Riley Gaines Appeals to Famous Female Athletes to Speak out Against Transgender Participation in Women’s Sports

Wim De Gent
By Wim De Gent
May 10, 2023US News
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Riley Gaines Appeals to Famous Female Athletes to Speak out Against Transgender Participation in Women’s Sports
Former University of Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines speaks at a rally outside of the NCAA convention in San Antonio, Texas on Jan. 12, 2023. (Darren Abate/AP Photo)

Riley Gaines, a former National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) swimmer who has spoken out against biologically male athletes competing in girls’ and women’s sports, has urged famous female athletes to join her cause.

“Each day for the next week I’m going to call on well-known female athletes to take a stance on this issue because silence is complicity,” Gaines announced on Twitter. “We need their voices.”

The first two athletes Gaines addressed were tennis superstars Venus and Serena Williams.

“How do you feel about males competing against women?” Gaines asked the legendary sisters on Monday.

Gaines became outspoken on restricting women’s sports to biological females exclusively after tying for fifth place with transgender swimmer Lia Thomas in the 200-meter NCAA championship last year.

In early April, Gaines says she was assaulted and then “ambushed” by a mob of trans activists after giving a speech at San Francisco State University.

“The pendulum has swung too far,” Gaines told The Epoch Times. “Women should not be put in danger because we feel uncomfortable sharing a changing space with someone of the opposite sex. We shouldn’t be put in danger because we want our sports to be safe and fair.”

As more transgender athletes have joined women’s divisions, they have been defeating female favorites left and right.

“It’s the 50th anniversary of Title IX and women are facing the reality of losing their scholarships if the Biden admin changes their guidelines. I support Riley’s boycott if females are forced to compete against biological males,” Caitlyn Jenner said on Twitter.

Before identifying as a transgender woman and adopting the name Caitlyn, Bruce Jenner won the men’s gold medal in the decathlon for the United States at the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal.

Men Competing Against Women

Meanwhile, a video clip from 2013 has circulated on social media that shows Serena Williams telling Late Night talk-show host David Letterman that she’s rather play against women than men.

“For me, men’s tennis and women’s tennis are completely almost two separate sports,” the tennis icon said. “If I were to play Andy Murray, I would lose, 6-0, 6-0, in 5 to 6 minutes, maybe 10 minutes.”

“The men are a lot faster, they serve harder, they hit harder—it’s just a different game,” she explained.

Together, the Williams sisters hold 14 Grand Slam doubles titles and 30 Grand Slam singles titles—23 for Serena and 7 for Venus—and have given viewers some of the most exciting moments in women’s tennis ever.

Yet during the 1998 Australian Open, the two budding superstars were both easily beaten in an impromptu ‘Battle of the Sexes’ match by Kartsen Braasch, a male German tennis player who was ranked 203rd in the world at the time.

“Venus and Serena had seen some of the male players practicing,” Braasch later explained. “On the basis of what they saw, they were convinced that they could beat a man ranked around 200 in the world, and wanted to set up a game. I didn’t take much persuading, it seemed like a fun thing to do.”

“I won my game against Serena 6-1 but by the time we were at the net shaking hands, Venus was on the court, ready to have a go against me as well,” Braasch told Essentially Sports twenty years after the event.

“The game against Venus was very similar. I ended up winning 6-2.”

So far, the Williams sisters have not replied to Gaines’s question.

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