While giving a talk on the campus of San Francisco State University to ” save women’s sport and denouncing the presence of transgender athletes in competitions, on April 6, swimmer Riley Gaines was taken to task. In this bastion of progressivism, the young woman was chased by defenders of the rights of trans people who shouted, according to a video posted on social networks, “a transgender woman is a woman”, but also “you’re a fucking transphobic bitch”. Riley Gaines says she had to stay barricaded in a classroom for three hours before the police exfiltrated her.
For a year, the swimmer has become the muse of the fight against the presence of trans athletes in women’s sports competitions. “Leave women’s sport to women”, she launched alongside Donald Trump, at the annual Conservative conference in August, in Dallas. The sportswoman is fighting, supported by the Republicans engaged in a culture war which has intensified in recent months. Since January, 29 new laws restricting the rights of transgender people have been passed in 14 states, according to an analysis of data from the American Civil Liberties Union by the Washington Post. In 2022, 20 texts of this type have already been adopted by 12 States. The first debates on trans people, launched by elected Conservatives, date back ten years with the question of their access to public toilets.
Sign of a growing mobilization on these subjects, a bill tabled by the Republican representative of Florida in the House of Representatives, Greg Steube, rejected twice, was finally adopted, Thursday, April 20, by the House with a Republican majority. by 219 votes against 203. It aims to prohibit people born male from joining female sports teams in educational institutions funded by the federal state. This text has no chance of reaching the Senate, controlled by the Democrats.
In mid-March, Riley Gaines testified before the Texas State Congress. Since her childhood, she said, she trains in the pools, every day for hours. On March 18, 2022, while running the 200-yard (about 182 meters) freestyle at the college swimming championships, the University of Kentucky student finished fifth, tied with Lia Thomas, a transgender athlete who, the years before the Covid-19 pandemic, competed in the men’s section.
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