This month will mark the three -year anniversary of Riley Gaines’ infamous tie with Lia Thomas on the female swimming of NCAA 2022.
At that time Thomas, previously known as Will Thomas, was Greeted the liberals As the next “civil rights icon” in sports, performing interviews for sitting with ESPN, NBC News and “Good Morning America”.
Gaines was an inspired dentist who had to wait to raise his own trophy until Thomas ended up with a photo -ops.
2025. Things are different.
After an unsuccessful offer to qualify for the Paris Olympics, Thomas is the subject of multiple lawsuits against NCAA, Ivy League and the University of Pennsylvania, led by Gaines and other swimmers who had to share areas with Thomas. Penn is too under investigation by the Department of Education for Potential Title IX.
Gaines is conservatives with proposed as a sports icon of civil rights with the proposed Bill named after her Progresses through the legislative body in Georgia, the place of its equalization in 2022 with Thomas.
Other countries have taken their own steps to prevent transgender persons in women’s sports, and President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to ban it at the national level. Data show that most Americans have opposed transgender involvement in women’s and girls sports and that this issue even influenced voters in the 2024 elections.
“I think we should send a thank you note to people like Will Thomas, I really sign me and seal me. I’ll sign a thank you note, I’ll write her because I believe he gave us the elections,” Gaines told Fox News Digital.
As transgenderism in sports moved the 2024 elections and lit a national counterculture
“There was a lot of what was wrong with Joe Biden, his administration and a democratic party as a whole outside of sports things … But this was perfect visual. It was like an episode of South Park.
AND National output survey The Legal Action Committee of Legislative Action interested in America found that 70% of moderate voters saw “opposition to Donald Trump to transgender boys and men dealing with girls and women’s sports and transgender boys and men using girls and women’s bathrooms” as important. In addition, 6% said that this is the most important question of all, while 44% said it was “very important”.
And Trump surpassed dialing among women, especially young women.
Riley Gaines, a former University of Kentucky, speaks before the Florida Ron Desantis government, the presidential candidate at the Greenville Congress Center on June 2, 2023. (McKenzie Lange/Staff/USA Today Network)
As much as Gaines wants to thank Thomas for citing attention to that question, she also feels the sympathy of athletes and even tried to express that sympathy for Thomas.
“I reached out several times, especially at first. Honnaly, I hate to say it, but I apologized, like the feeling that I had to explain myself and almost apologize for feeling the way I did, because we were so conditioned that we believe it was hurt, it was exclusive, not such a thing I had,” Gaines said.
Former teammates Lia Thomas Sue Udnn, Ivy League for pushing pro-trans ideology
“So, at first I reached out, hoping to talk more to explain and express my apologies for my feelings as I did. And, as I said, it hurts me to say that.”
Thomas did not answer Fox News Digital for comment.
If Gaines and Thomas connected again today, Gaines could be less told. But even then, she would still hope to offer Thomas some return.
“Of course, I would still have a welcome conversation, but that would not be in a way that apologizes for the sense of the way I do it. It would be in a way that I could, of course, be constructive and encourage Thomas to come to the side of common sense,” she added. “But there will be no shaking in my voice. I don’t apologize for anything.”
Since Thomas’s rise in 2022, other transgender athletes attracted a similar national controversy and political involvement, including former San Jose State University Blaire Fleming and open transgender runners Sadie Schreiner.
While Gaines opposes the fact that these athletes are allowed to participate in sports with biological females, she sees them as victims of movement that allow transgender athletes in women’s sports.
“And I perceive them as sacrifices. I really did. They became victims of movement. Unfortunately, they fell because of the lie that they were not created unique and intentionally in God’s perfect picture. And that is a terrible message to send to anyone,” Gaines said.
In the fall, Fleming put into a national center of attention after several opponents were confiscated when lawsuits were filed, stating that the school had retained Fleming’s born gender of teammates.
The situation forced Trump to comment on Fleming, while in October the campaign during the event of Fox News City Hall.
Sjsu Trans Player Blaire Fleming and Brooke teammate went to the magic show and together they had a gratitude day in Las Vegas despite the constant lawsuit for Fleming, which is transgender. (Thien-An truing/dream Jose State Athletics)
Like the thomas -chalk, and the sis is also now under investigation by the Department of Education for Fleming Handling.
Unlike Thomas, Fleming’s gender identity was allegedly hidden secret Because volleyball players do not have a well -known history of competition in male or boyish sports. Thomas competed in the Male team for two years before he switched to women.
Schreiner became one of the first famous victims of Trump’s recent executive order. After NCAA has changed their gender -eligibility policy to prevent biological males from competing in women’s competition to respect Trump’s command, Schreiner’s School, Rochester Institute of Technology, he told the Fox News Digital that the athlete would not compete in future competitions.
Then Schreiner was defeated Several teenage opponents at the US Championship in Masters Track and Field Masters last weekend.
“I have my own thoughts about the behavior of these people,” Gaines said. “I certainly believe that there is a level of narcissism. I believe there is a level of rights and complete disrespect for everyone else around these people. But ultimately, I believe that the victims are also a sad reality of the motion of gender ideology.
“The movement for gender ideology is destructive for everyone except the people who profit from it. It is the greatest medical scandal that this world has ever seen.”
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