#2115 - Riley Gaines

So, to say that this is a totally different path than I could have ever anticipated doesn't do it justice.

So, I come from a family of athletes. Started swimming when I was four, graduated when I was 22,. so, you know, 18 years of my life I really dedicated to my sport. Impossible to put into words, you know this, the time and the hours and the dedication and the sacrifices that it takes to compete and ultimately be successful at the highest level. But of course, I was willing to do this, I knew I had to.

Right, you don't get to go to prom, you don't get to have sleepovers with your friends on Friday night, because guess what, practice at 6 a.m. on Saturday. All that to really say it's a lifelong journey. College rolls around.

Truth be told, I really could have gone anywhere that I wanted to swim. I'm absolutely biased and the SEC is the best conference, so I knew that was for me. But went to University of Kentucky, could not have been a better place for me.

Freshman year, right, there was a lot of adjusting, there was a lot of time and hours. I thought I worked hard before, I was wrong. We were in the water six hours every single day, with three of those hours being before 8 a.m. Right, so you practice from 5 a.m. to 8 a.m., go to class, come back, practice again from 1.30 to 4.30..

Ate your dinner, iced your shoulders, went to bed, did it all again the next day. We swam about 15,000 yards every single day, which is equivalent to like 10-ish miles. So, lots of adjusting. Sophomore year, still improving, though, still getting better. Sophomore year rolls around.

I really started having this breakout season, started doing some pretty great things. Really had finally developed a sense of consistency, I think. And about three days before we were supposed to leave for our national championships, which of course, you know, the NCAA, think about basketball, the NCAA tournament, equivalent in swimming, we were ready to go, the meet. you work all year, really all your life, for. About three days before we were supposed to leave in March of 2020, our coaches pull us out of the water, sit us down, say, look, you know, if you live in the dorm rooms, pack your stuff up, you have to leave campus tonight.

Of course, COVID had hit.

I didn't really know what this meant at the time. There's still a lot of uncertainty around this. So, I thought this meant we got a weekend off, we got to go home, we'd quickly return. But of course, that was not a correct assumption. Because upon going back home, home is Tennessee for me, right?

There were no pools open, there were no gyms open, nothing like that. And so, every day, I swam miles, aimlessly in the lake. I'd put on a wetsuit and I'd jump in the boat dock and I'd swim down by Johnny Cash's house, and I came back and I did the same route every single day. Because again, I knew that I had to, if I wanted to continue this breakout season, I was having my junior year, or my sophomore year, into my junior year.

Right, and the amount of snakes that I swam by, and dead catfish that are floating on top of the water that hit you in your face while you're swimming is not pleasant.

But eventually, we were able to come back, junior year.

We had to deal with all the COVID theatrics, which I'll be the first person to say that being a college athlete, really being a college student, I would argue being a human during the time of COVID was miserable, to say the least. But especially being an athlete, right, in terms of the mask mandates, and the social distancing, and the contact tracing, and the mandatory vaccines. Which, have you ever seen? a swimmer in the pool wearing a mask?

And ultimately, I concluded my junior year placing seventh in the country. Which, I was proud of, right? You're top eight, you're an All-American, it's a pretty high honor. But I knew right then and there, that I placed seventh in the nation my junior year, that my senior year I had a goal of winning a national title. So that's kind of the backstory to now, kind of finding out about all this other stuff going on.

Senior year rolls around. About midway through my senior year, I'm right on pace to achieve my goal. I'm ranked third in the nation, behind one amazing female swimmer, who I knew very well. Because, you know, like in most sports, your top-tier athletes know of each other, regardless of where you compete, because you've grown up competing against each other. So I knew this girl very well, trailing her by a few one-hundredths, tenths of a second, maybe.

But the swimmer who was leading the nation, by body lengths, might I add, which is a very large margin in swimming, right? A sport that's measured down to the hundredth of a second. This swimmer was leading the country by multiple seconds. Was a swimmer that I had never heard of before. And this is the first time that me and my teammates became aware of a swimmer named Leah Thomas.

For all we knew at the time, right, keep in mind, we hadn't seen a picture of this person, or else things would have been a little more clear. For all we knew at the time, this was a senior from University of Pennsylvania, which is not a school that historically produces fast swimmers. Now, I would argue, is not a school that historically produces really anything good.

Leading the nation by body lengths, ranging in events from the hundred freestyle, which is of course a sprint, and all the freestyle events in between through the mile. Which, if you don't know swimming, right, think about this in terms of your Olympic runners. Because that's like saying your best 200 meter runner is your best marathon runner. You and I both know that that doesn't happen, they're two totally different systems. But that's what we were seeing in this person.

So I'm scratching my head, right, I'm talking to my coaches, my teammates, who is this person? We had no idea. And we continued to stay in the dark until an article came out. And in this article, very briefly disclosed in a blip of a sentence, as if we were really supposed to just read right over it, it says Leah Thomas is formerly Will Thomas and swam three years on the men's team at University of Pennsylvania before deciding to switch to the women's team. And so when I read this, of course, I was shocked, naturally.

