The Woke Mob Comes for Riley Gaines

The left-wing smear machine fired up again last week, this time to go after Riley Gaines for her outspoken defense of women’s sports and criticism of transgenderism. But all the critics succeeded in proving is that the woke mob no longer has the cultural influence it once did, and that sensationalist headlines can’t hide an utter lack of substance in bad-faith personal attacks.

As a quick refresher, Riley Gaines was the University of Kentucky swimmer who became a national story after she tied with the University of Pennsylvania’s Lia Thomas in the 200-yard freestyle at the 2022 NCAA swimming championships. Thomas, a man who claims to be a woman, initially competed on the men’s team at UPenn before “transitioning” and switching to the women’s team as a junior.

The NCAA allowed the switch and allowed Thomas to share a locker room with female athletes, despite the fact that he has male genitalia. When Thomas tied Gaines, the NCAA gave the trophy and the podium to Thomas, telling Gaines that her trophy would “come in the mail” later.

That incident prompted Gaines to speak out about her experience and became a flashpoint in the brewing backlash against transgender ideology. Since then, Gaines has become a leading advocate for keeping men out of women’s sports. She has appeared before multiple legislatures as an expert witness, helped rally support for legislation protecting women’s sports, and become a powerful voice opposing the lies of transgenderism more broadly (including by joining AMAC’s “Better for America” podcast and being featured as AMAC’s 2023 Woman of the Year).

Gaines’s public opposition to transgender ideology is, of course, an unforgivable sin in the left’s woke religion. Women are supposed to remain silent as delusional men invade their spaces and erase the hard-won victories of prior generations. While liberals position themselves as the great champions of the female sex, they are the most vicious toward women who break with left-wing orthodoxy.

That brings us to a YouTube video released late last week by independent investigative journalist Pablo Torre, host of “Pablo Torre Finds Out.” The 80-minute video is titled “What Is Riley Gaines Hiding” and promises to tell us the “secrets of MAGA’s #1 sports troll.”

The video is accompanied by a painfully long hit piece from left-wing rag Mother Jones promising to explain “How Right-Wing Superstar Riley Gaines Built an Anti-Trans Empire.” The author of the article is Madison Pauly, another journalist who appears to write almost exclusively about the supposed plight of the LGBTQ+ community.

All of that sounds quite scandalous, right? Not so much.

Essentially, the “bombshell” revelations that Torre and Pauly unearth fall into two categories: Riley Gaines has been paid for her activism, and her coach at the University of Kentucky has been accused of sexual assault. Apparently, we are supposed to dismiss Gaines as a hypocrite and allow men to invade women’s sports because Riley Gaines makes a living, and her former coach may have some major skeletons in his closet.

Pauly in particular appears to take issue with Gaines’s income. “In 2024, [Gaines] released a children’s book and a memoir,” she breathlessly reports. “Her speaking fees run as high as $25,000.” Torre is also aghast at a $100,000 donation from the family of former Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos – which didn’t even go to Gaines, but to the Riley Gaines Center at the Leadership Institute. In an X post, he calls Gaines’s career “the grift that keeps on giving.”

Then comes what is supposed to be the real nail in the coffin for Gaines. As Pauly relays, “In the spring of 2024, two former members of Gaines’ University of Kentucky swim team filed a lawsuit alleging that Lars Jorgensen, their coach, had sexually assaulted them.” Jorgensen has denied wrongdoing, claiming that the accusations are retaliation for his support of Gaines. The case has not yet gone to court.

Gaines had previously spoken positively about Jorgensen, citing how his tough coaching had made her a better swimmer. After the lawsuit became public, Gaines posted on X that she hadn’t seen any of the alleged abuse but was nonetheless “horrified” at the accusations and “vehemently condemn[s] all violence, especially sexual violence against women.” But that wasn’t enough for Pauly, who writes, “in the year and a half since then, Gaines has been quiet in public about the lawsuit.”

Apparently, we are supposed to believe that Gaines is a hypocrite because she isn’t attacking Jorgensen every day – even though Gaines herself said she saw no wrongdoing. What exactly Pauly and Torre want Gaines to do is unclear. A lawsuit has been filed, and Jorgensen will face justice for any crimes that the court finds he committed. Do Jorgensen’s actions somehow discredit Gaines’s righteous fight to protect women’s sports? Are we supposed to believe that she is less credible because of what her former coach may or may not have done? 

Second, Pauly and Torre are attempting to downplay the threat that transgenderism poses to women’s sports and safety by pointing out that sexual assault is also a very real problem (and undoubtedly, it is). The implication is that because some coaches abuse their power and assault women, we shouldn’t care at all about schools and universities forcing women to compete against men and share a locker room with them. That argument is the definition of a red herring.

And that’s it – that’s the gist of why Pauly and Torre want us all to condemn Gaines as a grifter and a fraud. She accepted a paycheck to provide for her family for speaking out (and was likely underpaid, given that she’s received death threats and been physically assaulted for her activism), and her former coach now has a lawsuit pending against him.

The smear campaign has garnered plenty of attention online, with millions of views on X of clips of Torre’s “investigation.” But most of the response has been supportive of Gaines.

“There are hundreds of examples of this on the left, but Pablo won’t say anything,” one user posted. Outkick founder Clay Travis also weighed in, asking, “Pablo, should men be able to win women’s sports titles? Simple question, yes or no? @Riley_Gaines_ says no. As a result, left wingers attack her viciously. So what if she makes a living talking about this? She’s honestly underpaid, how many people in media risk their lives to speak?”

Gaines herself also joined the fray, asking Torre to follow up on a 2016 post in which he declared, “If you’re defending a man’s right to expose himself to a female employee, against her will, at work, I humbly beg you to never procreate.” Torre has since limited replies on that post. Paula Scanlan, another swimmer who was forced to compete against Thomas and has since spoken out against men in women’s sports, responded, “Hey Pablo, I was sexually assaulted as a teenager and THEN I was forced to undress with Lia Thomas in a locker room 18 times per WEEK I was on the team. He is a man. It was disgusting, violating and traumatizing. Is that enough for you to understand?”

Ultimately, the backlash to Torre’s dishonest attack on Gaines was a testament to the influence that her activism has had on the culture. Thanks to Gaines and other brave women who have had the courage to stand up for women’s safety – not to mention basic biological reality – the Overton window has shifted, and public opinion has turned back toward common sense.

As this smear campaign also proves, however, the battle is far from over.

Shane Harris is the Editor in Chief of AMAC Newsline. You can follow him on X @shaneharris513.