Riley Gaines, the former NCAA swimmer who competed against transgender athlete Lia Thomas, visited the Republican National Convention on Tuesday, where she spoke with Fox News Digital about her message to New York Attorney General Letitia James and Democrats who argue they’re the party for women’s rights.
Gaines, a guest of the New York GOP and former Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin, spoke to Fox News Digital outside the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a day after James sued Nassau County, New York, Executive Bruce Blakeman over a newly-enacted county law that would ban biological males from competing in women’s sporting events at county-run parks and facilities.
“I wish I could say I was surprised by the actions of the attorney general, but as we have seen from her history, this doesn’t surprise me. She seems to go after anyone with a dissenting viewpoint to the narrative that her and her party is pushing,” Gaines told Fox News Digital, expressing gratitude to Blakeman.
“It’s hard being in the position that he’s in one of the largest counties, to do what he has done, but it’s common sense,” Gaines said outside the convention center. “This is not a battle of right versus left. This is a humanitarian issue. The message that’s being sent by those such as the attorney general of New York, is that girls don’t matter, is that our safety doesn’t matter, and our sports, our privacy doesn’t matter in our locker rooms, and our equal opportunities don’t matter.”
‘PUTTING OUR GIRLS AT RISK’: BIDEN’S TITLE IX CHANGES CHALLENGED BY NEARLY 70 GOP LAWMAKERS
Former Rep. Lee Zeldin with Riley Gaines, outside the Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee on July 16, 2024. (J. Conrad Williams, Jr./Newsday RM via Getty Images)
James, who also led the prosecution over former President Trump’s businesses in New York, filed a lawsuit Monday against Blakeman, claiming, “Nassau County is once again attempting to exclude transgender girls and women from participating in sporting events while claiming to support fairness.”
The state attorney general said in a statement that she and the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) already succeeded in having Blakeman’s “transphobic” executive order struck down and “now this discriminatory law must be as well,” adding that “here in New York, every person has the right to be exactly who they are free from discrimination, and my office will always protect that right.”
Democrats, including President Biden, have campaigned on being the party of women’s rights and have aligned themselves on the issue of abortion ahead of November following the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade. But Gaines argued that Republicans are truly the party best protecting women’s well-being when it comes to transgender athletes competing for women’s and girls’ titles and beyond.
“The Democratic Party is the farthest thing from being the party of or for women. They can’t even define what a woman is,” Gaines told Fox News Digital. “So how in the world can you claim to defend what you can’t define? Why I’m here is to merely share the simple message that men and women are different, but it’s really broader than just the sports angle.”
University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas and Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines react after finishing tied for fifth in the 200-freestyle finals at the NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships on March 18, 2022, in Atlanta. (Rich von Biberstein/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
“The Democratic Party is the total denial of truth,” Gaines claimed, “objective truth, biological reality, a truth we have never struggled to understand in the nearly 250 years we’ve been established as a country, that truth is man and woman.”
Gaines, who a year ago endorsed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for president, threw her support behind Trump on Tuesday. DeSantis, who ended his 2024 White House bid in January, also spoke in support of Trump as the newly-official Republican presidential nominee on the convention stage later Tuesday night.
Former collegiate swimmer Riley Gaines testified during a House subcommittee hearing on Dec. 5, 2023, focused on the Biden administration’s proposed rule changes to Title IX. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
“In November, I will be voting for Donald J. Trump. And I encourage every female, every woman, every mother, every sister, every daughter, to also vote for Donald J. Trump,” Gaines told Fox News Digital. “There is only one party, there is only one ticket that will uphold sex-based protections that will fight for sex-based rights such as safety, privacy and equal opportunity. Whether that’s sports, whether that’s prisons, whether that’s domestic violence shelters, whether that’s bathrooms, sororities, locker rooms, dorm rooms.”
Last week, the U.S. House narrowly passed Resolution 165, which aims to block the implementation of the Biden administration’s new Title IX protections overhauling the Education Amendments Act of 1972. The new interpretation redefines the definition of sexual discrimination to include gender identity.
“210 Republicans voted in favor of protecting women and girls in sports, upholding Title IX’s original intent,” Gaines said, while slamming the 205 Democrats who voted against the resolution.
“Every single last one of the mothers and fathers of their own young daughters, all 205 Democrats who voted in opposition of protecting women and girls in sports are in our dorm rooms, our locker rooms, our bathrooms, our scholarships, compelling your speech,” Gaines said. “Again, how as a woman could you vote for that, knowing not just for yourself, but for the next generation? So that’s why I will be voting for Donald Trump.”
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