of testosterone throughout natural development and beyond.
According to Duke’s Center for Sports Law and Policy, “there is an average 10-12% performance gap between elite males and elite females” in sport. What advantage does testosterone have for natural born men in swimming specifically? This year in the 500 freestyle the men’s A standard qualifying time is 4:11.62. The women’s A standard qualifying time was 4:35.76. That is a difference of 24.14 seconds. To put that into perspective, the male swimmer in the last seed going into the meet would be two full laps ahead of his female counterpart in this event. This one example alone demonstrates the advantages a biologically male swimmer has over a female. Physiological advantages exist.
Looking back on another moment in swim history, in 2010 FINA banned the use of high tech performance swim suits as the “shiny suit era” saw “records falling at an alarming rate” due to a competitive advantage given to swimmers who had the suits available to them. This year at the fastest short course swim meet in the world, the body inside the suit is what raises cause for concern.
The decisions of the NCAA this year hoped to appease everyone by allowing Lia Thomas to compete directly with women. Instead, the NCAA has successfully failed everyone. A target was placed on the back of a trans athlete subjecting this person to devastating national outcry and humiliation. This swimmer’s lone points for Penn this March catapulted a team to a top-20 program in the country after failing to score a single point last year. Additionally, women athletes competing in the meet were forced to swim in unfair direct competition therefore eliminating all integrity of the entire championship meet.
We are celebrating the 50th anniversary of Title IX this year. From the birth of the NCAA in 1906 until 1972, women had to fight to earn the law that provided equal opportunities for women in sports. It took a male to female transgender person one year to take the women’s swimming national championship title. This is not equality. Women’s standings, titles, records, and scholarships are suddenly at risk again. Opening the door to allowing natural born men to acquire precious, life altering financial aid packages often split up between multiple women per team defeats the very essence of the flagship legislation we are ironically celebrating this very year.
Female to male transgender athletes do not have the same opportunities as their male to female counterparts. They are heavily disadvantaged when it comes to earning a spot on the team they identify due to strength and speed differences between gender categories. This was represented this year in the 100 freestyle by Yale’s Iszac Henig, a transgender male competing at the women’s championship. This swimmer placed fifth in the event. Henig’s time of 47.52 earned the swimmer an All-American award and added 13.5 points to Yale’s team score. Had Henig chosen to swim at the men’s competition however, the same time would have failed to even reach the men’s A qualifying time of 41.71 by almost six seconds dashing the whisper of a chance this swimmer would even step up to the block.
There were many options the NCAA could have implemented to create a fair environment for women competitors. A trans athlete could compete in the meet that aligns with birth gender such as Henig did. At the championship level, there are 10 lanes available in the pool while only 8 swimmers compete per heat. Therefore, a trans athlete could have been added to any finals heat in addition to the 16 women who qualified without pushing any of the deserving women out of the finals such as VT’s Reka Gyorgy , who personally spoke out about the inequality she was subjected to being shut out of the finals. Trans specific heats with separate awards categories and scoring was another alternative. The NCAA could have implemented the more stringent USA Swimming guidelines at the very least. Moving forward, trans swim meets could be organized and built into a new category of athletic competition similar to the Paralympic or Special Olympic platforms to continue to widen the umbrella of inclusion in athletics.
We are writing this letter to the NCAA who has a President at the helm responsible for cutting both the University of Washington’s swimming programs in 2009. Mr. Emmert stood firmly by his decisions as “the right ones for us.” The NCAA Board of Governors is predominantly men. Of the 65 Athletic Directors in the Power 5, only 5 are women. At the University of Arizona, our Athletics Director, Associate AD for Diversity, and Senior Women’s Advocate have remained silent on this issue unfolding over the course of this entire season. These revelations and disparities alarm us when it seems there was no urgency in skillfully and educationally addressing how the scientific and biologic differences may impact women’s competitions. Do we have a voice? The people responsible for protecting women’s swimming should swiftly rectify the guidelines. The women from the University of Arizona will not quietly stand down while our victories and accomplishments float away.
We are eager and willing to discuss directly with the NCAA potential steps it can implement to create new solutions for the expanding athletic family. Please contact us with your next steps towards a fairer future.
