Riley Gaines is an American former competitive swimmer from Gallatin, Tennessee. In 2022, while swimming for the University of Kentucky in the 200-yard NCAA freestyle championship, Gaines tied for fifth place with University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas, who became the first out trans woman champion in the NCAA women’s division. Since then Gaines has lobbied against the inclusion of trans women in the women’s division of sports, been a frequent guest on right-wing media, travels nationwide for panels advocating against transgender people, and campaigned for anti-trans candidates for public office including Rand Paul, Ron DeSantis, Kim Reynolds, Daniel Cameron, and others.
—Repeatedly and falsely claims that trans women pose a sexual and physical threat to cisgender women, both in and out of the environment of athletics. In fact “transgender people are over four times more likely than cisgender people to be victims of violent crime,” according to a study by the Williams Institute.
—Encouraged retaliation against libraries and library staff (including doxxing) that refused to allow speakers to misgender people, a violation of library policy. A bomb threat later forced evacuation of the library and an elementary school.
—Campaigned for Kentucky anti-LGBTQ gubernatorial candidate Daniel Cameron who has focused his on targeting transgender youth, who make up an estimated 0.7% of Kentucky’s 13–17 population. Says Gaines in an ad: “This is Lia Thomas. He’s a male that claims he’s a woman … And this is trans-rights activist Andy Beshear. He vetoed legislation that would ban men from competing in women’s sports. And this is Daniel Cameron. He’s running against Andy Beshear. He’ll protect women and our sports.”
—With her viral post (and those of Chaya Raichik who runs the far-right anti-LGBTQ hate account LibsofTikTok), fueled harassment of and violent threats against a transgender high school student in Missouri who was elected homecoming queen.
—Encouraged harassment of two high school athletes, both minors, who said they dropped out of competition out of fear for their safety. Riley misgendered them and accused them of cheating simply for competing with other women athletes.
—Compared the gender transition of transgender TikTok creator Dylan Mulvaney to blackface: “This is a man, a man with a fetish, who is gleefully putting together all the stereotypes of women.”
—Lied about Pride merchandise at Target stores and attempted to associate it with satanism saying, “If you look at the children’s clothes in Target, they are targeting children. It’s sick, it’s perverse, it’s disgusting. And if you look up this person who they partnered with to do all the illustrations, this person is an open satanist. It’s criminal what they’re doing.” In fact, there was nothing criminal about the merchandise and none of the items bore satanic imagery, but images of UFOs and planets.
—Appeared on Fox News 29 times, a total time of more than two hours and 38 minutes, between April 2022 and the end of May 2023. She has recently expanded on her platform spreading misinformation about transgender people in sports to include falsehoods about transgender people’s existence and safety in society, according to Media Matters.
—Participated in a “Panel on Transgenderism” at the annual CPAC conference. Gaines alleged that trans inclusion in women’s athletics is just one part of a widespread attempt to “eradicate women as a whole,” a conspiracy theory. As noted in the GLAAD Guide to Anti-LGBTQ Online Hate and Disinformation, the current usage of “transgenderism” as a term arises from anti-trans extremists and is crafted to delegitimize and dehumanize trans people by implying that being trans is an ideology rather than an identity.