Speaker 1: I've also got this opinion piece in the New York Times.
Speaker 1: The problem with saying sex assigned at birth, that is,
Speaker 1: I think unintentionally hilarious. A lot of this stuff is
Speaker 1: hilarious until you consider how far it's gone to wit.
Speaker 1: What a pleasure this is to talk to Riley Gaines in.
Speaker 1: Unless you were a college swimmer, you probably didn't know
Speaker 1: her name or a fan of college swimming until fairly recently.
Speaker 1: But Riley has been crusading bravely, and I won't put
Speaker 1: words in her mouth but for the simple proposition that
Speaker 1: women's sports are for women and women's private spaces are
Speaker 1: for women period. Riley is the director of the Riley
Speaker 1: gains Center at the Leadership Institute and joins us.
Speaker 2: Now, Riley, how are you.
Speaker 3: I am doing great, and let me tell you you
Speaker 3: are always allowed to put those words in my mouth,
Speaker 3: because that is exactly what I'm doing.
Speaker 2: Well, excellent. We are big fans of yours and admire
Speaker 2: your courage very much. For folks not familiar with this,
Speaker 2: before we get to the basics of what you're espousing,
Speaker 2: how tough has it been for you personally to stand
Speaker 2: up and say women's sports are for women?
Speaker 3: You know what, when I first took that initial public
Speaker 3: fand after of course competing at the national Championships against
Speaker 3: Leah Thomas, who's formerly Will Thomas, who swam three years
Speaker 3: on the men's team at you Penn before deciding to
Speaker 3: switch to the women's team. After seeing all of that firsthand,
Speaker 3: after going through sensitivity training and social justice circles and
Speaker 3: all the different things, I was terrified. But I could
Speaker 3: not have been more naive to how easy it really
Speaker 3: is to say something so simple. Again, all I'm saying
Speaker 3: is that there are two sexes. You can't change your sex,
Speaker 3: and each sex is deserving an equal opportunity, privacy and safety.
Speaker 3: It's wild that that we live in a time where
Speaker 3: that now requires bravery to say that, But it's easy
Speaker 3: saying it for me.
Speaker 4: Now it's a hill. I'm willing time.
Speaker 1: So when you how many times did you swim against
Speaker 1: Leah Thomas, the most famous trends athlete too, that once.
Speaker 4: Against him at that one national championships. Okay, as I
Speaker 4: mentioned competed.
Speaker 1: What was what was it like in the pool of
Speaker 1: the crowd that day? I mean, were was everybody just
Speaker 1: like ignoring the elephant in the room or were people
Speaker 1: talking about it.
Speaker 3: It was weird going into the meet, almost ashamedly, I
Speaker 3: felt intrigued. I had a lot of questions myself and
Speaker 3: my teammates that that we wanted answered, right, like what
Speaker 3: is the locker room going to look like?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Is he as tall as he seems on Instagram compared
Speaker 3: to his teammates. But upon arriving to that meet and
Speaker 3: of course having these questions answered, like I said, I
Speaker 3: felt ashamed for feeling intrigued, and those feelings of intriguement
Speaker 3: and almost like this, this big circus were we were
Speaker 3: a part of those feelings shifted the heartbreak. I mean,
Speaker 3: I felt like competing against them. I was going into
Speaker 3: the race with my hands tied behind my back.
Speaker 2: Well, you don't have anything to apologize for, I mean,
Speaker 2: for gonna sake. You were a young college woman, and
Speaker 2: I don't blame you for thinking, Wow, what the hell
Speaker 2: is going to happen? But you were forced to share
Speaker 2: the locker room, or at least Leah Thomas's teammates were
Speaker 2: for a very long time with a six foot four
Speaker 2: inch man, fully intact genitals on display, and you were
Speaker 2: being required to look at that human and say, that's
Speaker 2: a woman.
Speaker 3: Not only that, but when we objected to this, we
Speaker 3: were told we were the problem.
Speaker 4: Right. We were told that we were.
Speaker 3: The ones who should oologize and if we didn't see
Speaker 3: this as a woman, then ultimately it was us who
Speaker 3: are who are the biggest, and we should face the repercussions.
Speaker 3: Thomas's teammates who objected to this, Granted they keep in mind,
Speaker 3: yes I a dressed with him and that at that
Speaker 3: national championship, but his teammates did eighteen times every single week.
Speaker 3: And when they objected to this and sit an email
Speaker 3: to their administration, you pan, I swear to you I
Speaker 3: have a screenshot of the response.
Speaker 4: You' penn responded back with if you.
Speaker 3: Feel uncomfortable seeing managing to tell you, here are some
Speaker 3: counseling resources that you speak in an attempt to re
Speaker 3: educate yourselves.
Speaker 1: Wow, how did that happen a couple of years after
Speaker 1: Me Too? Where if a guy asked a girl out
Speaker 1: on a date at work, you were Harvey Weinstein.
Speaker 3: That's so crazy, I know it.
Speaker 4: And now these same people who advocated for the.
Speaker 3: Me Too movement, who claimed to champion and pride themselves
Speaker 3: on championing women's rights it's those same people who are
Speaker 3: spearheading this movement to really dismantle our rights as.
