A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein - Riley Gaines： Tie for 5th, Grift for Life

00:00:00.000 we get out of the water uh we go yeah you can see here we both went 143.40 and so we tied and

00:00:07.200 we go behind the awards podium where the ncaa official looks at thomas and myself and says

00:00:11.440 great job but you guys tied and we only have one trophy so we're gonna give this trophy to leah

00:00:18.400 uh so we're gonna give this trophy to leah so we're gonna give the trophy to leah we're giving 0.91

00:00:23.920 this trophy to Leah. If you come in first, you'll get a gold medal. But if you come in fifth,

00:00:30.620 actually not even come in fifth, but if you tie for fifth, you can be on Fox News for the rest

00:00:36.760 of your life. Hi, I'm Matt Bernstein and welcome back to A Bit Fruity. It's really too bad I'm not

00:00:42.600 better at swimming riley gains is someone who you might not be familiar with by name but you are

00:00:56.780 more than probably familiar with her face with her appearances on fox news with her appearances on 0.84

00:01:02.800 every conservative talk show i do always wonder like how many people actually have any idea who

00:01:07.920 she is like outside of this little you know what i mean i don't know i've told a couple people that

00:01:13.060 i'm doing this episode and they were like who and then i show them a video and they're like oh

00:01:17.840 really anytime i see content where she's featured it's just 10 000 comments being like

00:01:24.380 finally a champion for women yeah i mean if you get like really deep in her replies she also has

00:01:30.620 a dedicated group of like transvestigators which is another like very funny and completely inevitable

00:01:37.500 thing. And even if you aren't familiar with her name or her face, you've almost definitely felt 1.00

00:01:43.380 the effects of Riley Gaines' right-wing rhetoric, the effects of the laws that have been passed that

00:01:49.520 she's lobbied for, the effects she's had on Donald Trump's administration, all of which we're going

00:01:56.560 to get to. But one of the things that I really set out to do with this podcast, and that's partially

00:02:01.820 because I personally take great interest in doing this, is learning more about the people who are

00:02:08.600 shaping our political and cultural landscape today, whether that be Fox News talking heads

00:02:14.220 like Riley Gaines, influencers like Chaya Rachik of Libs of TikTok and Ali London, these people

00:02:20.380 who accrue so much social and political capital, not to mention financial capital. Like all these

00:02:27.200 people, they're just ranting about trans people for clicks. It's actually really remarkable. Like 0.91

00:02:31.520 i grew up like hardly hearing about trans people and i i just think like all of these people on

00:02:39.000 the right who are talking about us constantly are ensuring that like there's no kid who's like

00:02:44.980 making it to adulthood without knowing that some people are trans the the grift du jour the grift

00:02:52.100 really of the year the grift perhaps of the 2020 so far is just the anti-trans stuff it's a very 0.74

00:02:57.360 convenient entry point into like a fruitful career in conservative news like everyone's

00:03:02.520 jerry springer now everyone is jerry springer now but like worse right i mean jerry springer

00:03:07.980 wasn't pretending to be like protecting a group of people riley gains is like pretending to be 1.00

00:03:12.240 a feminist everyone just wants to see somebody throw a chair throw a chair that's a jerry springer 1.00

00:03:18.480 thing. I know I have never felt more ancient actually can see the gray hairs popping up. 1.00

00:03:29.040 To help us learn more about Riley Gaines, the woman who tied for fifth place in a college swim

00:03:35.360 meet and has made an extraordinarily lucrative career out of it. We are joined today by none

00:03:41.740 other than Ari Drennan, who is the LGBTQ program director at Media Matters for America. Media

00:03:48.220 Matters is basically like a watchdog for conservative bias in media, as Ari would

00:03:54.480 describe it. We watch right wing propaganda all day and tell you about it so you don't have to.

00:03:59.060 Before we start, if you would like to support this show, if you'd like more of the show,

00:04:03.640 you can get that over on Patreon. I've forgotten to plug my Patreon for the last several episodes.

00:04:09.400 I'm doing a great job of this whole self promotion thing. But I have a number of bonus episodes

00:04:14.760 coming out the one that i'm working on right now is actually about what conversion therapy looks

00:04:19.140 like right now and using the lore of youtube star lohanthony who was you know reborn christian and

00:04:26.480 no longer gay you know it's a lot of stuff but researching it and filming that shortly and that

00:04:31.600 will be up there in a few days yeah you can support the show on patreon the link for that

00:04:35.360 will be in the episode description conversion therapy stories are always just so hard to watch

00:04:40.000 Because all I can think of when I when I see these people is just how broken the people in this marriage are going to end up being in 30 years when they turn when it turns out that they still don't connect.

00:04:51.860 And then also just how that gets put onto the children.

00:04:55.140 It's really bad to have somebody who's like in your close family who's living in the closet and it impacts everyone around you.

00:05:01.440 like i don't know i know this is a tangent but i just i wish that people would be more honest

00:05:06.640 about that because it it feels like a lot of times there's this kind of like you know the

00:05:11.260 choices to come out and ruin your family or to like stay in the closet and everyone will be happy

00:05:17.820 but like that's not what people in the closet are like you know what i mean it's just something i

00:05:23.180 have like way too much personal experience with should we jump into riley gains early life right

00:05:28.400 now i'm just thinking of like what's the hook i feel like the hook is that she wanted to be a

00:05:32.320 dentist and then she happened to touch the wall in a swim meet at the same time as a trans woman 0.92

00:05:38.860 and now she's a media star maybe if she had only swam a little better that day she could be a

00:05:44.020 dentist and we wouldn't even be talking about this i mean what's wild about that is she actually had

00:05:48.500 a bunch of times that were faster than leah's times so it was like kind of a combination of

00:05:53.600 her having an off day and leah having a really good day history could have been so different

00:05:58.420 right riley gains could be a dentist i yearn for a world in which riley gains is a dentist and i

00:06:03.280 don't have to talk about her but we don't live in that world and so we're gonna that's the hook

00:06:08.380 that's the hook riley gains my dear listener riley gains was born on april 21st 2000 i'm sorry i just

00:06:17.260 have to stop it there she's she is 24 she's so young my little sister was born in 2000

00:06:22.900 you know she's 10 years younger than me i just think about like how she's gonna feel about all

00:06:27.900 this in 10 years it feels really likely to me that she's set up for some kind of political career

00:06:33.160 but i i just like i can't imagine defining your life around a college sporting event and you know

00:06:40.780 the role that this like relatively minor slight has taken on in her own mythology i just i have

00:06:47.920 no doubt that she feels she's doing the right thing now. But she's got a lot of time ahead of

00:06:53.120 her. Riley Gaines was born and raised in Nashville, Tennessee. Both of her parents were college

00:06:58.740 athletes. Her dad was a football player. And as she tells it, she began swimming as a four year

00:07:05.360 old. Riley was a high school swimming champion in the 100 yard butterfly and freestyle races.

00:07:12.020 and then she went on to swim for the university of kentucky riley competed in the d1 ncaa women's

00:07:19.760 swimming and diving championships as a junior she came in second in one of her races and seventh in

00:07:24.640 another i i you know there's a lot of dunking on riley gains that happens for good reason and

00:07:29.880 there's certainly a fair amount of dunking we're going to do in this episode but like 0.99

00:07:33.340 she is a very talented swimmer you know i don't i don't know how much she swims now but she was a

00:07:38.820 very talented swimmer people will like try to knock her and be like oh well you're just a

00:07:43.220 mediocre swimmer like did she get to the olympics no but almost so she's a junior at university of

00:07:50.400 kentucky she swims in the ncaa championships she does well she doesn't win any of the races but

00:07:55.980 she does really well and then she comes back for that same meet as a senior and it is at this meet

00:08:01.640 that the pivotal moment of riley gain's life thus far or at least in the way that she kind of

00:08:07.940 mythologizes her life this is where that happens tell me what you think about this but based on my

00:08:13.180 time sort of like surveying a lot of people in right-wing media and like these conservative

00:08:18.760 influencers and these fox news people especially like the relatively single issue ones like riley

00:08:24.320 gains has made hating trans people her single issue they take what you described earlier as a

00:08:29.840 personal slight and they use them to like draw greater conclusions about like the injustices of

00:08:35.780 like woke ideology or something and they I'm like beating myself to the punchline of Riley Gaines

00:08:41.120 career but they kind of just like use these things that happen to them and recite them again and

00:08:46.660 again and again and again and again and again and again on every conservative podcast like on every

00:08:50.420 like like a trans person did this to me one time or like you know look how woke ideology and they

00:08:55.940 just like talk about it forever it's really interesting actually because I feel like they

00:09:00.440 have this idea of the left as being obsessed with trauma but there's this especially in the

00:09:06.720 anti-trans grifter space this real lack of interest in personal accountability that i find

00:09:12.800 very odd you know like ollie london can't just say like oh yeah i screwed up and got too much

00:09:18.400 plastic surgery right it's like somehow trans ideology is to blame for it and you know same

00:09:24.160 with riley gains like it she can't just say like oh i had an off day or you know like leah had a

00:09:29.260 really good day it's like this great systemic injustice i think it kind of flows downhill

00:09:35.400 of trumpism right where it's like donald trump has never done something wrong that he's aware of

00:09:41.680 like it's always like the system was rigged against him it just like it really reminds me

00:09:46.500 of you know when i was a little kid in little league i was really bad at little league really

00:09:52.280 really bad like i was so terrified of the ball but my my mother insisted on me playing and you

