American swimmer Riley Gaines has broken down in tears re-living the trauma of a dressing room incident with high-profile transgender swimmer Lia Thomas.
Gaines has emerged as one of the loudest voices in the ongoing debate surrounding transgender athletic participation after Thomas last year became the first transgender athlete to win a top-tier university title in America.
Thomas was then nominated by the University of Pennsylvania for the NCAA’s 2022 “Woman of the Year” award.
She had previously been on the men’s team for three years before switching to the women’s squad last year.
Gaines, a recent graduate from the University of Kentucky, said it was unfair that she had to compete against Thomas.
Her public campaign against Thomas and other transgender athletes competing against female athletes has returned to make headlines this week after she broke down in tears when speaking during a discussion in Washington to honour National Girls and Women in Sports Day in the United States.
Speaking as the host of an event sponsored by Republican leader Kevin McCarthy, she opened up about the trauma she has surrounding one instance of undressing in front of Thomas in a dressing room at one swim meet.
The 22-year-old last year described the “extreme discomfort” she felt at being in the same dressing room as Thomas revealed her “different” genitalia.
Gaines, a 12-time NCAA All-American and five-time SEC Champion, has repeatedly campaigned for transgender athletes to be excluded from female locker room facilities and has criticised the National Collegiate Athletic Association for failing to protect the integrity of women’s sports.
In March, Gaines tied with Thomas for fifth place in the 200m freestyle NCAA championships and has loudly criticised Thomas since then.
She was visibly emotional when addressing the issue again this week, claiming female athletes to have made formal complaints to athletic bodies had been ignored and referred to education programs.
She told the panel: “No one has asked us how we felt. We exist to validate a male’s identity”.
The spokeswoman for the Stand With Women organisation went on to say: “No one within the NCAA is willing to acknowledge us, our feelings, our safety, our privacy. I feel like it’s really only happened in the last couple weeks where I get emotional talking about the locker room scene because it is just so wild that you can turn around and see a 6’4’’ biological man pull his pants down watching you undress. And no one is willing to stick up for you?”
The issue has returned to make international headlines recently after a controversial piece of legislation successfully passed through a House of Delegates subcommittee. The proposed legislation would ban transgender girls and women from competing on female sports teams at K-12 schools and universities.
Gaines has further fuelled the divisive debate while penning an opinion column for Fox News this week.
She wrote women in college athletic competition are “blackmailed into thinking that they are wrong for being uncomfortable undressing in front of a naked man.
“We should not have to add the term ‘biological’ in front of the word women to address differences in performance and our separate categories.
“Let’s use this National Girls and Women in Sports day to celebrate the achievements and hard work on the basis of sex, not gender identity.
“Women deserve to be recognised without facing overt discrimination. We deserve equal opportunity. We deserve fair competition. We shouldn’t be denied the right to consent to being exposed to male nudity in the places where we undress.”
Her comments this week have resulted in her comments from last year spreading across social media.
She said while giving testimony in front of the Virginia General Assembly last year: “The NCAA forced female swimmers to share a locker room with Thomas, a 6’4” 22 year-old male who was fully intact”.
“Let me be clear. We were not forewarned. We were not asked for our consent. And we did not give our consent.”
Those comments have been met with outrage — even in Australia.
Aussie NBA legend Andrew Bogut responded on Twitter, writing: “Absolutely horrendous. Every Athlete should be speaking up on this. Where are all the #girldad hashtag users? Very, very quiet”.
Former AFL star Corey McKernan also wrote: “I have 4 girls… how would you explain to share a locker room? How do you explain when you get beaten? We are meant to promote womens sport and I’d suggest this maybe – just maybe doesn’t help”.
Sky News host Rita Panahi also posted: “And ‘fully intact’ Lia Thomas still dates women. Some of the women in the locker room saw his penis. If they complained they were told they were the problem.
“Pure courage from @Riley_Gaines_ describing having a 6ft 4 naked dude watch her undress in the locker rooms… shame on the universities for sending traumatised women for “re-education” at LGBTQ centres.”
Gaines also recently featured in a protest outside the NCAA convention, denouncing the inclusion of transgender athletes in women’s sports.
Global swimming governing body FINA last year became the first major sporting federation to announced a policy that will only allow athletes who’ve transitioned before the age of 12 to compete at the elite level.
