During Wednesday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, (actual) female swimmer Riley Gaines bravely shared her experience having to race against - and share a locker room with - a transgender woman, Lia (Will) Thomas, saying that even a year later, she is still “traumatized” by the “extreme discomfort” she and her fellow teammates felt.
As a recap, Gaines tied for fifth place in the women’s 200-meter NCAA championship with Thomas. But when it came time to hand out awards, Thomas received the 5th place trophy over Gaines, who had to wait for hers in the mail.
Besides the fact that the NCAA and the media have been unequivocally supportive of trans athletes and their ideologies in general, the competition crossed a line at the event by permitting Thomas to enter and utilize the female locker room. This was one of Gaines’ main grievances, as she shared Wednesday.
.@Riley_Gaines_ emotionally describes the "extreme discomfort" she and her fellow swimmers experienced changing out of their bathing suits in front of Lia/Will Thomas, "a 6 foot 4, 22-year-old male, equipped with, and exposing male genitalia." pic.twitter.com/OAjfeBUNRY
— Mary Margaret Olohan (@MaryMargOlohan) June 21, 2023
“In addition to being forced to give up our awards and our titles and our opportunities, the NCAA forced me and my female swimmers to share a locker room with Thomas, a 6’4” 22-year-old male, equipped with and exposing male genitalia,” Gaines stated trying to hold back tears. According to Gaines, she and her other fellow female swimmers were not warned that they would have to share a locker room with a biological, and very obvious, man.
Now, if you’ve ever put on a swimsuit in your life, especially as a female, you’d know that there’s no easy way to do it, and I imagine the suits used for the NCAA are not the simplest to squeeze into. Taking them off is a whole other battle in and of itself and generally, the world “graceful” doesn’t describe the process. All that to say, there's likely a lot of naked people standing around trying to get their bodies in and out of these form-fitting, nylon sleeves. The process is awkward enough when it happens with people of the same gender around you and I can’t imagine how much worse it would be with someone of the opposite sex standing in front of you and doing the same thing. U
nfortunately for Gaines, she didn't have to imagine it, she had to endure it.
“No one asked for our consent and we did not give our consent,” Gaines continued. “You’re undressing, you’re fully exposed and we were forced to take off our swimsuit in front of a man who was doing the exact same thing.”
Moments later, Gaines added, “If nothing else, I truly hope how you can see that this is a violation of our right to privacy, and how some of us have felt uncomfortable, embarrassed and even traumatized by this experience.”
Situations like Gaines described should be fictional. But unfortunately, in the progressive culture our nation has adopted, this has become an all-too-common reality. As a matter of fact, earlier this year, an 18-year-old male student who reportedly identified as a woman walked into a shower room full of freshmen high school girls, exposed his full genitalia, and stated “I’m trans, by the way.”
Naturally, like Gaines, those young girls didn’t love being exposed to a naked male body in a location that a male should never have been anyway.
Truly, this type of behavior is repulsive.
In the end of the clip from Gaines’ speech, she said the following:
I can attest to the extreme discomfort in the locker room from these 18-22-year-old girls when you turn around and there’s male eyes watching in that same room and I can attest to the whispers and the grumbles of anger and frustration from these girls who, just like myself, had worked our entire lives to get to this meet. And I can attest to the fact that around the country, these female athletes who opposed the inclusion of Lia Thomas in the women's divisions were threatened, intimidated and emotionally blackmailed into silence and submission.
Gaines is right. After the meet and the initial discomfort of Lia Thomas being honored as a female winner for the competition, the media did nothing but praise “her” and other transgender athletes and people, just as they gush over transgender TikToker Dylan Mulvaney who imitates a little girl and gets brand deal after brand deal to do so.
We need actual women like Gaines to be seen as the role models for young, impressionable adolescents, not these phonies who simply want attention and for opportunity after opportunity to be placed in their laps, all because they’re living a lie.