00:09:58.560 of like what i wouldn't get put in it was never like well yeah you're not really good it was like

00:10:02.940 oh the coach is like biased against you or the coach was like biased against his own kid and

00:10:07.460 everything's a conspiracy to like leave you out which to me is just like a really uncomfortable

00:10:14.100 way to see the world yeah it's interesting because like those systemic biases do exist

00:10:21.120 but like not towards people on the basis that they're cisgender right and i just like i don't

00:10:27.020 know i i've been out as a trans woman for like a while now and it is really easy to get in your

00:10:33.340 head and be like oh this person did this because i'm trans or whatever and i don't want to deny

00:10:38.940 that that happens but it's also like not a very helpful way to see the world you know like i just

00:10:46.140 really strongly believe that like the only thing you have control over is how you react to what

00:10:51.640 happens in your life and you know if you're just like waiting for people to like do the wrong thing

00:10:57.300 all the time like that's what you're gonna see in the world not to get like super existential or

00:11:01.780 whatever so what happened at this swim meet so riley gains she's she's in for the 200 yard

00:11:07.580 freestyle race you all know the story why do i assume people know this just because this is like

00:11:13.320 common knowledge to you and me because we're always like swimming in the news of riley gain

00:11:17.900 like this is not something i'm like yeah of course my mom knows that leah thomas and riley

00:11:22.680 gains tied for fifth in the 200 yard freestyle at the 2022 nc double like what this is not something

00:11:29.280 people think about yeah i always wonder because like fox news's coverage of leah thomas they would

00:11:37.360 always just use this one swim meet where she was like super far ahead of everybody and there was 0.85

00:11:42.560 like a time delay before anyone else even like comes into the frame that's not what happened

00:11:47.220 with her and riley gaines right like they both lost to four other women and so i would be curious

00:11:53.940 like how many people actually know that riley gaines wasn't you know the second place person

00:11:58.780 or that leah thomas didn't win that race or just like what actually happened there which is they 1.00

00:12:03.920 both touched the wall at the same time right so leah thomas is a transgender swimmer that is 1.00

00:12:08.940 something that probably you do know because her name has been just absolutely blown up as she's

00:12:14.700 been called the face of like the transgender athlete issue essentially and what happened 0.94

00:12:20.120 in that race was like you said Ari Riley and Leah tie for fifth place not a meddling position 0.50

00:12:27.520 might I add no shade I would not have been in fifth place but you know and they both lose to

00:12:33.600 four other cisgender swimmers you know just to clarify Leah did not beat Riley Gaines both of

00:12:39.880 them lost to four other women that's that was what happened that was the catalyst for riley

00:12:44.840 gaine's entire career now and i think it's important that none of the four other women

00:12:49.120 that they lost to have ever like said a negative word about it like though i looked it up in the

00:12:55.540 first place finisher taylor rock who later went on to represent canada in the olympics actually

00:13:01.220 so this wasn't like the end of her swim career said competition is competition and she was excited

00:13:07.280 to race against someone who swam so fast. So, you know, it's not like there was this universal

00:13:12.700 uproar. Like, obviously, there were people stoked by the media to be very upset about Leah Thomas.

00:13:18.620 But Riley is the only person who's ever spoken up publicly about this race. 0.62

00:13:24.240 I want to send you a picture, which you've most definitely seen from the aftermath of this race,

00:13:29.360 where Leah and Riley are standing next to one another, both posing for the camera, 0.83

00:13:33.680 both smiling so I'm gonna I'm gonna send you this the reason that I wanted to bring this up is

00:13:38.060 because I was making my notes for this episode and I was looking at this photo which is a photo

00:13:42.800 that I've seen which is a photo that's been you know aired on Fox News a million times to show how

00:13:47.720 like horrifying or you know whatever this college swim race was and just this is the most emo I'm

00:13:53.920 gonna get about this okay but I see two people who are both seemingly happy who are standing a couple

00:14:02.440 feet away from each other who just both swam like there's no makeup you know i just see two people

00:14:07.220 who like in another world where there were not so many incentives and motives to divide and hate

00:14:14.820 one another that like could have i don't know like been friends and like learned from each other and

00:14:20.500 two people who like arrived at womanhood and in in different ways and and two people who are both

00:14:26.460 excellent swimmers and two people who in some ways have so much in common and i don't know 0.97

00:14:32.040 this is like my you know in mean girls where the woman who doesn't go to the school is like i just

00:14:35.940 wish we could bake a cake and love each other like that's how i feel looking at this photo

00:14:39.720 and it's it's sad to me that that is obviously not what happened yeah i think a lot about how

00:14:46.480 the modern social media environment around trans women and sports just creates this really 0.94

00:14:52.500 nasty incentive to be shit talking people on the internet i feel like in a kinder world 0.98

00:14:59.480 There are adults around who, instead of encouraging Riley Gaines to make a career of this, would have said, wow, like, it's unfortunate that you lost that race or that it's unfortunate that you tied that race, right? 0.99

00:15:15.960 Like, it's hard when we lose things or it's hard when we don't win in a competition, but there's a lesson in there, right?

00:15:23.400 And I feel like that's what the whole culture warframe takes away from us is that people

00:15:30.440 are always thinking about like, oh, like I have an incentive to, you know, really play

00:15:34.860 up this grievance.

00:15:36.360 And I just think it makes society worse for everybody.

00:15:40.600 Yeah.

00:15:41.540 And I don't know, someone could say that, oh, well, I'm doing the same thing. 0.96

00:15:45.440 And Riley gains direction because I don't like her.

00:15:47.400 And true, I don't like her.

00:15:48.740 Even in my dislike for her and my personal feelings that what she's doing as a career is like pretty evil.

00:15:54.860 I also think that like she's a human being.

00:15:56.920 I actually know that for a fact.

00:15:58.280 She's 24 years old. 1.00

00:15:59.640 She's capitulated to like numerous capitalist incentives to like prioritize hate over everything else.

00:16:06.740 And I think those are just choices that we all have the capacity not to make.

00:16:11.740 I think Riley Gaines evolution and the way that she talks about trans women is really instructive.

00:16:17.600 right after the race with leah thomas she was being quoted in the press saying like i wish leah

00:16:22.700 well in her transition really focusing on what she said at the time was the issue of fairness

00:16:28.820 in sports and it's just drifted so far away from that like a year later she's talking about leah's

00:16:35.100 genitals on joe rogan which by the way never mentioned at the time of the loss and then a

00:16:40.980 year after that she's posting pictures of can you hear my dog yeah he's very protective so if you're

00:16:49.160 watching this podcast and you're like i'm gonna go to ari's house just know that my dog will lose 0.99

00:16:54.560 his shit and then a year after that she's posting pictures of random like trans women in middle 1.00

00:17:00.840 school and high school and making fun of their appearance singling them out for mom harassment 1.00

00:17:07.520 And I always think the topic of audience capture and social media is really, really fascinating.

00:17:13.240 I think there's a really good chance that, you know, two, three years ago, Riley Gaines would be horrified by who Riley Gaines has become.

00:17:19.980 But as you said, she's responding to some capitalist incentives that have, you know, set her up comfortably financially, probably for the rest of her life.

00:17:29.220 So depressing.

00:17:30.260 It's so depressing.

00:17:31.260 So back to the day of the race, Riley would later tell it that, you know, it was this, it was this great injustice of our time that she and Leah tied for fifth. But not only that, do you know the story of the trophy?

00:17:43.240 I do know the story of the trophy. They only had one fifth place trophy at the swim meet. And so they gave it to Leah, which I'm sure is something that, you know, if you asked her, she would happily have given it over. And then Riley's trophy arrived in the mail.

00:17:58.540 That's the whole story.

00:17:59.480 And we raced and ultimately we tied. We went the exact same time down to the hundredth of a second.

00:18:07.420 And so we go behind the awards podium and the NCAA official looks at both Thomas and myself and he says, great job.

00:18:13.920 You guys tied. We don't really account for ties. So we're going to give this trophy to Leah.

00:18:19.660 What happened on March 17th, 2022?

00:18:21.640 Thomas and I raced in the 200 freestyle and again resulted in a tie.

00:18:26.240 We went behind the awards podium.

00:18:27.600 Well, typically, you're handed your trophy, you're marched out, you're named an All-American.

00:18:31.160 And so we go back there, and the official looks at both Thomas and myself and says,

00:18:34.320 great job, but you guys tied.

00:18:35.900 And we only have one trophy, therefore, we're giving this trophy to Leah.

00:18:39.060 We go back there, and the official looks at me and Leah.

00:18:41.620 We're about this far apart, and he says, great job, you guys tied.

00:18:45.660 Leah gets the trophy.

00:18:46.980 But it was the principle of him outright looking at me as if it didn't matter

00:18:51.740 and telling me that Leah got the trophy.

00:18:53.340 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.

00:19:08.940 The NCAA official looks at both Thomas and myself. Thomas, who is towering over me, right? Six foot four. And this official looks at both of us and says, great job, you two.

