Repeat: Riley Gaines is a mediocre swimmer, who was beaten by almost everyone, and never won a major race. Ever. She is making a living from being a bigot because she is a failed athlete.
It’s not “being a bigot” for a woman to object to a man competing in women’s races. It is being a bully and a cheat for a man to compete in women’s races. It’s bizarre for a woman who claims to be a radical to abuse women for objecting to men destroying their chances.
Lia Thomas is living rent-free in your pathetic, diseased mind. How are you planning to blame trans people for the collapse of the stock market and recession Donald Trump created this week. I'm waiting.
So, if Lia Thomas hadn't competed she would have been…fourth. And Thomas wasn't even in the Olympic trials where Gaines failed to qualify, Are we giving consolation prizes now to weepy girls who didn't succeed?
So what she’s saying is that Riley Gaines lost and she likes winners. I wasn’t convinced by that argument the last time I heard it and it sounds no better coming from someone who needs to advertise that she’s a tenured somethnig.
There have always been mean rude bullies among tenured academics; now they have a large social media presence to let everyone know they are mean rude bullies.
What a horrid, hateful woman. Any university that employs her is tarnished by her stupidity. If Riley Gaines, at number 5, was mediocre, what was number 462? Besides a creepy sex pest, that is?
What causes a woman to come out both barrels blazing in defense of rape culture and misogyny? Sad.
Plus, it shouldn’t matter if Riley Gaines would have won first; even if “Lia” Thomas came in dead last, he is a man and has no business competing against women. There is more to it than just medals; it is also about not having to share a changing room with a man, and simply being allowed to have a space of our own. (I say ‘our’ even though I couldn’t make a three-year-olds swim team; I can’t swim.)
The gender zealots pretty much all seem to hate Trump. The gender zealots don’t seem able to grok that their own hateful behavior towards others in defense of their make-believe is what drives some people to consider Trump world a reasonable alternative to the world that the gender zealots are creating. At some point, many people are going to say “well, for all his considerable faults, at least he knows basic biology” and keep voting for him.
Trump is an egomaniac, but humans have seen men like him in power for centuries. His schtick is familiar, and people can feel that they know what he wants and what he will do and what he won’t do.
Where the Dems in the USA and the far left in the rest of the world are willing to go with the gender stuff is unknown. Women being dragged injured or even dead out of sporting events is OK with many of them. Male rapists being sent to a women’s prison to abuse more women is OK with many of them. Rapists and perverts of all types being given no sentences at all and simply being returned to the public to rack up more victims is OK with many of them. Children being lied to and indoctrinated into being cash cows for the gender industry is OK with many of them. Parents are losing custody of their kids over gender stuff. And when is it finally enough for the gender zealots? Rape culture codified and encouraged seems to be the next step, IMHO, as long as the raping is being done by gender zealots.
All the warming cries of “but Trump is doing this or Trump might do that” start to fall on deaf ears when enough normies see gender zealots in control of more and more aspects of their own lives. The gender zealots helped make a Trump presidency possible and they are probably going to keep on this insane course and make a Vance presidency look like a better choice for normies.
The university that employs her is NYU, so that’s embarrassing.
Southwest – I for one don’t really find Trump’s shtick familiar. He violates every norm there is, and that’s not very familiar. George H. W. Bush he isn’t.
I was considering a longer-term view of history rather than just the USA to propose how Trump is not that different from emperors and tyrants and god-kings and royal dynasties that have ruled, either well or horribly, over others in many different cultures. I should have worded it better, though.
Taking Trump out of it, I still cannot fathom what will finally be enough power and enough harm to satisfy the gender zealots. I might be making a hash of this, but it seems to me that humans have lived for centuries in cultures where the king might be a pervert, but then most people never had to actually deal with the king personally. What society can exist where each and every gender zealot-approved pervert is a king who can do what he or she wants to any normie they wish to abuse? How does that not end in vigilante groups forming and people electing a leader who promises to do away with all those lesser kings plaguing their lives?
Riley Gaines *is* a bigot along with the other TPUSA goons. No one should waste any energy defending Trumpist handmaidens like her. My 401k is shit and my job is doomed in small part because of people like her.
Doesn’t change the fact that Lia Thomas is a man who has not business in women’s swimming. Transwomen are men.
I wasn’t actually defending Riley Gaines, I was objecting to Claire Potter’s rhetoric and reasoning. RG’s role in your finances is indeed microscopic. I’m not a fan of her politics but Potter’s lies and jibes are disgusting.
Lia Thomas was 462nd in his field nation wide, but when this was brought up, Gaines was the one dismissed as mediocre – but she was 5th in her field nation wide.
Such inconsistency! Shouldn’t an academic a basic level of reasoning?
