Riley Gaines Barker, a former 12-time All-American swimmer and two-time Olympic trial qualifier, recounts her 2022 NCAA 200 freestyle tie with transgender athlete Leah Thomas—where the NCAA awarded Thomas the sole trophy due to "organizational advice"—and details systemic intimidation, including threats of lost scholarships, mandatory sensitivity training, and warnings about harm if she spoke out. Her book, Swimming Against the Current, rejects legislative reliance after 219 Republicans supported the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act while Democrats opposed it, despite representing young daughters. She advocates for athletes to boycott mixed-sex events, citing victories like West Virginia’s protests by girls as young as 13, though facing labels like "domestic terrorist" and "fascist." Gaines insists on factual language, dismissing publisher resistance, and hopes a November administration shift will restore fairness in women’s sports amid cultural and political overreach. [Automatically generated summary]
Hey everyone, it's Andrew Clavin with this week's interview with Riley Gaines.
I'm sure you all know Riley Gaines.
She's now Riley Gaines Barker.
She was a 12-time All-American swimmer, two-time Olympic trial qualifier, five-time SEC champion.
She's an advisor for the Independent Women's Forum, hosts Games for Girls podcasts on Outkick, and she has a new book out called Swimming Against the Current Fighting for Common Sense in a World That's Lost Its Mind.
I wanted to have her on because I know she's been on with Crane and Company, and I wanted to let her know that not everybody at the Daily Wire is that low.
Riley, thank you so much for coming on.
Well, I am thrilled to be on with you.
Let me tell you, those Crane Company guys, they're pretty good.
They're pretty funny.
They're great guys.
So not as good as you.
So I'm excited to be on with you.
So thank you.
And I just didn't want you to think we're all like that.
You know, that we're all just imagining.
The first thing I want to hear about is basically what's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this.
I mean, you're an athlete.
You dedicate your life to being an athlete.
You said you never even considered yourself a feminist.
And now all you do is basically you talk and you're an activist.
How on earth did this happen?
Gosh, in the most roundabout way, the most what I would say is insane way that this could possibly happen.
I'll be very transparent.
This is never something that I wanted to do.
It's still not something that I want to be doing.
It's never something that I felt prepared to do.
I didn't have any understanding of civics or civil processes at all.
I didn't know anything about our government.
I never had to take a government course.
My public speaking courses in college, my face would turn the color of a tomato.
So this was never something that I was prepared for.
But I realize that's not how God works.
He doesn't really call the prepared.
He prepares the called.
And that's certainly what he did with me and competing at that national championships in 2022 against a man, a very mediocre man, a less than average man who was not great competing against the men, who swam three years on the men's team at University of Pennsylvania before deciding to switch to the women's team, where he would then win a national title.
That's ultimately what thrusted me.
The specifics of it is actually at that national championship.
He and I raced in the 200 freestyle.
We tied, which is incredibly embarrassing for a six foot four man, might I add.
But despite tying, going the exact same time down to the hundredth of a second, this NCAA official told me that they only had one trophy and that trophy had to go to Leah.
And when I asked the question of why, he didn't have an answer.
They didn't give him a script of what to say when someone asked why.
And so I appreciate his honesty.
This official told me, Riley, I'm sorry, but we've been advised as an organization, as the NCAA, that when photos are being taken, it's crucial that the trophy's in Leah's hands.
You could pose with this one, but you have to give yours back.
Leah takes the trophy home.
You go home empty-handed.
End of story.
Weirdly enough, that's what thrusted me into this position of now proudly being an activist, proudly being someone who is fighting for women's rights.
can't even believe that the progress and the efforts that were had in the past half a century, really longer than that, to advance women in the athletic space, but really as a whole, now, weirdly enough, under the guise of progress, the same people who once championed women are the same people who are undermining our sex-based rights and protections.
It's so amazing.
And one of the things that always occurs to me when I see women in this situation, before it happened, when you knew you were going to be swimming against a man, which is insane, did anybody say anything?
Did anybody protest?
Or was there any method of protesting?
I mean, no, not at all, really.
We quietly talked amongst ourselves.
We talked in secrecy behind closed doors.
We would talk to our parents on our phone in our dorm rooms, hoping that our roommates wouldn't hear us because, but in reality, they were behind their dorm room, that door doing the exact same thing on the phone with their parents.
We were told consistently, constantly, that we weren't allowed to do anything.
I had to go to training, sensitivity training, where they brought in an outside professional who taught me how to use biologically incorrect but preferred pronouns.
It was like an interview setting, mock interview.
She would ask us questions.
We had to answer the questions to her standard.
If we didn't, we had to re-go through the training.