00:19:19.300 but you tied and we only have one trophy so we're gonna give the trophy to Leah and so we go back

00:19:26.260 there and the official looks at both Thomas and myself Thomas who's six foot four by the way

00:19:31.640 Wikipedia will tell you six foot one and Wikipedia is lying this official looks at both Thomas and

00:19:39.240 myself and says great job but you guys tied and we only have one trophy and so we tied and we go

00:19:45.860 behind the awards podium where the ncaa official looks at thomas and myself thomas who's towering

00:19:50.660 over me at six foot four me being five foot six and the official says great job but you guys tied

00:19:57.800 and we only have one trophy uh so we're gonna give this trophy to leah ultimately it's a fight over

00:20:04.220 participation trophies and who got one first yeah reading this i didn't even realize that there was

00:20:09.440 a fifth place trophy in swimming i like i don't know good for both of them i guess this is what

00:20:14.740 the boomers are mad about we're gonna talk a lot about riley gains the career that she made out of

00:20:21.100 all of this but like she will go on to talk about this trophy incident of like they gave it to leah

00:20:27.020 but they mailed mine to me as like like first of all like the worst thing that can happen to a

00:20:32.940 person and like also much worse than anything that could ever happen to a trans person as a result of

00:20:39.060 riley gaines rhetoric right i mean it sucks right like i i wish they hadn't done that i can

00:20:45.320 understand being a little annoyed by that in the moment but again i think that's somewhere where 0.91

00:20:50.460 like ideally you have some adults around who are like wow yeah that sucks like sometimes bad

00:20:57.020 decisions are made let's move on to dental school yeah which which she had already put in a deposit 0.57

00:21:03.240 for at this point oh my god really i i actually didn't know that yes according to her she she had

00:21:09.000 this point had like been accepted to dental school her plan was to become a dentist and she had like

00:21:14.120 secured her spot in a dental school before withdrawing it but let me not get ahead of

00:21:18.080 myself i literally wrote down in the little like trophy story section of my outline i wrote

00:21:23.060 i guess that sucks like yeah i mean it does suck to like come in the same place as someone and then

00:21:29.300 have them walk away with the trophy while yours is in the mail i just i guess in the grand scheme 0.87

00:21:34.540 of things this is hard to to care about i think like on an optics level like if you're trying to

00:21:40.100 make a statement about trans people being equal in places like this like ideally you give the same

00:21:46.680 trophy to everybody or or not you know again i think this is something that like i'm sure everybody

00:21:52.100 involved regrets deeply if they had known what they were creating certainly yeah this is kind of

00:21:58.680 like the the riley gains frankenstein moment she uses this story of having her trophy be sent in

00:22:04.720 the mail as opposed to given her that day for the rest of her career she uses the story as like

00:22:09.100 evidence of like anti-cisgender bias in society and like a world that like is just constantly

00:22:16.000 rewarding trans people and i just am unfamiliar with that world if it does exist but you're the

00:22:21.640 trans person on this podcast right now you tell me i always hear from people on twitter who are 0.97

00:22:26.540 like oh you became a trans woman because you were fucking up your career and like that would be a 0.98

00:22:31.980 very convenient story but i was like working on a presidential campaign i was like in my pipeline to 0.99

00:22:39.580 working the white house job which after i transitioned i decided i did not have any

00:22:44.620 interest in everything was going right for me and i was still miserable like despite all that which

00:22:51.380 is why I ended up deciding to transition and maybe you think that a non-profit media job

00:22:57.840 is like the best reward that somebody can get in our society and you know I have little

00:23:03.420 complaint about my job and I am very fortunate to have the platform that I do but when I 0.98

00:23:09.180 look around at the like rewards that trans people are supposedly getting it's like you 0.55

00:23:14.980 know a magazine cover occasionally or some more followers on twitter but like of the of the trans

00:23:23.640 writers and activists that I talk to a lot like you know nobody has like a staff media job like

00:23:30.440 nobody's regularly on air at a cable news network nobody's having an endowed position created for

00:23:37.480 them like Riley Gaines like nobody's appearing in presidential campaign ads and you know I don't

00:23:44.260 want to appear in presidential campaign ads under any circumstances but it's I think inarguable that 0.88

00:23:51.220 if you're becoming involved in the conversation around trans people the rewards are much much 0.70

00:23:57.180 greater on the anti-trans side especially I mean honestly like if you're queer oh yeah clock that 0.94

00:24:03.700 Caitlyn Jenner tea I don't know how much she's even getting out of this at this point like she 0.95

00:24:08.820 fox news has put her on one time in the last six months i never thought that the words clock that

00:24:16.300 caitlin jenner t would come out of my mouth but here we are oh god if you don't mind i want to

00:24:25.120 take a quick break from the show to thank the sponsor of today's episode rocket money you know

00:24:30.500 riley gains she might be set for life but us normals we did not tie for fifth place with a 1.00

00:24:37.740 transgender swimmer in a college meet three years ago. And as such, it's probably best we be a little 0.90

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00:25:54.120 And now, let's get back to it.

00:25:57.700 So, a career in anti-transactivism for Riley Gaines begins.

00:26:02.180 i started this section of my outline with just this screenshot of a headline that so riley 0.94

00:26:10.060 gains was meant to speak at a university and she was protested by a lot of the students

00:26:15.060 and in a headline about this riley gains was called an anti leah thomas activist

00:26:20.660 which i just think that's so accurate though it's that's exactly what i thought it's so funny like

00:26:27.180 how can you be an activist against a private individual who's like not even aspiring to do

00:26:32.920 anything except like swim the one time and it's already happened but also that is what riley

00:26:37.500 gains is she's an anti leah thomas activist i know i feel like leah thomas like sat foot outside

00:26:43.340 her house like once in the last three years and fox news immediately like got a photo yeah yeah

00:26:49.260 and we're gonna talk more about that too so riley gains graduates from the university of kentucky 0.98

00:26:54.960 in 2022, shortly after the race. As I mentioned, she had a scholarship and a deposit down for 1.00

00:27:02.000 dental school already, but pulls out because as she tells it, she felt the need to fight for 1.00

00:27:08.320 women's sports. Now, I'm not so sure that a deeply held desire to fight for the fairness of women's 0.90

00:27:15.600 sports is the reason that she pulled out of dental school. I think she already had multiple publishing 0.99

00:27:20.780 deals. But, you know, I'll let you decide for yourself. She starts speaking out right away

00:27:26.800 before graduation from undergrad, weeks after this race where she ties with Leah. She goes on 0.66

00:27:32.640 Marsha Blackburn's podcast. I got out of the water. We kind of like go behind the podium,

00:27:38.060 the awards ceremony place, and they'll distribute the trophies. And so I walked back there and

00:27:44.720 the NCAA official came up to me and he just said, hey, that was a great swim. We only have

00:27:50.660 one fifth place trophy which um which i understood i i get how that works they only account you know

00:27:56.220 for one fifth place winner so i get that but he said um we're gonna have to give the trophy to

00:28:01.860 leah yours will be coming in the mail i don't even know a senator could have a podcast oh you're

00:28:07.080 telling me you're not a regular listener of verdict with ted cruz all right despite what i put out on

00:28:14.460 the internet i do love myself a little bit he is it's it's especially weird with him because he's

00:28:20.560 always like going on fox news and then plugging himself as a podcaster it's like bro you're a

00:28:26.240 senator like his wife works at goldman sachs like i i he's literally just in it for the clout

00:28:32.580 earlier this year i went lobbying um on capitol hill and i met lauren underwood who's representative

00:28:38.380 and i was talking to her and she was like you know some people come here to serve the people

00:28:43.000 and some people come here to get a show on Fox News after. 0.92

00:28:46.900 And I thought that was a really cunty thing

00:28:48.420 for a sitting representative to say.

00:28:50.240 It's also just like so funny

00:28:51.480 because it's like not even consistently a good way

00:28:53.920 to get on Fox News after 0.87

00:28:55.360 because most of these people are deeply mediocre

00:28:57.960 and just like not good at media.

00:29:00.400 So the NCAA championships are in March of every year.

00:29:03.840 So that's when the race was.

00:29:05.200 April 1st, she's on Marsha Blackburn's podcast.

00:29:07.860 April 6th, she's on Fox News for the first time.

00:29:10.600 Me and Leah just recently tied at the NCAA Championships, and honestly, I think the NCAA handled everything extremely poorly, starting from when we finished and I went behind the podium to collect my fifth-place trophy, and they kind of blatantly told me that Leah would hold the fifth-place trophy and that I could pose with the sixth-place trophy for photos

00:29:38.600 and would be mailed a fifth-place trophy in the mail.

00:29:42.240 It's a matter of weeks.

00:29:44.680 Like, there's no time to metabolize what happened at all.

00:29:47.620 The right-wing media, I think, had really been looking for an incident like this.

00:29:53.440 And at the time that the Riley Gaines race happened,

00:29:57.380 they'd been covering Leah Thomas really, really heavily.

00:30:00.480 So in just six weeks between the start of December

00:30:03.780 and whatever comes six weeks after the start of December,

00:30:07.020 they they aired 32 segments about leah thomas and they just kind of continued at that pace

00:30:14.120 throughout the season so my guess would be that they were desperately reaching out to people who

00:30:19.800 competed against leah trying to get them on the air so that they could push this narrative which

00:30:24.600 had become a very politically important narrative in the early days of the biden administration

00:30:30.380 finally with riley gaines they found somebody who was kind of sympathetic to their overall

00:30:34.840 political project who was willing to be a participant in this when did the obsessive

00:30:41.380 leah thomas coverage start because i really know riley's timeline but i i don't really remember 1.00

00:30:47.680 leah being like this anti-celebrity for them before she started popping off so right-wing

00:30:54.180 media had been trying to make an issue out of trans athletes since just about 2019 just in 0.80

00:31:00.820 time for the 2020 election. Of course, it wasn't at all a problem for them before then. Media

00:31:05.660 Matters had been reporting on Facebook activity, which is where a lot of this stuff starts,

00:31:11.040 as you can imagine. And Facebook conversations were really being dominated by right-wing posts

00:31:18.020 about trans athletes. In 2019, there was a champion transgender cyclist who somehow has

00:31:24.540 since been completely memory-holed, but was covered really heavily by Fox News at the time.

