Three years ago, former college swimmer Riley Gaines used the story of her fifth-place tie with a trans woman, Lia Thomas, to catapult herself to right-wing stardom.
In legislative testimony, social media invectives, and more than 118 Fox News appearances, she’s churned out content portraying herself and other female athletes as victims of transgender inclusion—campaigning not just to ban trans women from women’s sports but to end public acceptance of transgender people.
And...it's paying off for Gaines. As she looked on this February, President Donald Trump signed an executive order, “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” threatening the funding of schools that let trans girls play school sports. Since then, the NCAA and US Olympic and Paralympic Committees have banned trans women from women’s competitions. Twenty-nine states have already blocked trans girls from girls’ school sports teams. Lawsuits have piled up and will be heard at the Supreme Court next year.
But what’s the story behind the story that Riley Gaines has told about herself ad nauseam, so effectively? I tracked down her former teammates, university records, and legal documents, all speaking to far darker problems in women’s sports that teammates say actually affected them—and none of which involved transgender women. “She’s very, ‘Protect women’s sports.’ But not when it comes to our team,” one teammate tells me.
This story was produced in partnership with the Pablo Torre Finds Out podcast. Read the profile here, watch the accompanying episode here, or listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
—Madison Pauly