We were told that, you know, you'll never get a job if you speak up about this.
And Riley, don't you want a job?
You know, your employer will never hire you because they're going to see that you're a transphobe.
You're never going to get into dental school.
And that's what you're supposed to be doing, Riley.
You know, something's going to come to an end and you're set to go to graduate school.
Well, you won't get in if you speak up about this.
You're going to lose your friends.
You're going to lose your scholarship.
And oh yeah, Riley, speaking of that scholarship, remember you signed that.
And when you signed that scholarship, you gave away your rights to speak in your own personal capacity.
You represent us.
Remember whose name is across your chest and across your cap because it's not yours.
It's ours.
And understand we have already taken your stance for you.
Thomas's teammates, for example, they had to go to mandatory LGBTQ education meetings weekly to learn about how just by being cisgender, they were oppressing Leah Thomas.
16 of these girls signed on to an email to their administration expressing their discomfort in the locker room, many of these women being survivors of some sort of sexual assault, to which their university responded back with, if you feel uncomfortable seeing male genitalia, here are some counseling resources that you should seek in an attempt to re-educate yourselves.
They even went as far, University of Pennsylvania, to tell these girls that if they did speak out and any harm whatsoever were to come towards Thomas's way, whether it was physical harm, emotional harm, mental harm, self-inflicted for that matter, they said, then understand you are solely responsible.
And that would make you responsible for a potential death and that would make you a murderer.
And you don't want to be a murderer, do you?
No, so I suggest you be kind and I suggest you be inclusive.
Those are just a few snippets of the ways they effectively intimidated us, the risk, the threats.
the emotional blackmail, the gaslighting that was used all in an effort to not get us to speak, which, like I said, it worked.
Believe it or not, when you're telling 18, 19, 20 year old girls, they're going to be murderers if they advocate for fair play and privacy in areas of undressing, that they will have blood on their hands.
It works.
That is an insane story.
Just so I'm sure I'm clear about this.
When you say they did this, who is they?
Is this your university or was it the NCAA?
These were specific universities.
The NCAA definitely had their tactics as well.
They would send out emails providing counseling resources if we weren't okay with this.
And of course, these counseling resources were all provided through the LGBTQ centers on campuses, telling us that we were the problem, that we were the bigots.
How could we make ourselves or how what could we do to make Leah feel comfortable?
That was our sole purpose to our universities and to the NCAA.
So a lot of this was pursued by our schools.
And I'll speak specifically to University of Kentucky here.
I had a phenomenal coach.
I had a phenomenal athletic director who support me, who are amazing people.
It was coming from the academia side of things, which is-coming from the administration, in other words.
Right.
So obviously talking to Riley Gaines, her book is called Swimming Against the Current, Fighting for Common Sense in a World That's Lost Its Mind.
I actually did not know that the level of intimidation was this high.
Are there any adults in the room, parents, anybody who are saying to you, you know, if all the women stand down, this can be turned around?
What are they going to do if all the women refuse?
Does anybody ever say that or try it or think of it?
None of the adults in the room will suggest it, but I think that's what has to happen.
I didn't always think this way.
And I'll be honest in admitting that, I thought to myself, obviously, I competed, right?
I didn't step down.
I thought I shouldn't have to make that compromise.
I worked hard to be here.
I wasn't willing to make that sacrifice.
I kind of naively went along for several months and thinking that it's legislation that's going to fix this.
You know, people will do the right thing.
What a naive thought to think that people will do the right thing unprovoked.
We would be waiting for forever.
And it was actually when the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act was introduced in the U.S. House by Representative Greg Stewy, which passed, given the fact that we have a majority, but it fell entirely on party lines, meaning 219 Republicans voted in favor of protecting women and girls in sports, and 203 Democrats, all 203 mothers and fathers of their own young daughters,
voted in opposition of protecting women and girls in sports.
And that's when I realized this has become far too partisan, not amongst the general public, but in the way that our media portrays it, in the way that our elected officials are voting.
We can't wait for legislation.
Too many girls will lose out on opportunities.
Too many girls will be exploited in locker rooms.
Too many girls are going to be injured in their sports if we wait for legislation.
We have to take this in our own hands.
And what that looks like is being bold enough, being brave enough to say, I'm not going to participate in the farce.
And we've seen it.
It's been effective.
There was a jiu-jitsu tournament in Georgia where two boys were able to grapple.
I guess that's the verb you would use, grapple with girls, to which four girls said, I'm not getting on the mat.
with those boys.
This is a sport where you're putting heads between legs and all kinds of stuff.
And four girls said, we're not going to.