00:31:29.500 and we looked in between January 2019 and March of 2021 there were 72 discussions on Fox News that

00:31:39.400 referenced trans athletes so by the time the race with Leah Thomas and Riley Games happens

00:31:45.940 this is something that the Fox News audience had been really heavily prepped to see and then

00:31:52.380 finally they had their example which doesn't even work as an example because neither of them were on

00:31:57.200 the podium but they they have their visual where leah thomas and riley gains are in the same photo

00:32:02.460 leah's four inches taller than riley not even because leah's like an unusually tall elite

00:32:08.220 swimmer she's about the same height as katie ledecky and missy franklin but they're very

00:32:13.860 good at kind of taking that visual and using it for propaganda purposes and so they really really

00:32:19.460 heavily covered leah thomas from kind of like the very start of her career and something else you

00:32:26.180 know when i was like prepping for this podcast that i found that i'd forgotten about was that

00:32:30.840 at one point leah races this other trans swimmer isaac hennig who's a trans man was competing on

00:32:39.060 the yale women's swimming and diving team and fox news really hyped up this swim meet i should say

00:32:44.680 that isaac was able to compete on the women's team because he was not at the time taking

00:32:49.300 testosterone and so they had this race and then isaac beat leah and it was very clear that right

00:32:56.680 wing media was disappointed by this outcome and then they started talking about how like obviously

00:33:02.300 the two of them had colluded to produce that outcome oh my god so you know they'd set this

00:33:07.580 up as this big like celebration of biological determinism and then it failed and then they 1.00

00:33:13.160 went looking for another thing that they could cover big trans is out to get you it's so true 0.81

00:33:19.160 big trans athletics colluding against fox news all five of them right

00:33:25.460 yeah exactly like talk to me when it's like big trans music or i don't i don't know right

00:33:34.640 i guess just one more thing which is that as early as 2020 idaho was already moving ahead

00:33:43.080 with legislation to try to ban trans athletes from competing. So that even predated Leah Thomas.

00:33:50.100 And, you know, it feels like she's stepped into this, probably having no idea what was going to

00:33:54.780 happen. To your knowledge, the laws that start popping up and then eventually getting passed

00:34:00.460 are like a seemingly a direct result of like the media frenzy around it.

00:34:04.240 I think it's fair to say there is not significant, and there still is not significant grassroots

00:34:09.760 pressure contacting right-wing state legislators and demanding that they take action on this issue.

00:34:16.500 This is a very, like, donor-heavy issue that, you know, I think is primarily a distraction.

00:34:24.360 So Riley Gaines is starting to experience a little her first taste, baby's first taste,

00:34:30.780 of Fox News stardom. By July, her podcast called Gaines for Girls launches in partnership with

00:34:37.380 outkick which is a fox-owned conservative sports news website by early august she's on stage with

00:34:45.180 donald trump speaking at cpac again just a wild turnaround that in march you're like some girl

00:34:52.660 competing in college swimming and again that's not to diminish the fact that she was a great

00:34:56.400 swimmer she was a great swimmer so great that she tied for fifth but sorry what this is what

00:35:03.400 happened but then by august she's on stage with donald trump we have a great person here where's

00:35:10.660 our beautiful great swimmer gains where's gains look at come up here will you please come up here

00:35:16.880 i guess i'm just amazed and i've spoken with this in other episodes about you know the thing that

00:35:22.400 you just mentioned about these people like seek people who can speak truth to the narratives that

00:35:28.340 they want to tell, right? And Riley Gaines was a willing participant. But just the speed with which

00:35:33.780 she goes from a college senior at University of Kentucky to collaborator of Donald Trump

00:35:40.300 is four months. A few weeks later, she's speaking with Trump at his rally in Arizona, where she says

00:35:49.160 I'm voting for Donald J. Trump because I am a woman. This is kind of a rhetorical tool she uses

00:35:55.200 a lot you know i don't think it's a secret to the right that they have a problem with women and i 1.00

00:36:00.980 think leaning into the idea that you could be like a right-wing donald trump supporting feminist which

00:36:06.360 you can't be but they found this in riley gains and and i mean what do you make of this like

00:36:12.420 i was i was watching a lot of videos of riley gains in preparation for this and the comments

00:36:18.820 in all of them are like a champion for women finally someone who will stand up for women

00:36:23.380 And but then you ask, you know, any of these people if they support like, you know, abortion or like women's education initiatives or workplace initiatives.

00:36:30.620 And of course they don't.

00:36:31.500 Or even like if they've watched women's sports.

00:36:34.460 I mean, like one big thing that we've found in looking at the way that the right wing media covers sports is that a lot of them will kind of say that this is a big issue for them. 0.97

00:36:45.760 And then given the chance to take it away from this issue, they'll kind of turn around and shit all over it.

00:36:52.080 So, you know, like most of these guys who are in the right-wing media always talking about women's sports have criticized the WNBA, have criticized the U.S. women's national team, even calling for them to be disbanded. 0.91

00:37:06.760 I mean, Riley Gaines herself did a media appearance where she said that a really good high school men's basketball team could beat a WNBA team, which I struggle to imagine being possible.

00:37:19.340 I'm not going to pretend I know the answer to that.

00:37:21.020 I'm not the one. I have no idea. I'm not a basketball watcher. I mean, at the end of the

00:37:28.200 day, in 2020, the Republicans saw that the group that they lost the most ground with was suburban 0.69

00:37:35.400 white women. And Republican strategists have been very open in the media about the fact that they

00:37:41.680 saw trans athletes in sports as a way to motivate suburban white women, which I always think is such

00:37:48.840 It's a very strange take, right, that those are the kind of people who would be more concerned about their kids' softball game than whether or not they have bodily autonomy.

00:37:59.360 I don't think it'll bear out, and it hasn't borne out in the 2020 midterms, any of the special elections really since then.

00:38:06.680 But this really did become a right-wing media crusade out of a desire to counter the losses that they're having with women over abortion.

00:38:15.560 And it remains that way.

00:38:16.780 The next month, in September 2022, Riley Gaines is starring in a campaign ad for U.S. Senator Rand Paul.

00:38:25.360 I trained from an early age, giving it my all to achieve my dream.

00:38:29.300 And I accomplished it, becoming a 12-time All-American swimmer at the University of Kentucky.

00:38:34.840 But for girls across America, that dream is being taken away by men competing in women's sports.

00:38:41.260 Sadly, few stood up for me.

00:38:43.540 But Rand Paul is not afraid to fight for fairness for women and girls.

00:38:47.720 And that's why I'm supporting him.

00:38:49.760 I'm Rand Paul, and I prove this message because I'll always fight for fairness.

00:38:54.240 By 2023, she starts testifying in front of congressional committees, 0.77

00:38:58.280 lobbying to get trans people banned from sports and ban trans health care. 0.78

00:39:03.080 So already we're veering way off of the whole fairness in sports issue and trying to ban health care for trans kids.

00:39:09.400 She speaks in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee to lobby against new civil rights protections for LGBTQ people, once again, claiming to the United States government that being in the same room as Leah Thomas was dangerous for her.

00:39:25.060 I actually want to get your take on this because this is something she says a lot in her media appearances where she talks about being in the locker room where she can like kind of invoke like the body of a trans woman as something that would like emotionally affect people.

00:39:38.280 Yeah. So we've looked really closely at the overall content of her media appearances and found that originally she was very focused on this issue of fairness. But since then, she's really drifted off that, arguing that trans people are dangerous physically to assist people in locker rooms, which is just not true.

00:39:57.980 trans people are actually four times more likely to be the victims of all the various kinds of

00:40:03.680 assault than their cisgender counterparts and are much much more likely to be assaulted in a bathroom

00:40:09.760 than to be the perpetrator of that assault but you know that's something she's focused on as

00:40:14.520 she's moved on from the sports issue to a lot of the title nine advocacy she's been doing about

00:40:19.800 which she's really become the go-to figure for the right as they try to push back against

00:40:26.200 President Biden's Title IX policy, which is actually really interesting because Biden faced

00:40:32.280 a lot of criticism from the left for punting on the issue of trans athletes in the updated Title IX

00:40:38.640 guidance. So there is not any change in how Title IX includes or does not include trans athletes in

00:40:46.120 the Biden administration's update. What there are are a lot of increased protections for sexual

00:40:51.140 assault survivors. And so it's a really kind of horrific story that Riley Gaines has gone from,

00:40:57.980 you know, this advocate of, you know, fairness in sports to using that experience to argue against

00:41:05.440 increased sexual assault protections for young women who are in college. So she's actually

00:41:11.020 literally undermining the cause that she says that she's working on behalf of using trans 0.93

00:41:16.700 athletes as kind of a shield. The other thing that I want to note that's very funny is that,

00:41:21.520 you know, she mentioned that she said a year earlier that she was voting for Donald J. Trump.

