Riley Gaines, the collegiate swimmer who swam against Lia Thomas in the NCAA Championships in 2022, has released a podcast titled Gaines for Girls. I wrote about Riley Gaines in my previous article here, where I address her gradual shift toward overt transphobia shortly after I interviewed her. In the first episode of her podcast Gaines speaks with Sharron Davies, a professional swimmer who competed in the 1980 Olympics.
Sharron Davies represented Great Britain in the 1980 Olympics, and swam against an East German swimmer named Petra Schneider. The East German swimmers during this time were involved in a doping scandal. The German Democratic Republic was providing testosterone to their athletes in the hopes of winning medals, which they believed would enhance their state image. Petra Schneider was one of the athletes who received testosterone, and because of this she ultimately beat Davies.
Davies discusses this scandal with Gaines in the first episode, and she compares what she went through during the Olympics to what Gaines and other female athletes are going through now competing against trans women. She makes this comparison despite trans women competing with reduced testosterone levels. Trans women are able to reduce their testosterone levels down to cisgender female levels in as little as 4 months. The women Davies competed against were regularly given testosterone, under the guise that they were vitamins. Davies even mentions that they had developed masculine features, meaning they had been on testosterone for quite some time. The testosterone in this case benefited the females Davies competed against, but the comparison to Lia Thomas for instance doesn’t make sense considering she suppressed her testosterone for two years prior to competing against cis women.
Davies at one point tells Gaines that male puberty is irreversible, and that essentially nothing changes with hormone therapy. She says males naturally have larger hands, are taller, and even minute differences such as having a larger Q angle. The issue with this argument is that everyone has genetic differences. There are plenty of cis women who are born with PCOS for instance, an estimated 10% of the U.S. female population at that. Having PCOS tends to result in higher testosterone levels in cis women. Davies’s argument about nothing changing during hormone therapy is also provenly false. In just a year trans women experience redistribution of body fat, decreased muscle mass and strength, breast growth, decreased libido and several other physical changes. Ironically, despite Davies being an advocate that trans women have male advantages over cis women, she has praised Michael Phelps even though he would also fall under the category for having an advantage over other swimmers.
Davies mentions at one point about the IOC (International Olympic Committee) deciding in 2016 that trans women no longer need to undergo surgery to compete against cis women, however what she failed to mention is that they still required trans women to undergo hormone therapy. She says…
I could see a train coming toward us, that we were going to end up with the same situation that we had with the East Germans. Where they were dominating because of male puberty and that’s what was going to happen, it was going to cascade.
Davies again conflates the situation with the East Germans and trans women. Davies just said that male puberty causes larger hands on males, being taller, etc. physical changes that cannot change. However, she then says that the East Germans won because of male puberty, but taking testosterone does not increase hand size or change your height. There are of course physical changes such as muscle mass, facial hair, a deepened voice, etc. but those changes are not occurring in trans women, they occurred in cis women who were given testosterone. Once again, trans women have been required to reduce their testosterone levels before even being allowed to compete with cis women. She then throws out a bogus claim that there are fifty trans women cyclists across the United States who are dominating records. In reality, the International Cycling Union just placed a ban on trans cyclists because of a single trans woman who won.
Gaines uses this information provided by Davies to reinforce her stance that it is a larger problem than activists would have people believe. Gaines says that trans activists argue that trans women are not dominating competition, and that the legislation against them is uncalled for. Gaines must not be aware of the sports ban that was implemented in Utah because of a single trans girl who was registered to compete in high school across the entire state. She must also not be aware of a similar bill in Ohio where only 3 trans girls are approved in the state to the compete. Trans people, myself included, say it is uncalled for because it is. There simply is no evidence to suggest that trans people are dominating sports either at a high school or international level.
Gaines asks Davies what she thinks about the safety for women when it comes to allowing trans women into female spaces. Davies once again conflates two separate situations, one being if a man exposed himself out in public, and the other being Lia Thomas sharing a locker room with Gaines and other females. One situation being an intentional exposure, and for some sexual gratification, and the other being a trans woman using a woman’s changing room because she’s a woman. Gaines even said in my interview with her that she never felt Lia would intentionally make anyone uncomfortable, and never personally felt uncomfortable by her presence. Of course, however, she’s going to agree with Davies.
In the last little bit of this interview, Davies tells Gaines that men’s sports would never let this happen. She details several examples of potential cheating that have occurred in men’s sports that men put a stop to, but she never mentions that men’s sports actually don’t care if trans men compete. Just look at Patricio Manuel, a trans boxer who just won in his third professional match. Is anyone causing an uproar over this? No, because believe it or not trans people are not dominating in any sports. Do trans people win sometimes? Yes of course, but why shouldn’t they? Especially when the wins are so far and few in between.
Davies also addresses that equality in women’s sports still isn’t there. She mentions pay inequality, sports airtime, and that men are typically able to earn their living with sports. But, with all this being said, she doesn’t give any reason or examples of how this would benefit trans woman in any way. Trans women are competing in female categories as a women, so they’re facing the same exact inequalities Davies mentions. Davies and Gaines seem to believe that trans women transition solely to compete in women’s sports and that they’re misogynistic for doing so, despite also facing misogyny themselves.
Gaines continues to spread misinformation about trans women with this podcast, and it is so clear that neither of these women know anything about transitioning and what hormone therapy actually does. They continue to spout claims without providing any evidence, they make comparisons that don’t relate to the topic at hand, and neither one of them care about the women that are harmed with their egregious lies.