And in doing that, 21 hours later, not even a full 24 hours, NAGA, which is the National Grappling Association, changed their policy.
Same thing in cycling.
We saw a large amount of women in England say, we're not cycling if these men are going to be competing in our category.
UCI changed their policy.
West Virginia, for example, we just saw these five brave young girls, 13 year olds.
What a sad day when 13 year olds have to be the adults in the room.
But they were, and I commend them greatly for their bravery.
They decided we're not going to throw shot put against this boy.
And it was so, it broke my heart because they reached out to me before they messaged me and they said, Riley, you know, we don't want to compete for second place.
Are we not worthy of being called champions?
And my heart broke that 13-year-old girls had to come to this conclusion.
But in stepping down, they created a ton of traction, a ton of momentum.
They were able to ultimately reverse course on their school ended up banning these girls from competing the rest of the season.
Not the boy.
No, they banned the girls from girls' sports.
But because of their bravery and outspokenness, they were able to get this reversed.
So all that to say, I think that's what we need to see.
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There are no easy things.
So you're an athlete at 18.
You've obviously been an athlete all your life.
What does it take to get to NCAA level?
What are you doing when you're 12, 13, 14 to get to that level?
It's impossible to put into words the time, the hours, the dedication, the sacrifices that you have to make to compete at and ultimately be successful at the highest level.
I started swimming when I was four, graduated when I was 22, so dedicated 18 years of my life to my sport, which you don't get to go to prom in high school.
The Price of Dedication00:12:06
You don't get to have sleepovers with your friends on Friday night because guess what?
You have practice at 6 a.m. on Saturday morning.
You don't get to go on family vacations.
No, none of that.
Upon getting to college at the collegiate level, we swam six hours every single day with three of those hours being before 8 a.m.
So you practice from 5 a.m. to 8 a.m., go to class, come back, you practice again from 1.30 to 4.30, ate your dinner at old people time of 4.45 because you're starving, did your homework, iced your shoulders, went to bed, you woke up, you did it all again the next day.
We had to.
We were willing to do that because we wanted to be the best that we could be.
But we had that entirely stripped from us without even a second thought.
You know, recently I was at a dinner where the people just happened to be kind of liberal people.
And I mentioned offhand, I wasn't even thinking of starting any kind of discussion or anything.
I mentioned offhand that the trans movement is really a very violent movement.
I mean, I'm not saying the trans people are inherently violent at all, but I'm saying that this movement, this act of, you know, our guy, Matt Walsh, is constantly coming under dreadful threat to him and his family from people who simply cannot stand the fact that he asks people what a woman is.
What happened to you when you became vocal about this?
Similar.
Well, it's unique because, of course, the negative weighs a lot heavier on you naturally, understandably so, right?
But I think what people don't realize is the support is tenfold any of the negative.
But that's not to say the negative doesn't exist.
And it's filled with vitriol, hatred, and violence in many cases.
You're called every name under the sun.
I've been called them all domestic terrorists, fascists, racists, white supremacists, transphobic, homophobic.
The list goes on.
But that's what we do in second grade, right?
Is we call each other names.
That's what that is.
Petty personal attacks.
People will find some way to comment on your appearance or, you know, being a swimmer my whole life.
I've always been pretty muscular and people will say, oh, well, you look like a man.
You look more manly than Leah Thomas does.
Or they'll say, oh, well, your extensions look fake.
And I'm like, this is my real hair.
So thank you.
That's kind of like a compliment.
But I've learned now the people who comment on my social media or what have you, it speaks more to their insecurities than it does to my own.
And that's, again, it's nothing ever of substance.
It's nothing ever dissuading from my argument with facts or logic or reasoning or common sense or lived experience or science, what happened to follow the science.
No, it's always some sort of personal jab, which again, hard to read at first, but I'm so confident.
I'm so secure in the stand that I have taken now.
So confident in the fact that, yes, I'm standing for objective truth.
I'm standing for biological reality, but I'm standing for biblical truth, which that to me as a Christian is more important than anything.
Before anything, I want to live a Christ-like life.
And our God is very clear that he created male and female intentionally and perfect in his image.
And to alter that is to play God.
There's nothing our God hates other than sin.
So knowing that the outcome has already been set, the war has already been won, I am able to receive the hate comments, the vitriol with a smile on my face and an incredibly light heart.
It is, I mean, everyone knows you're right.
This is the thing that gets me about it.
I mean, if ever, God forbid, if ever I, you know, laid a hand on my wife, no one would, you know, which I would rather be hit by lightning, but no one would ever say, well, why doesn't she just punch you back?
She's, you know, just as tall as you are.
No one would even think to say it.