But really it was kind of like the sense of relief that I felt. Because at this point I went to look up who Will Thomas was. Because, admittedly, I was curious. You know, was this a lateral movement? Someone who went from ranking amongst the best of the men to now continuing to rank amongst the best of the women?

Which is, of course, not what we saw, right? We saw that this was a mediocre man, and that's generous, at best, ranking 462nd in the nation the year prior when competing against the men.

But that's why I say I felt relieved. Because I thought that the NCAA would see this, how I saw it, and how, again, my teammates saw it, how my coaches saw it, how my family saw it, how anyone with any amount of brain activity would probably comprehend this. Look, nothing hateful about it, nothing even opinionated about it. The sheer facts on the paper in front of us, that this was not a lateral movement by any means. But lo and behold, the NCAA did not see it that way.

They saw absolutely nothing wrong with this. And so, about three weeks before our national championships in March of 2022, they released a statement saying that Thomas' participation in the women's category was a non-negotiable. Basically saying that, look, there was nothing that we could do. As female athletes, there was no questions that we could ask or concerns that we could raise. We were told that we had to accept this with a smile on our face.

So that's kind of the lead-up to that national championships and really how myself and my teammates and really the nation, the world, actually found out about Leah Thomas. And I will say, I'd heard of this happening in sports before,

but I'd really only heard of it going the other way. So women,

females who wanted to self-identify as men, then going to compete in the men's category. Which, look, I didn't ever agree with. I never necessarily supported it. But maybe at the time I didn't see a problem with it, right? Because no one's, I guess, competition, the men's competition isn't being threatened.

So, you know, I thought it was dumb on the woman's behalf, but whatever.

But yeah, the policy that had been in place since 2010,. so obviously this is a pretty old policy, 12 years at the time, that's what it stated.

So now, for swimming, they would resort to looking at World Aquatics or FINA, which is the international governing body. For soccer, they'd look at FIFA. For rowing, they'd look at U.S. Rowing. They don't want a blanket policy anymore, and again, they don't want to be responsible or accountable.

And then you have other sports that have gone the total opposite way, like soccer, for example, that leave it up to self-identification. Basically, you just compete where you feel best.

And we were told we fully had to treat this person as a man.

Optics purposes here, to give you perspective of what this looked like from our eyes. Okay, finals of the 100. freestyle. Top eight women in the entire nation. Air quotes women.

Air quotes women. Yeah, for those that don't have video, air quotes women. Top eight women in the entire country. And you've got a six foot four man in a women's swimsuit with a bulge, next to a woman wearing only a Speedo with nothing covering her top.

Your reaction was my reaction, so I'm sitting there watching this. I'm thinking to myself, it's me. I'm the crazy one. It must be. This is the freaking Twilight Zone.

Kelly J. Keane was there, who is a phenomenal women's rights activist out of England, and she was there. And I'll never forget, I'm standing on the pool deck. And at this point in time, like, of course, me and all my teammates and my coaches, we all knew this was wrong. But it's still, I didn't know how to talk about it or what to say, or what outlet to go to.

And I remember hearing her from the stands, and she just said something that we were all thinking, and she yelled so loud, he's a cheater. And I was like, oh, my gosh. I needed to hear that. So there was a lot of booing, as you can imagine. Lots of silence.

Not as loud, if I'm going to be honest, not as ugly, which I think that gets a lot of media time when you have these men with beards and these big signs. That certainly catches a lot of cameras. So they were definitely there. And looking back, like I said, like being able to see them, it inspired me. It gave me courage to be willing to kind of put my name and face to it, because I was scared at first, based on just kind of the silencing tactics that were used to keep us quiet, right?

Like we were told, you know, you'll never get a job if you speak out about this. Your employer is going to look you up and see that you're a transphobe, and you don't want that, do you? You don't want everyone to think that you're transphobic.

How can you be an outside professional who sat us down and taught us how to use she, her pronouns? Again, a senior in college. I'm like, am I really?

I kid you not. The university responded back with, and I have a screenshot of their response. If you, as women, feel uncomfortable seeing male genitalia, here are some counseling resources that you should seek in an attempt to re-educate yourselves.

So, who knows?

One second might not sound like a lot of time, but in the sport of swimming, again, measured down to the hundredth of a second, one second is significant. He beat the entire nation of women by almost two full seconds. Even the time he went last year would have beat every girl in the country this past season by nearly two full seconds, making him the first man to win a Division I NCAA women's title, trailblazer. But the second day of competition, the day after this, he and I raced in the 200 freestyle. So, look, we get on the blocks, dive off, swam.

eight laps of freestyle, touched the wall. at the end. I look up at the scoreboard, and almost impossibly enough, Joe, we had gone the exact same time, meaning, of course, we had tied, which is incredibly, one, it's incredibly embarrassing for a six-foot-four man to not even be able to beat, like, a 5'5 female. But again, going a minute and 40-ish seconds, and not even one one-hundredth separated us. You can't tell me, that's not divine intervention.

