Pablo Torre

I have to imagine a certain swim meet in Atlanta, Georgia.

the matchup heard around the world.

So the daughter of the swim mom, one of these Icons co-founders, she had actually lost to Leah Thomas a couple times that season.

So they had gone head to head.

They had encountered each other at competitions.

And so if we look at these tax forms here, what we can see, this is the 2022 season.

tax form 990 for the Independent Council on Women's Sports.

This one says that icons went from a $100,000 organization in 2022 to, we have this one here from 2024, a million-dollar organization.

like 10 times bigger than it used to be in the span of two years feels appropriate for what we've been discussing this whole time.

How many other organizations like this are in this like nesting doll of like money sources?

There are so many of these groups.

ICONS has really broken through.

And I think that that's because they are not just a rebranding of the same Heritage Foundation, you know, conservative DC think tank.

They're not a creature of that world so much as they are an outgrowth of people who are involved in women's sports, who care deeply about it, and who have gone through that process, that gateway drug process.

and landed on this increasingly radicalized side of the transgender athlete debate.

And it's not just the Alliance Defending Freedom, like classic players of the conservative social movement over the last 30 years in America.

I know.

I miss the Cato Institute.

Those were the days.

Those were the days.