You know, no, they want the victim card when the victim card is played, but then when it serves them, it's going the other way.
Have you ever talked to Thomas himself?
Have you ever talked to Leah Thomas about this?
No, never.
I've reached out.
I would love to.
I really would to just kind of express our point of view.
And when I say our, I mean, I'm not going to speak for every single girl, but I am going to speak for the overwhelming majority of us as D1 female swimmers at that national championships.
I would love to explain how we felt.
We hear the word inclusion all the time.
We hear the word compassion, but let's call this what it is.
It was not compassionate to ask young girls to undress non-consensually in front of a man, a naked man.
That's not what compassion is.
And it's not inclusive to ask us to smile and step aside and allow these men onto our podiums.
That is not what inclusion is.
No, that is exclusion.
And it's exclusive to the very female athletes who Title IX in the women's sporting category were created to celebrate, honor, and protect.
You know, one of the things I noticed in your book, I give the name of your book again, Swimming Against the Current, Fighting for Common Sense in a World That's Lost Its Mind.
You openly say, the first thing you say as an author's note is that you're going to use the right pronouns, what they call misgendering people.
You're going to call men men.
You're going to say he for men.
Talk about that decision.
Why did you decide to do that in the book?
Well, it was not an easy feat to get this done, given the fact that my publisher didn't want me to do this.
They wanted to, that's why I asked.
They wanted me to be what they called respectful.
And at first, when I first kind of dove into this topic and I began to speak out, I wanted to be respectful.
And even still, I want to be respectful.
I was wrong in assuming that that is what respect is.
It's not respectful to lie to anyone.
It doesn't benefit Leah Thomas.
It doesn't benefit me.
It doesn't benefit society as a whole.
It benefits no one to lie.
Why would we do that?
Why would we keep deceiving someone who has clearly been deceived and manipulated?
Someone needs to be honest here.
That's what this is about.
It's not disrespectful.
It's not rude.
I would actually say it's the contrary.
It is loving to say the truth.
We hear that phrase all the time, true love, and what that really means.
And understand those words are synonymous: truth and love.
That is what love is.
And to that point, I have no animosity towards Thomas, towards anyone who identifies as trans, because again, I really believe that for the most part, these people have been deceived.
At best, they're confused.
And at worst, they're taking advantage of the system.
So no animosity in my heart towards him, but I'm not going to pander.
I'm not going to go out of my way, bend over backwards to respect someone who had no respect for us.
Yeah, it's funny.
I mean, they've always used the left, I think, has always used our good manners against us, basically telling us we're being unkind, telling us to tell the truth is cruel, racist, whatever it is.
And I just think that that's, you're absolutely right.
It's the opposite of the case.
What do you do now?
So what's the plan?
What's the strategy?
You pointed out that the law is not going to help us.
What exactly are the actions that you're taking?
Gosh, well, what I have seen be effective is public opinion.
Well, the thing is, it's astounding to me that we have seen this pursuit, unfortunately, fall pretty much on party lines, as mentioned, at least in terms of how our elected officials are voting, how our media portrays this issue.
And I don't understand it because if you take any poll, even a poll amongst only Democrats, and you would find that majority of people intuitively know that when it comes to sports, men on average are taller, stronger, faster, they can jump higher, more explosive, what have you, than women.
So I can't understand why you have the Biden administration rewriting, actually have entirely rewrote Title IX, an illegal administrative rewrite, but changed it nonetheless, changed it from this 37-word piece of legislation and its original implementation to a 1,577-page, almost half a million words from this original 37 words,
equating sex with gender identity.
I can't understand who is advising him and why they would advise him to do that because this is only hurting the Democrats.
So all that to say, what we can do, public opinion is a powerful thing.
We saw that in the case of Bud Light, right?
They lost $27 billion overnight, and their next commercial was a big burly man on a motorcycle with the camel can.
Public outrage and public opinion work.
That's what we need to see.
We need to see more parents who are willing to defend their kids, defend their daughters, teach their sons how to be strong men.
We need to see more coaches who are willing to stand up to this.
We need to see more medical providers, medical professionals who are willing to stand up to the insanity of the medicalization side of these things.
And I think we're getting there.
I think the tide is turning.
Actually, I'm certain that it is.
Truth and sanity, they always prevail.
It's kind of just a matter of how long do we have to endure this before they do.
But I think we're reaching that point where people who maybe would have considered themselves apolitical, people who probably weren't overly involved, but people who have daughters, they're realizing what's at stake.
They're realizing the trajectory of where we're going as a nation because of our leaders, and they're willing to do something to the legislative front.
So lots of movement there.
We've seen lots of big wins.
There was a big win in New Hampshire this past week, in Mississippi and Alaska.