Tied, we get out of the water, we go. Yeah, you can see here, we both went 143.40.. Not one of us going 143.39 or 143.41, tying.

Get out of the water, go behind the awards podium.

The NCAA official looks at both Thomas and myself. Thomas, who is towering over me, right, 6'4", and this official looks at both of us and says, great job, you two, but you tied, and we only have one trophy, so we're going to give the trophy to Leah. Sorry, Riley, you don't get one.

My heart rate was still high, having just competed. My adrenaline was still pumping, and so the first thing that I thought ended up being the first thing that I said, and the first thought that I had was just what you had just said, right? Like, isn't this everything that Title IX was passed to prevent from happening? What do you mean? you're going to give the trophy to the man in the women's 200 freestyle?

I asked the question that no one dared ask all season, and I said, why? Which, of course, he didn't have an answer as to why. They didn't give him a script of what to say when someone asks you the dreaded question of why. And so his first excuse he came up with, he's stumbling on his words, and he's, well, we're actually just doing this in chronological order, he said. And so I said, okay, do you mean alphabetical?

Because G comes before T. Otherwise, I literally have no idea what you're being chronological about. Right? We tied. So again, what's your rationale here?

And finally, he realized that he didn't have a justification. He didn't have an answer for this. And so, and I actually appreciate his honesty, this is when his face changed. He looked sad. His voice changed.

I could tell he didn't even believe what he was about to say. But this official looked at me and said, Riley, I am so sorry, but we have been advised as an organization that when photos are being taken, it's crucial that the trophy is in Leah's hands. Again, you can pose with this one, but you have to give yours back. Leah takes the trophy home. You go home empty-handed, end of story.

We can eventually mail you. one, is what they said. So it was kind of, it was like that moment when I could, like. I felt guilty at that point. I felt guilty for participating in the farce.

I felt guilty for even getting in the water at this point. And so it kind of hit me. I won't say I was necessarily cowering, because I didn't feel like that to me. I wasn't necessarily scared to approach the topic. I just thought someone else would.

I thought a coach would say something. I thought some other swimmer. I thought someone with political power, someone within the NCAA. Quite. honestly, I thought someone's dad would come down there and yank this man out of our locker rooms.

But it was in that moment where we were standing on the podium, myself included. I'm standing on the podium, and we're clapping, and we're smiling, and we're cheering. And it hit me. I'm like, what in the world are we clapping for? Because, I mean, really what we're applauding is our own erasure, our own demolition.

And so it was right. then, and there that, again, like a slap across the face, I was like, how in the world can we as women, as female athletes, expect someone to stand up for us if we aren't even willing to stand up for us? Like this has to come from us.

So, again, I knew all season the unfair competition was wrong. I knew all season that the locker room aspect was wrong. I knew that the silencing that we were facing from our universities, I knew all of that was wrong. We all did. But it wasn't until this official reduced everything that we had worked our entire lives for down to a photo op to validate the feelings and the identity of a man, at the expense of our own, that's really when I decided that I couldn't continue being silent.

Even some of his teammates, had spoken anonymously at this point.

And so we had been, this training that we went to. previously I mentioned, where we had to learn how to use she, her pronouns. We were also told that any media opportunity that came our way, we had to forward on to our sports information director.

And my coach, Lars Jorgensen, who had coached there for 10 years at the time, amazing and supportive of me. But a lot of the kind of silencing and submission stuff came from the academic, academia side or the compliance side of things. So my athletic side of my university was wonderful. But yeah, the compliance side, I was even told specifically, Riley, remember, you signed a scholarship. And when you sign that scholarship, they went as far to say you gave away your rights to speak in your own personal capacity.

Remember, you represent us. Remember whose name is across your chest and across your cap, because it's not your own. It's ours.

It's the same story, because it's always the same story where this mediocre man who swims three years on the men's team decides his senior year he wants to join the women's team to become a record smasher. Same thing happened there. These girls, they're getting in contact with me, saying, hey, this boy on the boys team wants to join the women's team. But they told me that they got to vote on if they wanted him on the team or not. And so these girls, you know, they're talking to me.

They're like, yeah, there's 17 of us on the team and all 17 of us are going to say no. And I was like, that's great. You know, we haven't seen really unity in this topic amongst the whole team. So that's wonderful. And so they go into their meeting where they were told they got to anonymously vote.

The coach walks in, has the boy with him. He says, hey, I know I told you the vote was going to be anonymous, but it's actually going to be by show of hands. And I'm going to let the boy here give a speech before. So the boy gets up, gives this talk, and he says, hey, if you don't vote, yes, I will kill myself and it will be your fault. So, as you can imagine, 13 of those 17 girls changed their vote to yes.

And it's because they were told they were going to be a murderer.

And you don't want to be a potential murderer, do you? No. So I suggest you be kind and I suggest you be inclusive.

