Abigail Wamhoff

Riley Gaines, April 17, 2024, Iowa State Howe Hall.

Former University of Kentucky swimmer and 12-time All-American athlete Riley Gaines spoke in opposition to transgender athletes and about how she felt it is important to have single-sex spaces for female athletes Wednesday. The lecture was co-sponsored by Turning Point USA, the Leadership Institute and the Committee on Lectures.

Gaines, director of the Riley Gaines Center at the Leadership Institute, spoke to audience members about her experience competing against Lia Thomas, a transgender woman and athlete, during the NCAA Division I National Championships in 2022.

Gaines and Thomas tied for fifth in the 200-yard freestyle final, and Thomas was given the fifth-place trophy over Gaines. During her speech, Gaines expressed her frustration with the NCAA’s handling of the trophy ceremony.

“The first thought that I had was, ‘Isn’t this everything that Title IX was passed to prevent from happening?’” Gaines said. “‘What do you mean you’re going to give the trophy to the man in the women’s 200 [freestyle]?’”

Thomas was the first openly transgender athlete to win an NCAA Division I National Championship in the 500 freestyle, an event Gaines did not compete in.

Gaines has been vocal in speaking out against transgender athletes competing in women’s sports since her experience during the 2022 national championships. Gaines and other collegiate athletes have filed a lawsuit against the NCAA, accusing the organization of violating Title IX by allowing Thomas to compete at the national championship. The lawsuit details the athletes’ discomfort with sharing a locker room with Thomas and documents the number of races in which they swam with her.

“[The NCAA] saw absolutely nothing wrong with this,” Gaines said. “About three weeks before our national championships in March of 2022, they announced that Thomas’ participation in the women’s category was a nonnegotiable …We were told we had to accept this with a smile on our face.”

Gaines said she felt uncomfortable sharing a locker room with Thomas.

“You turn around and there’s a 6-foot-4-inch man, [a] 22-year-old man, who is fully intact, fully exposing himself inches away from where you’re simultaneously fully undressed,” Gaines said. “I can wholeheartedly attest to the whispers … of anger and frustration from those girls who, just like myself, have worked our entire lives to get to this.”

Gaines also spoke on the “silencing” she and other athletes experienced with having to participate in sensitivity training regarding pronouns. Gaines said this was an “infringement on our First Amendment rights.”

“The university brought in an outside professional… [who] taught us how to use she/her pronouns,” Gaines said. “She would ask us questions. We had to answer the questions to her standard if we wanted to pass. If we didn’t pass, we would have to rego through the training.”

Later in her speech, Gaines spoke about recent legislation in favor of female athletes’ single-sex spaces.

“Now 24 states have enacted some sort of fairness in women’s sports bill, ultimately protecting sports on the basis of sex,” Gaines said. “Now there have been five states … to codify and define the word ‘woman’ in law.”

After her speech, Gaines engaged in a Q&A with audience members where she answered questions about the NCAA lawsuit and the possibility of transgender athletes competing in their own category.

“If you created a third category, it would still very much be males competing against females,” Gaines said. “Take away gender identity … safety and fairness still matter.”

For more information on upcoming lectures at Iowa State, visit the Lecture Series website.