The swimmer tied a trans woman for fifth. The MAGA industrial complex took care of the rest. At a White House ceremony last February, before President Donald Trump signed an executive order to defund schools if they permit transgender girls to play girls’ sports, he turned and looked over his shoulder. Behind him stood former college swimmer Riley Gaines, wearing suffragette white in a crowd of young female athletes and conservative activists. “You’ve been waiting a long time for this,” Trump told the 24-year-old. Almost three years, to be exact. Since tying for fifth place in a March 2022 championship race against transgender swimmer Lia Thomas, Gaines has used the story of their matchup to leap to the vanguard of the anti-trans movement, campaigning not just to ban trans women from women’s sports, but to end public acceptance of transgender people.
via mother jones: How Right-Wing Superstar Riley Gaines Built an Anti-Trans Empire
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