Right. And how in the world did they manage to achieve that? And I think a lot of this truly, again, being a college athlete during the time of COVID, I think that's when they learned they could control us. Because, again, our universities told us during that time, my junior year, the vaccines were mandatory. You had to get the vaccine.

Me, look, at this point, I'd already had COVID. Right. I had the natural, I had the antibodies, which I thought was the best natural immunity. I'm young. I'm healthy.

I'm not anti-vax or anything like that. But I just didn't really see the point of me getting the COVID vaccine. And so I said, no. I said, I'm not getting that. They said, Riley, remember, you're the team captain.

You're going to be hurting your team if you don't get it. And you're supposed to be the leader, Riley. And so I really struggled with this because I didn't want to be hurting my team. Before my own personal success, I cared about how my team did, how my teammates did. And so I really struggled with this.

But finally, I realized, you know, mandatory didn't actually mean law. It doesn't actually mean required. And so I stood my ground. But truthfully, I think that's the first time that I learned how to stand up for myself. And I think that incident, and really the whole COVID thing, helped me stand up for myself my senior year.

When, again, the same tactics, the same emotional blackmail and gaslighting, really, that they were using, I think it helped me my senior year too.

They use this crazy term that seems like, well, it's got to be good. It's life-saving, gender-affirming. Sounds positive.

But that's not the message that they're being sent.

And so I'm sitting there one day and I'm like, if this was an algebra equation, wouldn't those words biological, just like cancel each other out? Like, why are we saying that? And then it hit me. I'm like, how silly and redundant, as if I have to add that prerequisite of biological to declare I'm a biological being. That's so dumb, quite frankly.

And when we say it, it's as if we're subconsciously admitting that there's an unbiological alternative to being a man or a woman, or a male, or a female, or a girl or a boy. And there's not. Right. So, yeah.

Like, I'm very particular about what I say. Like, I won't call, I'll call, I try and just call Thomas, Thomas. But people can legally change their name and like, whatever, whatever.

Transparency. So, yeah. All of that to say, to get back to the very first question, never in my short 23 years would I have imagined that it's necessary to take the steps and the actions that we're taking. To even have to define this word. woman.

Right. Right. But we've reached a point now where not only is it necessary, I would argue that it's urgent we define this word. In the nearly 250-ish years we've been established as a country, we have never struggled to define this word. Yet here, in 2024, we have a sitting Supreme Court justice who can't even answer what a woman is because she claims she's not a biologist.

Right. Well, guess what? I'm not a veterinarian, but I know what a dog is. That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard in my life.

Come on. And they're really aggressive. They are. But everyone on the side, it's like, this is fucking crazy. Most of those people have jobs and families and obligations, and they're fucking busy.

And they do not have time to sit at a council meeting with these fucking lunatics.

It's like a zombie disease that made its way across the entire country. And they were like, oh, who got bit first? Exactly. Can we figure out what the fuck happened here? Who's doing this?

How is it possible that anyone with children, anyone who's a father, who has daughters, is okay with this? How is that possible? This is nonsense at the highest level. And even though it's completely, it's not like close, you know? It's not like, well, I kind of see their point.

No. It's not even remotely close. And yet it has been taken up by a giant swath of the greatest country the world has ever known. Like, that is very bizarre. And what I was going to say earlier is Douglas Murray, who's the British intellectual, is a brilliant guy.

And he said this. And he started saying it years ago. He's like, whenever a civilization is in collapse, they become obsessed with gender. It becomes a thing. It was with the Greeks and the Romans.

It's like, it seems to be like a symptom.

You got 50% of kids in some colleges are LBGTQ2QIAS. What? How is it 50%? This is a fucking mind virus. Like, what is going on here?

And what Douglas has said is that you could find this throughout history.

We used to be a country that proudly said, in God. we trust, in one nation under God. You look at the breakdown of the nuclear family and really pinning parents and kids against each other. You look at the breakdown of our freedoms, such as the freedom of speech. You look at the propaganda that's being spread through the media.

I mean, the list goes on of all of these different little things. If you put them together, it points in one direction. And that direction, not to sound conspiracist or crazy here, is truly Marxism. Or, right, like you, talk to someone from North Korea, or China, or Germany, or Cuba, or Brazil, or Venezuela, or Russia, or any of these countries that have once embraced this socialist, communist, Marxist regime. And they will tell you that it's a slippery slope.

And it's a slippery slope, but by the hands and feet of our own leaders, the people in the White House, we are actively being led down. And, like you said, sex, the most basic of truths, the sheer essence of humanity, hate to break it to you, myself, every single person watching and listening, you're all here for man and woman. So being asked to deny that is as if we're being asked to deny that the sky is blue, or being told to say 2 plus 2 is 5.. And if anyone has read 1984 or had a brief understanding of history, like you said, you will understand what it means when we start saying 2 plus 2 is 5.. It's a pretty scary, chilling thought, really.