Speaker 2: Women, well as the father of a couple of daughters
Speaker 2: and a youth sports coach who coached girls. I remember
Speaker 2: in boys. I remember remarking on the show years and
Speaker 2: years ago, as I was head coach for a boys
Speaker 2: soccer team and assisting with my daughter's soccer team, the
Speaker 2: speed and violence of the boys at the same age
Speaker 2: was shocking compared to the girls. If the girls exit
Speaker 2: deadly knocked each other down, they would say, oh my god,
Speaker 2: I'm sorry and pick up their opponent off the turf. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: the guys are bleeding from the head and covered with
Speaker 2: mud and loving it. The idea that oh, no, no,
Speaker 2: now that male says she's a female is the sort
Speaker 2: of absurdity Voltaire talked about when he said, those who
Speaker 2: can make us believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.
Speaker 2: But anyway, so Riley Gaines, you've got your Riley gain
Speaker 2: Center at the Leadership Institute. What are the main things
Speaker 2: you're trying to accomplish? What are the basic principles?
Speaker 3: The main thing we're trying to accomplish through the center
Speaker 3: is it's a training program to help train and develop
Speaker 3: and equip and empower leaders, whether that's leaders at the
Speaker 3: national level, the community level of course, within school boards,
Speaker 3: college teams, college athletes, whatever it might be. We need
Speaker 3: more leaders. I believe that's why our suffering. I have
Speaker 3: also been and speaking on several different college campuses through
Speaker 3: the Center.
Speaker 4: Which has been a big push of mine.
Speaker 3: To really help engage the youth people who are my age,
Speaker 3: you know, being a recent college graduate myself, I understand.
Speaker 4: I understand how how hard it is.
Speaker 3: You're essentially equated to a criminal if you say you're
Speaker 3: a conservative on college cases.
Speaker 4: Not that this issue.
Speaker 3: Should be part of it or should fall along party
Speaker 3: lines in the way that ultimately it has, at least
Speaker 3: in terms of how our elected officials are responding and
Speaker 3: how the media portrays this issue.
Speaker 4: But we need more truth speakers, truth.
Speaker 3: Speakers, So that's what speaking on these college campuses, that's
Speaker 3: the goal there.
Speaker 2: Riley Gaines is going to be speaking at You See
Speaker 2: Berkeley not far from the Radio Ranch tomorrow, that's April
Speaker 2: the fourth, at six point thirty, as part of her
Speaker 2: Reclaim Feminism campus tour. Was it you See Berkeley that
Speaker 2: you ran into like violent opposition or like last year
Speaker 2: was it?
Speaker 3: Yes, you're exactly right, almost exactly a year ago. It
Speaker 3: was at San Francisco State University. I was met with vitriol,
Speaker 3: I was met with violence, I was met with, of course, hatefulness.
Speaker 3: And it's so comical, like you, like you mentioned in
Speaker 3: the intro here, it would be comical. This is the
Speaker 3: same crowd who claims to be tall and who claims
Speaker 3: to be inclusive and welcoming and accepting. But that is
Speaker 3: not what I faced at San Francisco, and oftentimes not
Speaker 3: what I faced around the country. This is the least
Speaker 3: tolerant group you could possibly imagine. But nonetheless, this is
Speaker 3: who needs to hear the message. It's no good preaching
Speaker 3: to the choir all the time. So I'm excited to
Speaker 3: be in the Bay Area. I'm excited to be at
Speaker 3: u C. Berkeley, and I'm I'm now, given my experience
Speaker 3: last year in San Francisco, I am more than prepared
Speaker 3: for what could possibly and most certainly probably will you.
Speaker 1: Got the yeah, probably, will you got the proper security?
Speaker 1: I mean, so you're you're prepared for it to be ugly?
Speaker 3: Possibly, Yes, sir, Unfortunately that's the way it has to go.
Speaker 1: Well, probably actual guys, like big guys with penises that
Speaker 1: are going to protect you. Oh that kind of guy,
Speaker 1: that kind of guy. That's the kind of guy I'm
Speaker 1: talking about you.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 2: And if anybody who's working your favorite one guy now
Speaker 2: Riley is a good and decent and reasonable person. I
Speaker 2: Joe Getty, on the other hand, have fully empowered anybody
Speaker 2: working security for Riley's event to whoop as much ass
Speaker 2: as you need to to keep her one hundred percent safety.
Speaker 2: These people are lunatics. Riley. The point you made about,
Speaker 2: you know, welcomeness and inclusion, that is such a lie.
Speaker 2: It's like the whole diversity thing that doesn't mean diversity,
Speaker 2: that means the people I want. The minute it's the
Speaker 2: people I don't want. Suddenly diversity isn't important at all,
Speaker 2: or welcomness or inclusion or whatever the hell else. So
Speaker 2: we are going to have a link at Armstrong in
Speaker 2: getty dot com so folks can access the Riley Gains Center,
Speaker 2: particularly parents of young women, and not just athletes either.
Speaker 2: I mean, because y'all are talking about not only sports
Speaker 2: and locker rooms, but women's faces, women's prisons, and bathrooms
Speaker 2: and that sort of thing as well.
Speaker 4: Right, of course, of course we are.
Speaker 3: You're exactly right in saying an extends far beyond just
Speaker 3: women's sports.
Speaker 2: Riley Gaines, you're a hero of ours. We appreciate your
Speaker 2: time and your efforts very much. Keep up the good
Speaker 2: fight and let us know how we can help. We
Speaker 2: mean that seriously, of course.
Speaker 3: Well, I thank you guys so much and appreciate you
Speaker 3: for what you do.
Speaker 4: So thank you Armstrong.
Speaker 1: Andy