Pablo Torre

And that's, I think, why her story breaks through.

Yeah, there just aren't enough examples of female athletes, period, who are losing to trans athletes because there aren't that many trans athletes in general.

And so you get Riley Gaines testifying not just at the Virginia state legislature, but at the Kansas state legislature and the North Carolina state legislature, all for these anti-trans bills that are being, again, put in front of these voting bodies.

The NCAA forced female swimmers to share a locker room with Thomas, a 6'4", 22-year-old male equipped with and exposing male genitalia in a room full of vulnerable, undressed women.

And in each one of those cases, what you see is that it's not just the Leah Thomas story.

From 18 to 22-year-old girls who were exposed to male body parts.

She, this single data point, Riley Gaines, is now this avatar for all girls everywhere.

Our experiences as Z1 swimmers, it's not unique.

Who are in danger of, quote unquote, men, these predators in women's sports.

And she goes on the road.

She continues to go on the road.

I mean, she's giving speeches at college campuses.

I mean, it's not unlike Charlie Kirk.

The events that she does on college campuses, some of them are actually sponsored by Turning Point USA, the conservative youth organization founded by Charlie Kirk.

And they popularized the model of sending right-wing provocateurs to go speak on college campuses and then making a lot of content out of it and really trying to make, like, political hay when students come out to protest.

In 2023, with the one-year anniversary of the NCAA Championships approaching now, that relatively boring race that we watched on ESPN earlier in the episode, Riley Gaines goes on the podcast of the late Charlie Kirk himself.

The NCAA allowed us as female athletes to, not even just allowed, they encouraged us as female athletes to participate in Leah Thomas' sexual arousement and Leah Thomas' fetish.

And you can hear in this Charlie Kirk podcast at this time just how much it's been dialed up, the extremism and the outward transphobia.

And it goes on, obviously, but you can see already like this is I mean, this is it's just I would say it's profoundly fucked up.

Right.