What they did to do is do that so that if you can get compliance with absolutely everybody, so if you can get the people who don't need this medication at all to mandate it for children, for young, healthy athletes, for people that have zero fear of dying from COVID, and if you can force them into doing it, you can kind of force them to do a lot of things. If you can force them to accept the most chaotic notion that we shouldn't have a border and just let people run through, and if it's terrorists, well, hey, maybe they want a better life.

It makes it harder on not only Americans but the people who want to do it the right way.

Why would you need a union when these people are just happy with whatever you give them?

So to me, what this looks like is the planned and controlled destruction of this nation.

Reasons why? I don't know if it's to get voters. I don't know what really the purpose is. But make no mistake, this is planned and it's controlled, again, by the people leading this nation, which is a terrifying thought.

But if I was going to do it, if I was an evil person who had this goal of the destruction of America, that's how I would do it. I would get everybody involved in the most nonsensical, bullshit arguments. It's like, use 78 different gender pronouns. And if you don't call somebody a Z-Zer. We had this conversation with Christopher Ruffo the other day.

And under this new rewrite, it is sexual harassment. You would be guilty and charged with sexual harassment if you, a 17 year old girl, who's housed with a male in your dorm room, if you go to your administration and complain, expressing that you feel uncomfortable being housed with a male, you're charged with sexual harassment. Not the man who's parading around your locker room or your bathroom. No, that's brave or stunning, or inspiring, or whatever other virtuous word they want to use. But you calling a spade a spade is grounds for sexual harassment.

And here we are, and it's moving further and further in that direction. You're seeing gaslighting on an unprecedented level. There was this group of people that got interviewed by the New York Times that are super fans of Joe Biden.

It's wild. I mean, it's wild. It's wild to see these people. I think he's amazing. And I think what he's doing is the greatest, the greatest one term that any president.

He's done more. Karine, Jean-Pierre, or whatever the fuck her name is, said that the other day. She said that this administration, they asked him, why does Biden need cue cards for everything? Why does he need cue cards when he sits down? Why does he need cue?

Like, why does he need those things? This was the question. And she just rattles off how. what Joe Biden has done more in these three years than most presidents do. in two terms.

Literally, what? List it. Open the border, kill the economy, fund two fucking crazy wars.

Whether you're a fucking lifelong Red Sox fan or you're a Democrat to the death. Blue, no matter who. And there's people that just do that proudly. It's true. They announce it on Twitter and they get a bunch of people with 30 cats in their comments, all commenting, yay.

It's on both sides. Mentally ill people. Oh, 100%.

And so my values as a Christian align more conservative. But what I've noticed these past two years, I'm really eye opened to the amount of corruption, to the amount of string pulling, to the amount of really crazy people on both sides. So we talk a lot about the left because they don't try and mask theirs, at least the like, very extreme radical left, like those protesters or the people who protest me, which, like, psycho. I was in Milwaukee recently and I had protesters stand outside my hotel room for hours, Joe, hours chanting, Riley can't swim. I'm like, that's the best you got?

Riley can't swim? It is. I love it.

So we see the left being crazy. Yeah. But there's some crazy people.

And I'm a grown man. If I was an 18 year old boy and that happened, or a 16 year old boy and I encountered them, I'm young and impressionable, 100%. I could get sucked into it. You can get sucked into the left. You could get sucked into the right.

And then you're around like minded people. And the nuttiest, most ambitious and most fucking psychotic of that group are the ones in the far outlines. It's the Patriot Front on one side and it's Antifa on the other side. Come on. And this is what happens.

And this is what happens with human beings. And those people, they'll allow the Antifa people to fucking blow up things and light things on fire. Like, well, some violence is necessary to achieve the means. It's like the strong arm of the Democratic Party. And then for the right, they've got to kind of ignore the really loony right wing fucking Confederate flag dudes.

Like, you've got to like, kind of push those aside, too. But it's, it's just a. who's in charge. The Democrats, they're in charge. Who's running the media?

they don't look at the outside noise. I think it's waking a lot of people up, which is a good thing. That's the beauty of a democracy. Really, the American Republic is having the people as the power. We, we do have the power.

And I feel like we're. we're engaging those people. Yeah, I think so.

If you have more people that are, this will give you more of that. And it's just a way to control businesses. And the whole thing is just all about money. It's all a gigantic con game. And the more like.

I said, if I was a fucking tinfoil hat guy, if I was thinking this is someone trying to destroy the country, this is how I would do it. I would have people willing to vote for their own demise, not advocating for freedom. If that freedom gives freedom to the people that are opposed to them. We're so stupid and close minded. We're willing to burn it all down just to silence people.

Right. Take away everyone's freedom, because I don't want that person disagrees with me to have freedom.

Like my fucking dad was saying that, like watching these people. today, it's like you're. the orcs are fighting against the hobbits. Like this is crazy. So opposed.

It's like so polarized. And again, if I was from another country and I was trying to ruin America, I was like, how could I do this? That's how I would do it. I would do it this way, and then I would do it through social media, and I would have the Democrats almost universally control social media. Of course they do.

