In March 2022, Riley Gaines — a 12-time NCAA swimmer from the University of Kentucky — lost the 200-meter freestyle race by a hundredth of a second to Lia Thomas, a transgender athlete from the University of Pennsylvania. Wednesday evening, Gaines visited Baylor to speak to students about how allowing transgender athletes to compete in collegiate sports goes against what Title IX vows to protect.
“While Title IX’s benefits are undeniable for female athletes, the Biden administration is now working on preventing the discrimination of not sex but how one self-identifies,” Gaines said.
Gaines said legislation is needed in Congress to advocate for women’s rights. One such example is the Women’s Bill of Rights, which aims to “clarify our common understanding of basic sex-based words.” So far, Gaines said, it has been passed in four states: Tennessee, Kansas, Oklahoma and Nebraska.
“This specific piece of legislation mirrors the 23 other states in our country who have passed fairness in sports bills over the past few years, which is a major improvement from two years ago, when fairness in sports was only passed in Idaho,” Gaines said.
Gaines said she prefers legislation like this as opposed to what she refers to as “silly” days and months of visibility, such as Women’s History Month. Gaines said those times honored men who claimed the identity of women rather than biological women themselves.
“It was not fair that Will Thomas — or Lia, whatever Thomas self-identifies as now — got a whole segment during Women’s History Month in March on ESPN, when there are other talented collegiate female swimmers to be interviewed,” Gaines said.
Boulder, Colo., freshman Rebecca Stoll was among those in attendance at the speech in the Paul L. Foster Success Center. Stoll said she fully supports Gaines’ opposition to transgender athletes and her fight to support biological women in sports.
“There are only two different genders, and it is not fair to the women like Riley, who spend their lives competing at her high level, only to be beaten by a man,” Stoll said.
Houston junior Hannah Martin, who also attended the speech, said it is important to speak out about rising gender issues in the country.
“Riley’s firsthand experience — by racing Lia Thomas and losing by such a narrow margin — shows that the current system is not fair for all competitors, especially for women,” Martin said.
As for the status of the topic in Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott signed a law in June requiring collegiate athletes to compete based on their biological sex, expanding upon the 2021 law that required students in grades K-12 to do the same.
