Riley Gaines delivered a poignant message to Democrats who have supported transgender athletes against the efforts to protect women’s and girls’ sports as major Supreme Court cases loom.
Gaines, an OutKick podcast host and a former NCAA star swimmer who has fought to keep males out of women’s and girls’ sports, appeared on Fox News Channel’s “Faulkner Focus” and suggested those who are opponents of the save women’s sports movement were doing girls, like her daughter, a disservice.
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“The past three months now, it’s shifted my perspective on everything. The things you thought you would never care about, they feel critical,” Gaines said. “Things that, at one point, you cared very deeply about, they seem mundane. I’ll tell you, my daughter … she will be right here with me tomorrow on the Supreme Court steps because that is who we’re fighting for.
“So, all these Democrats who think they’re giving President Trump a middle finger by taking the opposite side of this issue, that’s not who you’re giving the middle finger to. You are giving the middle finger to my 3-month-old daughter and honestly it could bring tears to my eyes even talking about this. That is who I’m fighting for.”
Supreme Court justices will hear arguments in the cases of Little v. Hecox and West Virginia v. B.P.J. on Tuesday.
Idaho and West Virginia are among almost 30 states with laws preventing transgender students who identify as female from competing on girls’ sports teams sponsored by public schools and colleges. In 2020 and 2021, the trans athlete plaintiffs successfully challenged the laws in Idaho and West Virginia, respectively, to enable their participation on women’s and girls’ sports teams.
Both trans athletes are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
The justices will examine whether the landmark federal law, Title IX forbidding sex discrimination in education, applies in these inclusion cases.
Idaho in 2020 became the first state to pass such restrictions with the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act.
Both sides in the legal dispute have accused the other of peddling false and misleading facts, terminology and narratives about enforcement of the state laws, and the stakes for both transgender and cisgender athletes.
States with such laws, and groups and lawmakers supporting them, say the issue is about common sense and student safety.
Lawyers will tell the high court there are inherent physical differences between females and males, and these legislative acts would ensure those they call “male” or “boy” students cannot compete on girls’ sports teams involving competitive skill or contact.
But LGBTQ+ rights supporters say such laws and labels are clearly discriminatory and were never a big issue until some states sought to politicize them.
The Supreme Court in July agreed to hear the separate appeals from the states and is expected to issue final, binding rulings on the merits by late June.
Fox News’ Jackson Thompson contributed to this report.
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