Who’s in Riley Gaines’ crosshairs? The pro-Trump activist, ex-swimming champion and critic of transgender inclusion in sport urged American men not to be ‘the beta man who didn’t get out and vote’
Gaines says she lost out on a trophy to transgender swimmer Lia Thomas. Now she is a political campaigner trying to level the playing field, she says, for cis women and girls
“They can call you a Nazi. They can call you deplorable. They can call you garbage. But don’t give them the pleasure of calling you the beta man who didn’t get out and vote,” Gaines wrote in captions for a video on X.
She was raised in an athletic family
Riley Gaines was born and raised in Nashville, Tennessee. She pursued a degree in health sciences at the University of Kentucky, in Lexington.
Under the auspices of the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA), she won swimming championship medals around the world, having been brought up by parents who were college athletes themselves.
Gaines’ father Brad represented Tennessee’s Vanderbilt University at American football, while her mother Telisha played softball for Austin Peay State University, also in Tennessee.
She’s anti-trans
