A trans high school volleyball player probably regrets making their scholarship offer public. We are unsure if the teenage athlete noised the news on any social media platform. However, famous swimmer and pro-women sports activist Riley Gaines got a whiff of the information.
The follow-up actions of Gaines resulted in the trans athlete losing her scholarship offer at the University of Washington (UW). It was later revealed that the trans teenage athlete received multiple scholarship offers from UW. However, after consultations with her parents, she eventually settled for one.
However, the trans athlete’s woes started on December 13. After learning of the scholarship award, Riley Gaines outed the athlete in the court of popular opinion. Here’s how the scenario played out.
Gaines took to her X profile and dragged the trans athlete and her family for usurping biological female athletes. The anti-trans activist also misgendered the trans athlete in her X post.
Finally, she capped off the post by asking UW to revoke the scholarship. To get some context of how much influence that single post had, Gaines has 860,000 followers on X. She even went as far as posting a picture of the said trans athlete.
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During her active swimming career, Gaines lost a major competitive medal to a trans athlete. So, ever since, she has made it a point to call out trans athletes at every opportunity.
In the X post that outed the UW scholarship holder, Gaines wrote: “Male takes women’s volleyball scholarship at @UW … a soon-to-be Big 10 school. Stealing the already few opportunities for women at the collegiate level. How can he be proud? @UWVolleyball should rescind the scholarship if they really care about women. He can play with the men.”
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Gaines returned to her X profile three days later to celebrate the teen’s scholarship revocation. However, she did not validate the source of this information. According to Gaines, the coaches involved in the scholarship award claimed they were not aware that the athlete was trans.
The misfortune of the teen athlete did not end with the loss of her scholarship. In addition, she had to bear the backlash of Gaines’s right-wing army and anti-trans sports organizations.
Many have criticized Gaines for being a sore loser. According to them, she became wildly transphobic after tying in a swimming competition with Lia Thomas. Thomas is a trans swimmer who represented the University of Pennsylvania at the National Collegiate Athletics Association competition.
In response, Gaines first had a go at female competitive athletes for not seeing anything wrong with or speaking up against trans athletes. She equally insisted that she was stating the obvious truth: “A trans girl is still biologically male.”
However, the LGBTQ+ community has spoken up in support of the outed teenager. Leading members of the LGBTQ+ program said in a statement that the trans athlete does not have any undue advantage over biological females. According to them, the teenage athlete transitioned before puberty.
No one knows how much damage Gaines would do to the LGBTQ+ community in sports. Queer activists like Alejandra Caraballo have labeled Gaines as sociopathic.
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