Except this one wild African-American, this one wild genius dude decides to buy Twitter. Isn't it amazing? Amazing. If he didn't do that, we would genuinely be fucked. We would be in a real pickle.

I really think that he has almost single handedly. There's been. there's been, I would say, some pivotal people or groups in this culture who have really helped turn some things around. I think the Babylon Bee has done a phenomenal job. But they were banned from Twitter.

If you're Elon Musk, you can do it. But there's like maybe five of those guys on Earth that could just buy something for 44 billion dollars. That's crazy. That's really probably worth half that. Right.

So you can never justify it on paper. No. So he's an insane person. He is. Who's dedicated to free speech.

He just happens to have 200 billion dollars. So he can step in and do that. And when they tell him about advertising, that was one of my favorite speeches ever. He's like, go fuck yourself. Isn't that awesome?

It was amazing. It was perfect. If you're going to blackmail me with money, you're going to do that? Go fuck yourself.

Right. We picture men as these, like dominant, aggressive, assertive leaders who protect and provide. Our nation is failing because we don't have those male leaders. We don't have people who are, who have backbones and a moral compass. But Elon Musk has the perfect combination of a backbone and a moral compass, which is sad when you think about it.

So? he literally has to step in and buy a social media platform. And then, upon doing so, they release all these emails to these journalists like Michael Schellenberger and Matt Taibbi. And you find out through all this that they've been in contact with the FBI, and the FBI has been telling them to delete accounts and get rid of posts.

I think it says two. Does that say two? It says two sexes, male and female. So I was right.

Like we hear that the Chinese are spying on us and going to take our information and blah, blah, blah. So I didn't want to post on TikTok for a long time. But I had a profile. I'd sometimes view videos, again, never really posting. And then one day I go to my profile and I have like 20,000 followers having never posted.

I'm like, this is crazy. Like, clearly there's an audience here on TikTok. And it's unique because it's a younger audience, which has been a big push of mine is to target younger people, people my age, to really engage them and help them see what's going on. So I was like, maybe I will start posting to TikTok.

My videos went viral and every single video is like deleted now. But I have like almost, I think, 400,000 followers, having only posted like a couple of times. It's crazy.

This is a propaganda machine.

It has access to your keystrokes. So, like, say, if you're using TikTok and then you're also, like, sending emails, it's going to know what your emails are. It's going to know. It's going to be able to listen to your voice. It's going to be able to videotape you.

It's going to have access to all sorts of aspects of your phone, not necessarily saying it's going to use those things, but it's going to have the access to it, all that's in there. Now, imagine a scenario where China attacks Taiwan. China attacks Taiwan. And all of a sudden, we're in this weird proxy hot war with China, as well as a weird proxy hot war with Russia. And then China starts fucking with the phones.

All these people that have TikTok on their phones. How many accounts are there? How many different people can they target that have children? And then these people are high level political people. How many people that are in board meetings?

How many people that are coming home on their phone having conversations in private with their wife about the real problems that we have right now with corruption and the Biden laptop is real? That kind of shit. Right. They're going to have all those recordings. They're going to literally be able to listen to anybody they want.

They've paid people. What they've done is really fascinating. They've gotten, like, high speed Internet routers and cell phone routers. And they sell them cheaper. And so people buy them.

And they've already found that some of these have third party accessibility. Right. And they're putting them near, like, nuclear facilities. The Chinese people are like, we'll sell you these cell phone towers cheaper and just put them over there where you fucking test jets. And we're like, wow, that saves some money.

What a great idea. And so we buy all their shit. And their infrastructure is everywhere. They own farmland everywhere. All over the country.

And they own a lot of farmland that's around military bases.

You need tanks and guns and planes, and weapons and bombs and shit.

Yeah. Of teachers or adults, or whoever these people are.

And right, they do this under the guise of human rights. It is not a human right for anyone to sexually abuse a child. So all that to say, there's this big push, so it seems. Whether it's the gender ideology movement, there's this big push to seemingly normalize pedophilia. Which is grotesque.

It is perverse. It's disgusting. Parents who are okay with this, Democrats who are okay with this, who vote in favor of a lot of this nonsense stuff. You're a sellout to your own child. And, honestly, I think there's a separate conversation that needs to be had.

If you are an elected official voting in favor of this stuff with kids. I think there's a separate conversation that needs to be had involving CPS. Because again, that's disgusting to say the least.

Like they can't help who they identify with.

And look, that's not to say that people who identify as trans are evil. I don't necessarily think that. But what is evil is deception. Manipulation is evil. Temptation is evil.

Lying and affirming delusions, that's evil. And that's exactly how Satan works and how he operates is in the darkness. But now a lot of it is coming to light, again, thanks to people like Elon Musk.

In the beginning, there was light. If you told that for thousands of years, that's what that would be.