00:41:26.580 In June 2023, she actually endorsed Ron DeSantis, saying that he had tackled these issues. He's

00:41:32.340 drawn the line. He said no more. And then it later turned out that DeSantis had paid her $12,000 to

00:41:38.420 say that. DeSantis paid her $12,000 for an endorsement? Technically for political strategy

00:41:43.860 consulting. But, you know, very often presidential campaigns hire 24-year-olds to be political

00:41:49.280 consultant strategists. Literally. Well, but this just, I mean, this brings me back. Like,

00:41:53.620 she says she withdrew her spot at a dental school because it was like a fire was lit within her to 0.68

00:41:59.460 fight for women's sports. I think she was given everything. She was given way more than she could

00:42:04.720 have ever been given as a dentist. She got political power. She got tons of money. She got

00:42:10.080 fame. She got a podcasting deal. She got a book deal. She got a $20,000 speaking fee. She got a

00:42:17.120 $12,000 consulting fee from Ron DeSantis. Like being a dentist is not going to get you all that.

00:42:22.440 Plus, you have to look at people's teeth all day. I mean, it does pay very well. It pays very well.

00:42:28.060 Yes. Probably not as well as Fox News. Not as well as losing to a trans woman, certainly. Or

00:42:32.900 tying. Tying, Ari. Tying. I know. I know. Not you spreading misinformation on the

00:42:39.540 the fruity podcast one thing i want to mention before we continue talking about riley gains

00:42:46.460 and and her career is and you mentioned this what is happening to leah thomas you know the 0.99

00:42:52.420 supposed aggressor during all of this this this like first year of riley gains career she's 1.00

00:42:59.120 becoming a total star she's testifying in front of all these different government committees

00:43:03.180 she's appearing on fox news constantly she has this fox sponsored podcast like could you explain

00:43:09.380 what's happening or not happening with leah thomas during this time yeah so leah thomas had

00:43:14.960 actually attempted to continue her career in swimming uh and was kind of shot down there

00:43:21.400 by changes to the rules which seemed at the time to have been written to deliberately exclude her

00:43:27.700 and so her swimming career was over she graduated from college everything we know about what leah

00:43:34.820 thomas has done since this swim meet basically has come from right-wing media because it seems 0.97

00:43:40.280 pretty obvious that she doesn't want to be a political or a public figure in any way like 0.88

00:43:45.340 she has not spoken at conferences she hasn't appeared in political campaign ads she hasn't

00:43:51.120 gone on cnn or msnbc she had a couple interviews where she talked about her perspective in a very

00:43:57.480 very limited way and kind of disappeared since then when Riley and Joe Rogan talked about her

00:44:05.180 Riley who seems to have really kept up on Leah Thomas's dating life was confused that Leah had

00:44:12.160 dated cis women in college but was now apparently happily in a relationship with another trans woman

00:44:19.160 and so then you know the two of them engaged with in some speculation about what happens when trans

00:44:25.260 women are dating each other which uh i can say usually involves a lot more video games than

00:44:31.760 than i think the two of them would imagine all i've seen of leah thomas is harassment on the 1.00

00:44:37.920 internet i mean she she she has an instagram profile that has like eight posts or something 0.96

00:44:43.500 over the last several years and all of them have thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands

00:44:48.100 of comments making her out to be you know just the worst thing that you can imagine i actually

00:44:53.640 was curious if she had twitter and so i looked up leah thomas on twitter and there's just this one 1.00

00:44:58.840 middle-aged white lady from tennessee named leah thomas and i'm gonna it's just not leah thomas

00:45:06.720 um i mean it is leah thomas it's just not the leah thomas and her her bio on twitter is happily

00:45:13.740 married lady btw i am not the trans swimmer oh that's so dark you know i think she might be in

00:45:20.200 law school. It just seems like she wants to just continue living a normal life. And she's doing 0.98

00:45:25.620 that almost, it seems like in the shadow of someone who continues to need to mine her name

00:45:30.820 and trauma to keep her career moving. It just seems extraordinarily dark and evil.

00:45:38.020 Yeah, I think it's worth noting that like, at the time, there was just not anybody really even

00:45:42.880 defending Leah on the air. Cable news networks are notoriously kind of unwilling to bring on

00:45:48.800 trans people to share their perspectives. And one thing we found was that CNN actually spent

00:45:54.500 more time criticizing Leah Thomas's participation than they spent covering proposed trans athlete

00:46:02.640 bans in 27 states for the whole period that Leah was swimming. So basically, you know, she was

00:46:08.760 swimming while this whole political move was taking place, which is to me really newsworthy,

00:46:14.060 right? Like a, you know, young trans person five years ago could have fully participated in sports 1.00

00:46:19.900 in any state in the country. And there was this whole movement starting that basically has made

00:46:25.660 that impossible in any red state. And, you know, CNN didn't cover that. They spent 15 minutes on

00:46:32.900 segments that were critical of Leah Thomas's participation on the swim team. They spent two

00:46:37.420 minutes discussing the bills. I also just think there's this idea, and I'm going to get very like

00:46:42.780 Sarah Marshall you're wrong about right now but there's this idea that like people who are at the

00:46:48.920 center of you know public conversations and cultural movements like make a profit and become

00:46:55.440 rich celebrities in the way that we think about normal celebrities like singers or you know famous

00:47:01.360 professional athletes and the reality is that's just not true like Leah was not able to make a

00:47:06.860 career out of this. Riley was, but Leah most certainly wasn't. And like, a lot of times,

00:47:12.560 and I think about Dylan Mulvaney, too, who does have a career as an influencer, and an actress,

00:47:17.920 and, you know, was aspiring to be a public figure before and after her whole controversy. But if

00:47:23.060 anything, Dylan lost money from the whole Bud Light thing. And a lot of times, when you're at

00:47:28.540 the center of these media firestorms, you're just there for a moment, and then the storm moves on.

00:47:34.080 and you don't you're not left with brand deals you're not left with podcasting deals and book

00:47:39.700 deals like you're left with trauma the right is often much better at taking these moments and

00:47:45.260 turning them into kind of bankable things but there isn't some instant mechanism where you

00:47:52.220 become rich off you know like even if you're monetized somewhere like tiktok you're not

00:47:57.000 getting rich off that alone and post Dylan Mulvaney I would say that I think brands are a lot

00:48:02.960 more careful in choosing to work with trans influencers so it's it's made it harder to 0.80

00:48:09.120 monetize that way you know it's it's just another situation where someone who was like 22 years old

00:48:15.240 had no media experience or training knows like seemingly no stated desire to really become a

00:48:21.820 public figure was just put in the center of this firestorm and will probably forever be defined by 0.95

00:48:28.100 how she looked as a 22-year-old one year into publicly transitioning. And same for Dylan. I

00:48:35.340 mean, when you see Fox News or right-wing media covering Dylan Mulvaney, it's always with the

00:48:41.040 early transition pictures, which they love to do, right? Because if they were to put up a picture

00:48:46.460 of what Dylan Mulvaney looks like today, she looks great. She's, I think, been very successful

00:48:51.900 in reaching her aesthetic goals in her transition and seems to be having a good time since that

00:49:00.460 whole thing happened. But, you know, you can be forever defined on the internet by one instant.

00:49:07.460 Among other cultural waves that Riley Gaines has ridden as she's become this like conservative 1.00

00:49:14.140 of A-lister. She was a big part of the backlash against Iman Khalif. She had a tweet that got 0.98

00:49:22.360 over 500,000 likes and was re-shared by Elon Musk. Hashtag I stand with Angela Karini,

00:49:28.580 men don't belong in women's sports, which she was obviously, you know, wrong about on so many

00:49:32.280 levels. Iman Khalif is not a man. Iman Khalif is not a trans woman. Iman Khalif, as far as we know,

00:49:37.420 does not have XY chromosomes. Like this is something that I made a whole other episode

00:49:40.900 about. We don't have to stay here. But what's interesting about Riley Gaines' involvement with

00:49:46.760 the Iman Khalif issue, or should I say non-issue, is that she continued to maintain this narrative.

00:49:53.860 Conservative media people, they just, they can never be wrong. They can never be wrong. And she

00:49:58.120 continued long after the entire story was debunked. She continued calling Iman Khalif a man. When Iman

00:50:04.720 Khalif won the gold medal. Riley Gaines wrote on Twitter, Iman Khalif in parentheses XY dominated

00:50:10.900 world championship. Let me repeat that a male has taken a woman's gold. Later, when Iman Khalif

00:50:17.100 announced that she was suing Twitter for the spread of misinformation and harassment around

00:50:22.680 her, mostly propagated by Elon Musk and JK Rowling, Riley Gaines tweets, since JK Rowling and Elon Musk

00:50:29.500 are being sued by Iman Khalif,

00:50:31.120 I want to take the opportunity to remind you

00:50:33.600 that females don't have a Y chromosome. 1.00

00:50:36.900 And again, this whole thing about her having a Y chromosome,

00:50:39.640 like this wasn't even true.

00:50:41.120 I mean, have you ever had your chromosomes tested?

00:50:44.600 Every morning.

00:50:45.920 I test them all the time.

00:50:49.420 It's like not something that you can just walk

00:50:51.580 into a doctor's office and ask for. 0.99

00:50:55.320 It's ridiculous. 0.87

00:50:56.440 Like it's actually way more common than you would think

00:50:58.480 for people to you know not have the default chromosomal structure and like it doesn't

00:51:05.260 fucking matter in the way that like all these people think it does so riley i think has been 0.56

00:51:10.720 kind of exceptionally dishonest in her use of her platform um which is what makes her kind of a 1.00

00:51:16.760 concerning figure like like you said she contributed to this harassment campaign didn't back down

00:51:21.860 She's contributed to a lot of claims about different mass shooters being trans, you know, the Appalachian school shooter, for example, she said was trans and then she actually later did delete and retract that but it wasn't her fault right she blamed CNN for the way that they had phrased it that she had interpreted it as this person being trans because nothing is ever these people's fault.

