Riley Gaines Vows to Fight the New 'War on Women' in 2024 Amid Backlash

Riley Gaines was just a child in 2010 when Democrats like Nancy Pelosi and Barbara Boxer were constantly accusing Republicans of waging a "war on women" due, primarily, to the GOP's objections to abortion, but the swimmer-turned-activist says the shoe is now on the other foot.

Democrats, she tells Newsweek, are waging a war on women due to their adherence to what she sees as a transgender agenda, and she predicts it's an issue that will be front and center in 2024 as the presidential election shifts into high gear.

And she says that no amount of death threats and protests—both of which she endured in 2023—will prevent her from speaking her mind, no matter how often her detractors call her some version of an anti-trans bigot.

"I do believe it's my mission as a Christian to spread God's word, so I block out a lot of the noise," she said.

Her claim is that reducing the word "mother" to "birthing person," as President Joe Biden's administration has done on several occasions, or the word "woman" to "menstruating people," as Democrats like Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have done, is proof of her claim of a war on women.

"Can you imagine men being reduced to 'erection-havers' or 'sperm-producers' or another biological function? Men wouldn't put up with it," Gaines said.

She also said the plethora of men who have transitioned to women and have earned "woman-of-the-year" type awards is further proof of a war on women: USA Today, for example, named Minnesota House Representative Leigh Finke one of its 2023 women of the year and in 2022 it gave the same award to Rachel Levine, the U.S. assistant secretary of health for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

This year, Virgin Atlantic teamed with the gay lifestyle publication Attitude to name Dylan Mulvaney, the trans woman influencer famous for promoting Bud Light and causing conservatives to boycott the beer, its woman of the year.

"I don't know why more liberals and feminists aren't up in arms about this. Isn't this the patriarchy they love to complain about? White men are being honored as the best women, and we're supposed to step aside," said Gaines.

Detractors of such opinions point to experts and research that show "transgender identity development is not linear and may fluctuate over time," as a 2020 study published at the National Institutes of Health website puts it.

"Research with trans women has shown that gender transitioning and affirmation is generally a positive experience associated with improvements in mental health, including reduced symptoms of depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation," says the study.

But Gaines doesn't buy the notion that her views are dangerous and maintains that she's on the popular side of the debate, pointing to several polls to make her case.

A 2023 Transgender Legislation and Policies survey from Stanford University, Arizona State University and the University of Houston that polled 3,163 Americans in roughly equal proportions from a blue state (California), a purple state (Arizona) and a red state (Texas), found that majorities in all three oppose transgender participation in women's sports. Residents in all three states also "oppose" more than they "support" transgender people choosing their own bathrooms and receiving gender-affirming medical treatment under the age of 18.

Gaines rose to prominence as a member of the University of Kentucky women's swim team and in 2022 swam to a fifth-place tie with transgender swimmer Lia Thomas in the 200-meter freestyle at the NCAA championships. Since there was only one fifth-place trophy, it went to Thomas, and Gaines was delivered hers by mail. Gaines complained of an alleged pro-trans bias, thrusting her into the midst of a political debate that she hasn't shied away from.

The NCAA has since said issues like who gets trophies in the event of a tie and who gets one mailed to them weeks later will be based on age.

In 2023, ESPN honored Thomas for a "Celebrating Women's History Month" segment and a year earlier Sports Illustrated nominated Thomas for NCAA woman of the year.

"It's a mockery to say men make better women than women do. And you rarely see it the other way around. You don't see women who transition to men being honored as men of the year," said Gaines.

"There's a war on women," added Gaines, a conservative who endorses Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for president and recently began her Gaines for Girls podcast at Outkick.

Gaines founded the Riley Gaines Center this year to "save women's sports" and promote "common-sense American values," and also in 2023 Gaines had a role in Lady Ballers, a movie from right-leaning outlet the Daily Wire that mocks the notion of biological men competing in sports against women.

"You don't see women demanding to compete against men, or demanding to use men's restrooms," she says. "This new war on women is a heck of a lot more severe than the last one, because our officials can't even define what a woman is. They're trying to erase us."

She uses the example of Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn asking Supreme Court Justice then-nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson to define a woman, to which the now-confirmed justice responded: "I'm not a biologist."

"If someone asked me what a dog is, I wouldn't tell them I don't know because I'm not a veterinarian," Gaines quipped.

Gaines has been taking her messages to college campuses, sometimes with hostile results. In April, when she appeared to speak for Turning Point USA at San Francisco State University, she said she had to barricade herself in a classroom for three hours until city police escorted her off campus.

That experience, and others, only emboldened her, and she says she will visit at least 25 colleges in 2024, the next one being at the University of Notre Dame in late January. If protesters show up, she says she'll invite them in to hear her speak and ask questions.

"It's better than screaming down each other's throats. We're definitely lacking civil discourse in this country," she said. "And make no mistake: This is bigger than women's sports. This is about First Amendment rights. It's pretty terrifying going to a college and being told I shouldn't speak because I'm a bigot."

Gaines says colleges have been focusing too much on "a hoopla of nonsense" in the name of diversity, equity and inclusion. "Parents are fed up. It should, and it will, play a big role in the presidential election."

She also says she gets threats "daily," some of which she turns over to the FBI, such as one that reads: "You have a death wish and a target on your head. You can't hide from a sniper rifle and neither will private security save you."

And she says her focus in 2024 will be to get various "Women's Bill of Rights" legislation passed both at local and federal levels. In February, Republican congresswomen Debbie Lesko, Diana Harshbarger and Mary Miller reintroduced such a resolution in February that, if passed, would define words like "woman," "father" and "mother," though it would not have the force of law behind it.

"The 'wokeism' culture of denying the scientific differences between a man and a woman squanders the progress former generations of women fought so hard to achieve," Harshbarger said when reintroducing the bill.

Olivia Hunt, policy director for the National Center for Transgender Equality, dismissed the resolution in press reports as "another in a long line of cynical attempts by anti-LGBTQ extremists around the country to erase transgender and nonbinary people from our communities."

Despite formidable opposition from the pro-trans rights community, which Gaines said includes the mainstream media and academia, she said she's unafraid to let the court of public opinion determine whether or not she's on the right side of history.

"I'm proud to be an activist who's on the ground," said Gaines. "I've met too many others who are just talking heads and aren't putting in the work."