Their women's sports bill passed in the House, and we'll now head on to the Senate and actually Louisiana last night.
The bill, it's actually the What is a Woman Act, which just codifies and defines the word woman in law.
I can't even believe we have to do that.
We have a sitting Supreme Court justice who can't even answer what a woman is because she claims she's not a biologist, which guess what?
I'm not a veterinarian, but I know what a dog is.
That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.
Then it's no surprise that this is the same Supreme Court justice who recently said she felt like our First Amendment rights were hamstringing the government.
Precisely.
That's precisely what our First Amendment rights are supposed to do.
That's why we have the Bill of Rights.
And if our government can't understand or abide by that, that's precisely why we have the Second Amendment.
Nonetheless, a big win in Louisiana where this bill will go onto Governor Landry's desk.
So all inspired right here by the Daily Wire.
Would you have ever imagined that the redundant, silly, rhetorical question almost, well, not really rhetorical, what should be a rhetorical question of what is a woman would enact legislation and impact in the way that it has.
Why Rights Matter00:04:28
It's amazing, really.
No, I didn't even know Walsh could read.
So I was excited that such a great job.
But, you know, I noticed in your author bio, it says that you have this Gaines for Girls podcast.
You're the director of the Riley Gaines Center at the Leadership Institute.
I'm kind of assuming that you're talking to a lot of young girls.
Is that a fair assumption?
All the time.
And so do you ever get any pushback?
I mean, do you ever get from girls saying like, no, we love competing against men or, you know, this is only fair or anything like that?
You know what?
Not really.
Yeah.
Of course, there are some who will reach out and say, it's people who have never really played sports, though, to be honest with you.
It's people who, even a few weeks ago, this is so funny to me.
State Senator Scott Weiner in California, which like, of course, that's his name.
He's on the House floor, the California House floor, and he's speaking to, I think this was for Transgender Day of Visibility, whatever it was.
And he was on the House floor saying that, sharing my experience, saying that I was lying and this never happened and all kinds of crazy stuff.
And so I commented on social media and I said something back.
I said, it's always the people who have never played a competitive sport in their entire lives who are defending the actions of these men.
And he responded back and he said, you must have never heard of the gay kickball league.
And I said, let me repeat myself.
Always the people who have never played a competitive sport.
But that's the reality of it.
The people who are pushing for this, they don't know the time.
They don't know, understand the sacrifices.
They didn't get to reap the benefits of playing sports.
Playing sports, it gave me my best friends.
It gave me my husband.
It gave me how to be a leader.
It taught me how to be resilient.
It taught me time management.
It taught me how to set goals and work to achieve those goals.
And look, no one should be denied those things.
Of course not.
Even people who are struggling with gender dysphoria.
I encourage them to play sports, but play in the category that is safe, number one, and fair, number two.
And that's the category that aligns with your sex.
Yeah.
And it is especially offensive, especially offensive to say that girls should be in a room with men changing clothes and all this and that they're not supposed to care.
That basically that everything that has always been true of us as human beings is supposed to be canceled now for an ideal that isn't even attractive in imagination.
I mean, it's not even something that anybody has ever worked for.
Riley Gaines, I admire you.
I really respect what you're doing.
The book is called Swimming Against the Current, Fighting for Common Sense in a World That's Lost Its Mind.
I really hope you're right that things are changing because it's insane.
That's, to put it lightly, it's insane.
But I do think so.
I think that we'll have a new administration in the White House in November.
They'll have to do a lot of damage control, which will be not just on the women's sports issue.
A lot of the issues, the policies that have been implemented, they'll have to do a lot of damage control, but have already committed to reversing course of especially the cultural issues that we're seeing.
So, the tide, we're turning, we're getting there.
I feel more hopeful now than I've felt in a really long time.
So, good, good to hear.
Riley, stay away from the Crane and Company people.
I'm telling you, this is a dangerous thing.
I'm trying.
I'm trying.
Doing everything in my power.
Hi.
All right.
Thank you so much for coming on.
It's really nice to meet you.
Thank you.
Really impressive stuff.
I'm really glad I asked her that question about what it took to become an athlete because it is to me one of the most heartbreaking aspects of this is people just taking that away from a girl, that labor that you put in, that absolute dedication, that absolute discipline that you put in, and just taking it away for a political idea that has no basis in any truth whatsoever.
It is absolutely a crime.
It is a crime, and it should be punished like a crime.
But good for her.
Good for Riley Gaines.
I'm glad there are people out there with that kind of courage, that kind of faith.
And if you'd like to see more courage and faith, well, no, but just me, Andrew Clavin Show on Friday.