00:51:47.400 i also i don't know if you even saw this because it came and went so quickly on like a sunday

00:51:54.100 evening on twitter but there was this whole thing where this one random account shared a very fake

00:52:00.580 story claiming that the vp candidate tim waltz had had sex with an underage boy and riley was one of

00:52:08.580 the first people in the right-wing media to amplify this like very very fake claim you know 0.78

00:52:15.740 between that and the ways that she's used her platform you know she referred to an eighth 0.75

00:52:21.060 grader as a mediocre man while publishing a photo of her like she's really i think pushing the

00:52:27.880 boundaries of how irresponsible you can be with twitter fame which you know is a real problem

00:52:34.260 another thing we've tracked is that there's been a pattern where you know she speaks out against

00:52:39.920 something that's happening at a public library somewhere and then all of a sudden that library

00:52:44.120 is getting a bomb threat these harassment campaigns come with real consequences and

00:52:49.120 it just seems to me like if you have a really big platform like that you got to take a minute

00:52:53.640 before you post it and you have to take some responsibility for what you're saying the lack

00:52:58.280 of accountability is incredible it's just funny too because all of these people will will talk

00:53:04.160 all day about how like there's systematic favorability towards the left in the media

00:53:09.760 or something you know i mean it's like such a donald trump thing like the media is always

00:53:13.940 conspiring against him and the media is always conspiring against all these conservatives and 0.84

00:53:18.320 yet they can just spew bullshit constantly with impunity i mean you know haya the the lives of 0.99

00:53:25.080 tic tac creator has so many times said that trans women were to blame for mass shootings 0.99

00:53:30.700 and to the point where you know when she was confronted about it by taylor lawrence

00:53:35.320 in the very now internet famous interview.

00:53:39.240 Haya's response was, is there a law against lying?

00:53:42.680 Was the Uvalde shooter trans?

00:53:44.820 The Uvalde shooter wasn't trans. 1.00

00:53:46.180 Got it.

00:53:46.900 And so I guess knowing that you've posted wrong information,

00:53:50.100 you're saying it should stay up

00:53:50.940 and everybody else should be allowed

00:53:52.340 to keep whatever they have up as well.

00:53:55.460 Is that sort of your stance?

00:53:56.580 Am I accurately understanding it?

00:53:59.060 Is there a law against...

00:54:01.140 No, not asking law.

00:54:02.020 I'm just asking your personal sort of opinion.

00:54:04.060 I'm just kind of curious

00:54:04.720 because it seems like you have come after other people such as v-sphere and other critics saying

00:54:09.680 you posted wrong information about me take it down i totally get that that's your prerogative

00:54:13.540 it's different with defaming um a journalist like that they're defaming me uh-huh and you

00:54:20.140 don't think that calling a shooter trans when they weren't trans is defaming anyone uh no okay

00:54:26.600 like she knows that she's being dishonest it's my job to track right-wing media figures and what

00:54:34.160 they're saying about lgbtq people and when i started out i was actually like very genuinely

00:54:39.080 curious about kind of what makes these people tick what gets these people involved in it and

00:54:44.160 i've realized over time that the people who last the longest in this grift are the people who do 0.80

00:54:50.140 not give one single fuck about what they're talking about like they have no emotional stakes

00:54:55.240 here they're just thinking about how they get the most clicks and the most likes and you know that's 0.93

00:55:02.320 that's really damning as an indictment of social media and its effect on our

00:55:06.980 media landscape.

00:55:08.440 So we are at the clips portion.

00:55:10.800 I have pulled a few clips from various Riley Gaines media appearances.

00:55:16.820 Ari also sent me before we started recording,

00:55:19.280 Ari sent me a few clips that she wanted to throw into the mix that I have not

00:55:22.720 watched. So we'll do a little like tit for tat, shall we?

00:55:26.180 Oh, this is so exciting.

00:55:27.580 You should have a theme song for the clips portion for sure.

00:55:32.320 Now we're going to watch some right-wing news.

00:55:37.100 The first clip that I want to play for you is one that I find really, really fascinating.

00:55:43.400 So in this clip, Riley is testifying in front of a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing,

00:55:49.280 and she is questioned by Utah Senator Mike Lee about whether or not she is transphobic,

00:55:56.780 which just the premise of the question is really interesting.

00:55:59.180 Like, I don't know, do you get to decide if you're transphobic or not?

00:56:01.940 I think that's probably something for other people like Ari and I to raise

00:56:06.980 issue with, but let's roll the clip. Let me find it. Did you watch these?

00:56:12.500 I have seen most of them before.

00:56:14.520 I would lose my mind if I had your job because I feel like for my job,

00:56:18.260 I do like 4% of what you do for myself.

00:56:21.880 It's a, this is a really hard job to have as a trans person.

00:56:25.120 And I just want to say like,

00:56:26.520 if you are a trans person who is watching this and contemplating a career in 0.99

00:56:31.240 media fucking don't like go do something that'll make you more money and will not destroy your 0.99

00:56:38.000 ability to like look at yourself kindly it's it's it's really not worth it shall we roll the clip 0.99

00:56:44.860 let's go are you transphobic riley that is simply not true do you hold anything against

00:56:51.700 transgendered persons absolutely not i agree leah thomas was following the rules set in place by the

00:56:56.460 NCAA and I have no problem with Leah Thomas um I I can't believe it's come to this but I have no

00:57:03.620 hate in my heart towards anyone even the protesters who mobbed me the first thing that I did was

00:57:09.120 prayed for them right when people do this all the time like they'll be like I'm not transphobic

00:57:14.600 JK Rowling does it yeah and I wish they wouldn't it's really annoying like it would be so much 0.61

00:57:20.100 more honest if they were like yeah trans people creep me out for reasons that I can't put my

00:57:24.920 finger on and they make me deeply uncomfortable and that's not a thing i feel i need to interrogate

00:57:30.760 it's a reason that i don't necessarily find like the label of transphobia to be a particularly

00:57:35.660 effective description because like what matters is what you're doing materially and what you're

00:57:41.780 doing materially is making it impossible for 11 year old trans kids to play soccer with their 0.94

00:57:46.600 friends so i don't give a fuck what reason you're doing that for like you're making people's life 0.94

00:57:52.100 harder and it's not like better if you're doing it just for the financial incentives you know 0.95

00:57:56.920 totally they do do this a lot jk rowling does this all the time oh well is it transphobic to

00:58:02.180 this this or that it's like yeah yeah but it's like i mean riley gains has openly said on bill

00:58:08.500 marshall which we'll talk about in a second but on a whole number of appearances she refuses to

00:58:12.860 use trans people's pronouns or refer to them as their gender or even like she won't even refer 0.99

00:58:18.180 to a trans woman as a trans woman. 0.64

00:58:20.220 She'll only misgender them. 0.99

00:58:21.960 I don't use she, her pronouns

00:58:25.500 when referring to Thomas, 0.84

00:58:27.580 and I call it a male.

00:58:29.180 I think even using the term trans woman

00:58:30.900 is giving Thomas some of our language as women.

00:58:35.820 And I think trans woman is a subset of male. 0.99

00:58:38.540 I do not believe trans women are women, 0.99

00:58:40.440 and so I'm saying that up front on the record. 1.00

00:58:42.920 No, I'm basically on that page.

00:58:44.480 She lobbies against legislation that would protect them.

00:58:47.140 she lobbies in favor of legislation that would ban their health care it's like okay well what

00:58:52.300 is transphobia then it's like if none of these things are make you transphobic and people of

00:58:57.640 all sorts of you know bigoted backgrounds do this too like people say oh well is it racist or i'm

00:59:03.420 not homophobic but it's like what what does a racist make if not all of the things that you

00:59:08.960 are dedicating your career to doing also like i i feel like christian's really snapped with like

00:59:14.920 i'll pray for you because like i don't know what she's praying for like presumably not for me to

00:59:22.160 have like a long and successful career and a stable and happy marriage you know what i mean

00:59:27.540 well i had to include the i'll pray for them thing because have you ever seen the video of

00:59:32.940 anita bryant getting pied in the face yeah what does she say right after she gets pied in the face 0.96

00:59:37.740 that she's praying right anita bryant 1970s homophobic queen pied in the face by a gay 0.97

00:59:43.420 activists on live television. She's covered in whipped cream to the point where you cannot see 0.98

00:59:47.960 any of her facial features. And she sits down in the middle of this press conference and goes,

00:59:52.280 let's pray. Father, we tried to avoid it and went into a place called Norfolk, Virginia,

00:59:58.420 and were met with protest and all kinds of problems. And every

01:00:04.800 security agent security no no let him stay no let him stay well at least it's a fruit pie

01:00:12.560 let's pray let's pray for him right now anita let's pray anita why don't you pray

01:00:18.280 that's all right father we want to thank you it's like it is it's very campy it's a good bit

01:00:27.380 for sure honestly i think everybody politically could learn from that and the like aesthetics

01:00:33.200 of having kindness for your opponents

01:00:36.460 while like not having to actually display

01:00:39.320 any kind of like humanity.