So what she’s saying is that Riley Gaines lost and she likes winners. I wasn’t convinced by that argument the last time I heard it and it sounds no better coming from someone who needs to advertise that she’s a tenured somethnig.
Willy Thomas didn’t win, he cheated and that makes him a weepy boy who didn’t succeed.
https://www.butterfliesandwheels.org/2025/poor-william/
Riley Gaines went out and did something about being disenfranchised, and won.
There have always been mean rude bullies among tenured academics; now they have a large social media presence to let everyone know they are mean rude bullies.
What a horrid, hateful woman. Any university that employs her is tarnished by her stupidity. If Riley Gaines, at number 5, was mediocre, what was number 462? Besides a creepy sex pest, that is?
What causes a woman to come out both barrels blazing in defense of rape culture and misogyny? Sad.
Plus, it shouldn’t matter if Riley Gaines would have won first; even if “Lia” Thomas came in dead last, he is a man and has no business competing against women. There is more to it than just medals; it is also about not having to share a changing room with a man, and simply being allowed to have a space of our own. (I say ‘our’ even though I couldn’t make a three-year-olds swim team; I can’t swim.)
I can’t tell you (as a man) the despair I feel upon seeing women clinging so desperately to this illusion.
I’ll bet you feel it, too.
“Trans women are men and should not be competing in a female sports category.”
“DONALD TRUMP! OVER THERE! LOOK! NEXT TO THE SQUIRREL!”
The dreaded Argument from Trump. They play it like it’s trumps.
The gender zealots pretty much all seem to hate Trump. The gender zealots don’t seem able to grok that their own hateful behavior towards others in defense of their make-believe is what drives some people to consider Trump world a reasonable alternative to the world that the gender zealots are creating. At some point, many people are going to say “well, for all his considerable faults, at least he knows basic biology” and keep voting for him.
Trump is an egomaniac, but humans have seen men like him in power for centuries. His schtick is familiar, and people can feel that they know what he wants and what he will do and what he won’t do.
Where the Dems in the USA and the far left in the rest of the world are willing to go with the gender stuff is unknown. Women being dragged injured or even dead out of sporting events is OK with many of them. Male rapists being sent to a women’s prison to abuse more women is OK with many of them. Rapists and perverts of all types being given no sentences at all and simply being returned to the public to rack up more victims is OK with many of them. Children being lied to and indoctrinated into being cash cows for the gender industry is OK with many of them. Parents are losing custody of their kids over gender stuff. And when is it finally enough for the gender zealots? Rape culture codified and encouraged seems to be the next step, IMHO, as long as the raping is being done by gender zealots.
All the warming cries of “but Trump is doing this or Trump might do that” start to fall on deaf ears when enough normies see gender zealots in control of more and more aspects of their own lives. The gender zealots helped make a Trump presidency possible and they are probably going to keep on this insane course and make a Vance presidency look like a better choice for normies.
Francis @ 1 – should that be “So what she’s saying is that Riley Gaines lost and she likes winners”?
The university that employs her is NYU, so that’s embarrassing.
Southwest – I for one don’t really find Trump’s shtick familiar. He violates every norm there is, and that’s not very familiar. George H. W. Bush he isn’t.
Ophelia Benson #10
I was considering a longer-term view of history rather than just the USA to propose how Trump is not that different from emperors and tyrants and god-kings and royal dynasties that have ruled, either well or horribly, over others in many different cultures. I should have worded it better, though.
Taking Trump out of it, I still cannot fathom what will finally be enough power and enough harm to satisfy the gender zealots. I might be making a hash of this, but it seems to me that humans have lived for centuries in cultures where the king might be a pervert, but then most people never had to actually deal with the king personally. What society can exist where each and every gender zealot-approved pervert is a king who can do what he or she wants to any normie they wish to abuse? How does that not end in vigilante groups forming and people electing a leader who promises to do away with all those lesser kings plaguing their lives?
Riley Gaines *is* a bigot along with the other TPUSA goons. No one should waste any energy defending Trumpist handmaidens like her. My 401k is shit and my job is doomed in small part because of people like her.
Doesn’t change the fact that Lia Thomas is a man who has not business in women’s swimming. Transwomen are men.
I wasn’t actually defending Riley Gaines, I was objecting to Claire Potter’s rhetoric and reasoning. RG’s role in your finances is indeed microscopic. I’m not a fan of her politics but Potter’s lies and jibes are disgusting.
Lia Thomas was 462nd in his field nation wide, but when this was brought up, Gaines was the one dismissed as mediocre – but she was 5th in her field nation wide.
Such inconsistency! Shouldn’t an academic a basic level of reasoning?
Ophelia @10
Got It! I keep telling myself “don’t past bedtime” but the notification pops up and sometimes I just can’t help myself.