voice,” Gaines said to Senator Blackburn in the weeks follow- ing her competition against Thomas. “Before I said anything publicly a couple weeks ago, with myself being the first or second to protest this, I have realized there are so many girls who feel the exact same way as I do but are told they can’t say anything, or they’re scared because today’s culture is ‘cancel culture’ and they don’t want to risk their future in athletics or future career. There are so many things that can be taken down with it.” She continued: “But what I’ve real- ized is if we want a change, you have to use your voice. We have to let people know as a group that a major- ity of us female athletes — or females in general — are not okay with this. We’re not okay with the trajectory of how this is going or how it could end up in a couple years.” As the left continues its war on biolog- ical reality, the act of simply stating once widely known truths — as Gaines has done for the better part of two years — has become heroic. For the sake of women’s sports, women’s rights, and the God-given dignity of every human person, every American should hope that other young women will follow Gaines’s lead and heroically use their voices to restore reason, order, and common sense to our culture.
June 11, 2023 - Riley Gaines speaking with attendees at the 2023 Young Women’s Lead- ership Summit hosted by Turning Point USA at the Gaylord Texan Resort & Convention Center in Grapevine, Texas. Gage Skidmore / CC BY-SA 2.0 DEED
ical assault from the left. Following a Turning Point USA event at San Francisco State University in April 2023, Gaines says she was “ambushed and cornered” by pro-trans activists before one “struck” her repeated- ly — a jarring reminder of the left’s embrace of political violence when its views are contested. Since her NCAA snub nearly two years ago, Gaines has toured the nation to tell her story and speak about the crucial importance of protecting women’s spaces, as well as the importance of free speech on college campuses. She has encour- aged other female athletes to come forward and defend their rights and dignity as well, warning that radical gender ideology continues to pose an existential threat to the future of women’s sports.
Gaines has also testified before Congress, appeared on major cable news shows, and is now officially affil- iated with conservative groups like the Independent Women’s Forum. She also hosts “Gaines for Girls,” a weekly OutKick podcast in which she discusses America’s accelerating cultural decline. Additionally, in August of 2023, she opened the Riley Gaines Center at the Leadership Institute, which “identi- fies and recruits those targeted by the left” and “trains them to fearlessly, relentlessly, and eloquently defend America’s founding principles and to become powerhouse leaders who work in positions of influence to keep America true to those principles.” “The thing I’ve learned the most throughout all of this is to use your
Aaron Flanigan Aaron Flanigan is the pen name of a writer in Washington, DC.
28 • AMAC Magazine
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