01:00:41.200 It's a really interesting trick.

01:00:43.540 Okay, so now we're going to play one of your clips.

01:00:45.360 What's your preface for this clip?

01:00:47.160 For so long, the right-wing media

01:00:49.240 kind of kept up this pretense

01:00:51.160 that their opposition to trans women

01:00:53.380 was about competitive advantage, 0.92

01:00:54.980 which is very smart strategically

01:00:56.760 because then it gets everybody

01:00:57.900 into the weeds of muscle strength

01:01:00.720 and fast-twitch fibers and whatever.

01:01:03.200 you have very eloquently said in the past why it's just like not really good faith debate to

01:01:08.800 get into but then this ban came out on trans women playing chess and it was so interesting

01:01:16.920 because like the second that happened they were all like oh yeah no this has nothing to do with

01:01:21.040 competitive advantage whatsoever does a trans woman have a biological advantage of like moving 1.00

01:01:25.680 the pond diagonally or something well i guess we should listen to riley gains argue why that is

01:01:29.940 have you really not seen this yet i have not seen this i'm in for a treat world chess federation

01:01:36.500 bars transgender women from competing in women's chess events what what do you make of that

01:01:44.280 not an athletic sport it's a mental sport i mean all sports are mental to some extent but

01:01:49.140 what do you make of that okay wait i'm gonna continue the clip i promise i just want to say

01:01:53.680 that riley gains is doing this from her car like this girl is so booked and busy that she is doing 0.99

01:01:59.400 the fox news appearance from her fucking car she's been on fox news 74 times so you know she 0.99

01:02:06.380 it's not special anymore right you don't get the same high as the first time still chasing it i 0.98

01:02:11.980 think it's really interesting because we have sports such as power lifting which is of course

01:02:16.500 sheerly based on strength who aren't even taking this much precaution and so i applaud the chess

01:02:21.960 association um it's you know you hear the argument about brain size and brain ability if it differs

01:02:27.720 between male and female, but I think that's missing the point. The point is that the women's 1.00

01:02:33.060 category is meant for women and having men compete in it is still taking spots away from women. 0.97

01:02:39.400 The women's chess category, I guess, was created for a reason and they're upholding that. And so 0.86

01:02:44.820 I applaud the chess association for the decision and really prioritizing fairness, prioritizing

01:02:52.320 what it means to be a woman okay riley thank you very much good to see you today riley gains i don't

01:02:58.640 know when queen's gambit she was beating all the boys um so we'll see where that whole argument

01:03:03.920 goes good to see you riley thank you very much saying that men are biologically smarter and have

01:03:12.140 bigger brains than women in a feminist way what whatever whatever riley it's always funny on fox

01:03:21.620 news when you can tell that the host is like okay i'm not really on i'm not really on board with 0.96

01:03:28.880 this one yeah she's like she's like the producers are telling me to nod and smile and agree with 0.69

01:03:35.060 you but girl be fucking for real the thing about riley gains and i think why the anita bryant 0.96

01:03:42.900 parallel is so helpful is that she's a christian nationalist she's a evangelical christian her 1.00

01:03:49.900 worldview flows from evangelical christianity and so you know all this stuff about fairness

01:03:56.240 and sports or whatever like is is a pretense and a cover for the real thing which is this like very

01:04:02.480 biologically determinist view of what men and women are and what men and women should do with

01:04:10.140 their lives which is always very interesting with these like right-wing female influencers who are

01:04:14.560 like clearly making a lot more money than their husbands or whatever but you know that's that's 1.00

01:04:20.660 her circle of square i guess totally i mean it's it's very like making six to seven figures a year

01:04:27.220 talking about like being a traditional woman you're so right about the the fox news host being

01:04:34.600 like hmm all right riley well you have a great day i hope you pulled over

01:04:44.440 The next clip I had was one where Riley Gaines goes on Bill Maher's podcast, which just, I want to start by saying that when she's sitting with Bill Maher, their age difference is so apparent. And Riley Gaines looks so extraordinarily young because she is so extraordinarily young. Not young enough to like not have agency in the career choices she's making, but it really it's like, oh, wow, you're like, at this point, like 23 years old.

01:05:10.720 Also, Bill Maher is like really old and like very clearly deep in denial about it.

01:05:15.860 Yeah, Bill Maher, maybe this is a different episode.

01:05:20.120 Bill Maher pisses me off so bad because it's one thing for all of these people to like be on Fox News and Newsmax and OAN and whatever they're doing.

01:05:29.480 And like, we all know why we're there.

01:05:31.360 We know what ideologies they hold.

01:05:32.960 But Bill Maher still, you know, and he's been spewing like anti-Muslim talking points for a long time.

01:05:39.520 and he's been called out for that but he's just he's going to the right on so many different

01:05:44.180 issues and he continues to do this like i'm a liberal but like the way the left is going now

01:05:51.440 is just totally off the rails and i need to rein it in and it's like dude you're just a conservative

01:05:56.600 but it's almost like more dangerous to me because he's masking himself as like not the conservative

01:06:02.360 old white man that he is is that a fair assessment well like the relief but these people's usually

01:06:07.100 they just give up and become republicans eventually like tulsi gabbard bill maher's 0.99

01:06:11.580 whole shtick is like he's anti-muslim he hates fat people and he hates trans people but he's 0.93

01:06:19.080 a liberal i guess because he like lives in san francisco and wants to have friends sorry he lives 0.97

01:06:25.020 in los angeles right so coastal california liberal you know so my my bill maher story is that at one

01:06:31.800 point in my career i worked with somebody for a time who was like friends with bill mar and one

01:06:38.020 time over drink she was like i you would not believe it but bill mar every time before he

01:06:44.560 goes on the air he takes an enormous hit of a bong and you would have no idea i think we i think we

01:06:51.800 know i think we know it's pretty apparent like it's not he's not hiding it well but so riley

01:06:58.460 gains goes on bill marr's podcast and basically he is getting her to talk about leah thomas once

01:07:05.220 again he just for like five minutes he's trying to get riley gains to talk about leah thomas's 0.99

01:07:12.940 genitals how big is her cock well you've seen her cock right we all did how big is it i mean what 1.00

01:07:19.760 what kind of a cock is it describe her cock let's see um well i don't want to see it well 1.00

01:07:25.580 just wanted to hear it well if i had to see it you have to hear it first of all this is a six 0.99

01:07:30.460 foot four man right well a trans woman i think of course a trans trans is a is a

01:07:40.460 true phenomenon there are some people who are and i'm sure this is the wrong phrasing but

01:07:44.940 people know what i mean born in the wrong body right you know they really do feel and want to be

01:07:51.340 the sex they were not born i get that and those people should be protected and respected that is

01:07:57.620 my position as a one issue candidate running for governor protected and respected but um i forget

01:08:05.120 what the original question was but i think it's describe that i was trying to i was trying to run

01:08:11.680 away from this question and it's something that riley is clearly uncomfortable with and it's

01:08:16.940 something that clearly like sort of irrelevant to the point that Riley's trying to make and look

01:08:21.600 like neither Ari nor I are here to like white knight for Riley Gaines being able to get her

01:08:26.440 point across on large platforms but it just it's so like misogynistic the way that Bill Maher is

01:08:33.600 treating her on this media appearance which just stood out to me because it's like you can be a

01:08:38.760 woman in this space and you will experience the misogyny of conservative men that must be like a

01:08:43.640 very strange and difficult thing to deal with like honestly and you know i think it seems like

01:08:49.280 riley was probably raised within this worldview where she's seen a lot of that and maybe it

01:08:54.720 doesn't strike her as remarkable but again i just like if i were getting invited on a podcast

01:09:00.440 where we just like you know we're like you were trying to get me to get into like describing

01:09:05.280 somebody naked i'd be like you know maybe something went wrong in my career and the way i'm

01:09:10.760 vetting my media appearances it's really uncomfortable to watch and it's like i don't

01:09:14.960 know i actually just like i've been out as trans for so long that i just like forget that people

01:09:20.520 are like so obsessed with what's in our pants like it just it doesn't strike me as like weird

01:09:25.540 or unusual or you know what i mean and it's like oh right like this is like a big reason to a lot

01:09:32.500 of these people that they're like talking about trans women all the time like i mean nobody is 0.95

01:09:37.480 more obsessed with like dick size than like a guy like that so next we have a clip that Ari sent me 0.97

01:09:43.600 where Riley Gaines is on Fox News she's on Fox News second home is she in a car at this time 0.99

01:09:49.760 no she's in her home in this one which she's actually spoken about how she and her husband

01:09:54.520 bought like a multi-acre plot of land and built their own house on it so that sounds lovely again

01:10:00.320 what does Riley Gaines get out of this everything Riley Gaines joins me okay Riley let's get

01:10:06.300 straight at it. Good to have you back again. What changed in Title IX and what does that mean for

01:10:11.820 women's sports? The Biden administration has rewritten Title IX by equating sex and gender 0.97

01:10:17.520 identity. Now this means that men would have full access to bathrooms, locker rooms, changing spaces

01:10:22.120 on college campuses. Men would take academic and athletic scholarships away from women. Men have

01:10:27.520 the potential to be housed in dorm rooms with women. Your speech is now compelled, whether you're 0.98

01:10:32.580 faculty, a professor, a student, you are now required to use preferred pronouns. And if you

01:10:38.780 don't, or if you, a 17-year-old girl who is randomly housed with a male in your dorm room,

01:10:44.120 if you go to your administration and express your discomfort with this, under this new rewrite,

01:10:48.840 you would be guilty and charged with sexual harassment. We need to see a new administration

01:10:53.840 in the White House. This is a public call to President Trump to make it a campaigning issue.