Finally, it's like there's so much like what was really said, what was really going on? Because a lot of it seems too on the money. Like if we wanted to try to put this through some sort of a logical filter or figure out, like, is someone really trying to warn us about the natural progression that all societies and all civilizations go down if you don't have a moral compass and if you don't follow and adhere to the rules of God?

I think Jesus, his return is past due.

UFOs would be pretty wild. UFOs on the White House lawn would be wild. Jesus on the White House lawn. Wow. That would be the game changer.

All done through the Leadership Institute, which is just a phenomenal group. But a lot of these college campuses. I speak on. The protesters, when they hear I'm coming, they'll go to Reddit. And they'll start going off.

Which is hilarious to look at. But honestly, it's kind of scary. Like a lot of these people. For instance, I was at San Francisco State a few months back.

Which was my first mistake. Going to freaking San Francisco. But I went there with the intention of talking about what you and I have talked about. At least from that national championship standpoint. Everything that we went through.

Why it's important. I went there. And what a naive thought. To think that these people, these students, would come with an open mind. And the willingness to have their hearts soften.

Because they did not. They came with their pitchforks and fire. And upon me delivering my speech in a classroom setting. So like a podium. at the front.

There's seats in the class. Upon delivering my speech afterwards. A group of protesters entered into the room. Hundreds of them. Turned off the lights.

Rushed to the front. I'm being shoved and hit and jostled. I'm so confused. what's going on. Punched, right?

But fortunately for me. Men in dresses, their punches don't hurt that bad. But ultimately these protesters ended up holding me for ransom. Throughout the night. Demanding that if I wanted to make it home to see my family safely again.

I had to pay them money. All the while. you might be wondering, okay, well, where are the police? Joe, it's San Francisco. The police are being held for ransom in the same room with me.

I'm looking at the police.

Pretty sure I'm being held against my will. Pretty sure we call that kidnapping. Isn't there something you can do to like alleviate what's going on here, to deescalate and get me home safely?

No. Actually, we can't. We're not allowed to be seen as anything other than an ally to that community. The same community who's on the other side of that door, calling them racist pigs for protecting a white girl like me.

at this point. They have come back now and said that the charges are alleged. There's nothing they can do. There's no evidence to prosecute or press charges against anyone.

I'm looking at this. Keep in mind, the dean of students shows up when I'm being held in this room for hours and hours, four hours, through the middle of the night in this room, and the dean of students shows up. He's negotiating with the students how much I owe each of them to get out. The price that I had heard was agreed upon through the side of the door was $10 each, which I'm mad about, because I think I'm worth more than $10..

We're hungry.

We see you. We hear you. We love you. Again. Nowhere in there did they condemn violence against women, for that matter.

Nowhere in there did they say we uphold our First Amendment and the freedom of speech. No, of course not.

Let's talk about you. Great. I really need to focus on me. And then more about you and how amazing you are. You hit this lady who said that men shouldn't be able to compete with women.

Fucking duh.

Like, what? Imagine that, like, this is what I'll say. Right. This is how I'm going to get him. I'm going to get him right here.

Yeah, that'll work. I'm going to tell him I paid it all in cash. Sorry, no records, all in cash. Where'd you get the cash? I had cash.

They have no idea. with the pressure, like, that you've experienced. Right. Like, you've experienced at a young age, as a person who had no desire to be famous other than be a great athlete, out of nowhere, you get hit with this barrage of attention where you're on Fox News and this and that, and newspapers and some people are labeling you in the most horrible way, and some people, we're proud that she's standing up for women in sports and you've got this conflict and you're in the fucking center of it. Right.

And you've got crazy people who rush the stage and hit you and the cops say, we can't do anything that doesn't show us as an ally to that community. Like, that's not even America. Like, where are, that's La La Land. They're living in the Willy Wonka Chocolate Factory. Those people are out of their fucking minds.

Right? You take something that should have never happened to anyone, but you do good with it. And that's certainly what I've been trying to do over these past, again, two years. And it has. There's been a lot of good stuff that's been done.

We see a lot of the negative. We see a lot of the bad. And certainly that's what's highlighted, because that's what gets attention. That's what gets clicks. That's what gets likes.

But now, in just two short years, 24 states have some sort of fairness in women's sports bill, when only, I think, three years ago, only one state did. So that's pretty incredible. Lots of traction. Lots of momentum. Like I said, four states implementing a bill now that defines the word woman.

We've seen lots of pushback at the IOC, the International Olympic Committee. So there's been lots of good things that have been done. And I certainly choose to celebrate the little wins when we get them.

My parents did it. My parents made me play sports. And when, you know, my dad being a professional football player, he did not, I won't say he didn't, he never really cared what sport I played. But when I started swimming, he's like, Riley, come on. That's not a sport.

I'm like, Dad, it is a sport. Like, it's hard. Like, we work hard. He's like, no, Riley, that's not a sport. Then I started dating a swimmer.

And my dad was like, Riley. Any sport, his justification was, any sport where a man has to wear panties and competes, like they're gay, Riley. He's like, you're dating someone who's gay. I'm like, Dad. And now he's my husband.