01:11:00.180 Just take me back to the beginning of all of this, because you started, I believe you really started this movement when you objected to losing a swim meet race to a biological male who beat you by a long distance.

01:11:13.820 That started things rolling. Just take me back. What happened to you?

01:11:18.080 Well, I'll tell you, actually, the scenario here was we tied.

01:11:21.380 But despite tying the NCAA down to the hundredth of a second, the NCAA insisted that Thomas had the trophy.

01:11:28.080 She's talking about how the Biden administration has, in her words, rewritten Title IX to equate sex with gender identity, which she says means that men would have full access to bathrooms, locker rooms, and changing spaces on college campuses, that they could be housed in dorm rooms with women, which I don't know about you, but my college actually had like co-ed dorms.

01:11:52.740 Yeah, mine too.

01:11:53.280 like none of this really even scans to me as like a an enormous problem you know she's complaining

01:11:58.940 about like having to use preferred pronouns and again like this i just want to emphasize that the

01:12:04.640 point of this title nine update was expanding this the scope of sexual assault protections for young

01:12:12.240 women in college cis and trans and so you know she's using this anti-trans platform to try to

01:12:20.580 take down these protections in the, you know, in the pursuit of making this a campaign issue.

01:12:25.800 She closes the quote by saying that she wants President Trump to make this a campaign issue

01:12:31.400 and promise to reverse course on what the Biden administration's done. We now see that this is

01:12:36.220 the closing issue of the Trump campaign, which I, it's not something that I thought would happen.

01:12:41.940 I really just didn't. And in part that's because, you know, in 2022, this was an absolutely

01:12:48.640 disastrous issue for them to focus on in the midterms. In 2023, it wasn't any better. And so

01:12:55.520 the idea to me that, you know, that independent voters in Rust Belt or Sun Belt states are making

01:13:02.240 decisions based on, you know, an arcane update to Title IX just like doesn't really make any sense

01:13:09.700 at all, and doesn't show up on what people say their top issues are as they're voting this

01:13:15.440 november obviously we'll see what happens and you know i think probably one way or another the media

01:13:20.280 will ascribe more significance to these ads than they deserve but you know i think it's really

01:13:26.260 significant how much the anti-trans obsessives on the right have a sympathetic voice within

01:13:33.120 right-wing politicians and political spaces that just is not matched on the left well and she i

01:13:39.720 mean she urges to your point she urges trump to make this an issue of camp of his campaign and

01:13:44.260 he does he does and it's and you know of course it's hard for us to say like oh it's because

01:13:49.180 riley gains but it's also not not because of riley gains i mean both she and donald trump

01:13:55.380 have demonstrated that she's in his ear literally like i don't know this is what you can get in two

01:14:00.480 years after you die in fifth it really feels like people should be lining up to compete against

01:14:04.840 transform you too could be riley gains make it in america with this one simple trick

01:14:12.880 i've i've ranted about this in different ways in different episodes but scapegoating is not

01:14:21.740 new it's not unique to trans people it's not unique to the united states of america

01:14:29.020 scapegoating is a political strategy that has been effective for leaders wanting to acquire

01:14:34.860 power in in so many different cultures throughout history and what we're seeing right now with trans 0.96

01:14:41.280 people within even who's already a tiny population and even a smaller population within that

01:14:46.520 population trans athletes is scapegoating i just i had to get this rant in there because

01:14:52.500 conservative politicians are doing so little to benefit the material lives of americans and our

01:15:01.180 futures right they are providing tax cuts for billionaires they are not addressing climate

01:15:08.900 change. These people aren't doing anything to better the lives of you or I. And to convince

01:15:14.120 you that they are, they're going to tell you, look, there's this boogeyman out there. And they're

01:15:18.800 the reason that your material life is not where you want it to be. And maybe that's immigrants. 1.00

01:15:25.120 Maybe that's trans people. Maybe it's Muslims. Like it's, you know, maybe it's Jews. It's always 0.72

01:15:30.120 someone else. We have the issue of trans athletes. They're whipping you into a frenzy, thinking that 1.00

01:15:36.160 like the reason America is not as great as it could be is because there is, I don't know, 0.94

01:15:43.320 a trans girl playing field hockey on like the eighth grade field hockey team somewhere in like 1.00

01:15:49.480 Illinois. And it's just, it's just not true. It's just not true. They can make all the laws and 0.76

01:15:54.700 they can prevent trans people from participating in sports. And like, who will have one? Like 1.00

01:16:00.540 your life won't be better. My life won't be better. A bunch of trans people and children

01:16:05.300 will be suffering but like riley gains will get to buy another plot of land that's who wins

01:16:11.440 donald trump will get elected to president the idea that any of this is for you is just

01:16:18.020 so detached from reality yeah i mean i just want to underscore the position of the trans community

01:16:26.040 and all this which is so often left out of these conversations trans people are more than twice as

01:16:32.620 likely to be unemployed the underemployment rate for trans people something like 42 percent

01:16:39.140 the last time i saw statistics one in three trans people experienced homelessness and youth

01:16:45.400 uh the average trans woman makes 60 cents on the dollar this is a very small very impoverished

01:16:52.780 community that people are just kicking over and over and over again because they don't have any

01:16:58.660 solutions to offer in the government and it's like easy to get people scared it's just really sad

01:17:05.740 like i you know i finally i finally did my legal name change the other day oh my god congratulations

01:17:14.280 yes thank you it was really moving but you know so i had to go down to the courthouse and it was

01:17:20.000 like a hearing that had you know there was there was a woman getting divorced there were a couple

01:17:24.740 people getting married uh it was all people changing their name and then there were a bunch

01:17:28.900 of trans people and when i tell you the way that every trans woman in that courtroom was trying to

01:17:34.960 sink into the bench so as not to take up any space like i see the way my friends hide behind 0.82

01:17:43.300 their hair and their posture and big coats and just are so desperate to not take up as much space

01:17:51.300 in the public eye. Like, I love the mountains, but like, there's a reason I want to spend more

01:17:55.420 and more and more time there, right? I just, it is not a sign of a healthy country to focus so much

01:18:02.360 anger on such a small group of people. And the thing I always think of there, last thing I'll

01:18:07.240 say, Utah Governor Spencer Cox, he's a Republican. The first time that a trans sports band came to

01:18:13.780 his desk, he vetoed it. And he said, you know, rarely in American history has so much fear and

01:18:20.380 hate been directed at so few and i thought that was so moving right a year later that bill came

01:18:26.540 back to his desk and he signed it and he's since gone to sign up you know utah has made it much

01:18:33.780 more difficult for trans youth to access medical care they have a bathroom ban there which is very

01:18:39.500 sad for me like i i had a trip to utah that i canceled as a result of that the least of the

01:18:44.840 problems but like it's just weird to feel your access to the country that you live in shrink

01:18:51.340 as a result of this stuff and i just think like watching this guy call it so accurately the

01:18:58.840 beginning and then still getting swept up in it like that's what we've all been living through

01:19:04.120 this this thing where people are just like they know better you know they know better but it's

01:19:10.100 in pursuit of a different political goal and so they're willing to hurt those people in pursuit

01:19:17.860 of that goal and they know better and that should make people angry i'm out of anger i'm just i'm

01:19:25.340 just sad ari thank you so much for being here today i you know i know it has been no easy task

01:19:35.360 for you to like closely track the entire career of Riley Gaines in real time for the last two years.

01:19:41.740 But, you know, if it means anything at all, the light that you've continued to shine on it and

01:19:47.260 helped me shine on it today will, I don't know, help people with their political news media

01:19:51.300 literacy. I hope make people more critical of what they're hearing. And I'm just really grateful for

01:19:56.200 the work that you do. So thank you for being here today. Thank you so much for having me. I hope we

01:19:59.860 can do it again. Do you have anything to plug? Where can people find you? Do I have? I

01:20:05.340 should i should be plugging more for sure i actually wrote a poetry collection last year

01:20:10.800 that i'm always very very hesitant to plug because i just feel like if you want to read somebody's

01:20:15.740 like transition poetry you're gonna find it uh but you can find that on amazon it's called thoughts

01:20:21.000 on weightlessness you know i think there's some pretty good poems in there and that's something

01:20:25.700 that i just don't get to promote as often people can find me on twitter they can find me on threads

01:20:32.120 I would strongly encourage people who are interested in my perspective to follow me on

01:20:36.420 Substack, which is also Ari Drennan, just because, frankly, I don't know how much longer any of us

01:20:41.900 are going to make it on Twitter. You know, I would hate to lose track of people. So find me in all

01:20:46.680 those places. Find me on Instagram if you want to watch videos of me skiing a lot for some reason.

01:20:52.380 And that's what I got. Those will be linked in the episode description. Thank you if you have

01:20:58.740 made it with us this far today i am so grateful feel free as always forward this episode to

01:21:05.960 someone who's like i don't know posting riley gains clips to their instagram story being like

01:21:12.280 this chick is a hero for women because i guarantee you she is not and they have been

01:21:18.520 duped but it is not too late to undo them i love you all so much and until next time

A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein - October 30, 2024

Riley Gaines： Tie for 5th, Grift for Life

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