And now, of course, he knows he's not gay and he's the best.

Right. Like, I can't even put into words, like, the feeling of having your back turned and all of a sudden, again, naked, hearing a man's voice in the locker room. It's like, it was innate, inherent, for every girl in that changing space to cover themselves. Like, whether it was with their hands or their towels or their clothes, like it was inherent.

We don't need to. And secondly, like, you'll go to jail and I don't want you there. So I got this. I can handle it. Which, again, the things that I think set me apart from some of my teammates or competitors or other people in my same position is, right, playing sports.

I credit so much of my success and impact that's been had to playing sports. Secondly, it's having a strong family foundation. I have two parents, two amazing parents who love each other. Everyone around me, like my grandparents, all in very healthy, loving relationships. I don't have a lot of divorce around me or in my family or anything like that.

I've got lots of siblings. We're all so close. So I think my family foundation is a huge aspect, too. Again, what kind of set me apart. And third, again, is my faith.

Just knowing the outcome, like we've just previously spoke about, like knowing how this all ends and really trusting that and having faith in that, and just knowing the battle is already won, that's certainly what keeps me grounded and keeps a smile on my face and an incredibly light heart, even when these crazy freaks at San Francisco are like running at me. The first thing I do is pray for them. I'm like, oh, my gosh, you look miserable, and I can't imagine having that much hatred in my heart. So I think all of those things are kind of what maybe made me a little different, the combination of those things. No one thing over the other, but set me apart from some of my peers.

Actually, I know you're similar, right, where, like the messages I get daily from parents, from coaches, from young female athletes who this is happening, to, who they don't know what to do. I should talk to the girl. I don't know if you saw this video. It was the basketball game in Massachusetts recently where you've got this like six foot something guy who injured three girls before halftime of this game, causing the team to have to forfeit because they didn't have enough players left to play the game.

Talking with this team and this girl, like. she's 13 years old, and she's getting pummeled to the ground by this guy, and she's online reading the comments and stuff, which I never advise, but she is, and there's people calling this girl a wuss and saying that she's being a baby and she's fine, and she reads that, and it's really hard for her.

I very proudly finished my career as a 12-time All-American, five-time SEC champion, the SEC record holder, the fastest person to ever come out of the SEC in the 200 butterfly, making me one of the fastest Americans of all time, SEC Scholar Athlete of the Year, SEC Community Service Leader of the Year. I mean, I could keep going on. And it's like, this senile old man wants to attack me? He still lives with his mom in her basement. I had to ask my dad.

I'm like, who is this guy? I don't even know who he is.

Yeah, my dad loved him. But then he got really nutty during the Trump administration, and that Trump derangement syndrome, that's a real thing. It's a real thing. And I think there's some people that are fragile already. The world is just like to the anxiety and this and that.

And also this position of being the person of virtue, the angry, loud voice of reason, that's a weird banner to carry. when you don't have your own shit together, when your own life is chaos, your fucking mental health is very unsteady, and you're out there preaching and telling people what to do. And as you start losing, and Trump's the president now, and you're like, he's going to get arrested, he's going to get arrested, and he never gets arrested. And then they're just going to take him off the ballot,

You get a little bit of a win when Biden won, and then the chaos after the Biden administration, and all the things that we knew were true, that he was mentally compromised, all those things come after. That's not a win. So then you're just in this constant state of anxiety and chaos.

Almost like he would want you to come after him, because you came after him so hard, it was so funny. When you showed all your medals and all your shit, what the fuck are you talking about, stupid?

But let me tell you, it was so cool, because the SEC saw this video that I had made, and dropping one of my all-SEC first-team honors, and they sent me a new one. And they were like, we're so sorry that you had to waste your time and break a trophy over. Keith Olbermann. We wanted to send you a new one.

Do you have a family? Do you have a life? Do you work? I'm so confused how you have time. All day long, every hour of every day, to be posting something.

That's their life. It is their life.

And they don't go outside. And they wonder why they're depressed.

The people aren't doing these things. Right.

And then here they are just getting after it with strangers. Getting, fuck you, if you're Hitler, you fucking Nazi. It's like, it's so wild to see. And it's all getting accentuated by algorithms, specifically to try to extend your engagement, keep you hooked. And then, when you see something like TikTok, that will not let opposing viewpoints, even viewpoints that are clearly-.

Go to sleep. Get ready for war.

When I see Rachel Levine stand in front of everybody and give advice on health, I'm like, what the fuck are you talking about?

Are you sure I should be listening to you on anything?

Manhattan character.

If you're going to be left, if you're going to be on the side of the good people that want a social safety net and they want welfare and free education, if you're going to be on that side, you also have to be on the side where perverts don't exist anymore. There's no more sex offenders. There's no more pedophiles. There's minor attracted people and trans men, and gender dysphoria is just problematic and transphobic, and what it really is is just your identity, and there's a spectrum of genders, and if you don't use ZZer, we're going to put you in a cage.