Tulsi Gabbard, Riley Gaines, and a group of high-powered athletes appeared together at a special event in the crucial battleground state of Pennsylvania on Sunday, where they discussed the importance of protecting women’s sports, a hot-button issue the current election cycle.
About 300 people rushed into the rally-style event when the doors opened at the Philadelphia arena. The event was hosted by Independent Women’s Voice, a nonprofit dedicated to fighting for good policy for women.
Many men as well as women attended, some with their teenaged sons and daughters. Several people had donned MAGA hats, and some wore clothing expressing their passion for the issue. One man wore a shirt reading, “No Men In Women’s Sports,” and another wore a shirt covered in American flag print.
“Excited to be here today to highlight the fact that our leaders are failing us, number one. We need leaders that stand with women.” Gaines told The Daily Wire in an interview before the event.
I joined @IWV yesterday for their "Stand With Women" event in Philadelphia
Riley Gaines, Tulsi Gabbard, and other top athletes spoke about keeping men out of women's sports ahead of the election in this critical swing state pic.twitter.com/p4griVUEYD
— Mairead Elordi (@JohnsonHildy) October 28, 2024
Gaines is a former University of Kentucky swimmer who tied with trans-identifying male swimmer Lia Thomas for fifth place at the NCAA championship in 2022. Gaines left the competition that day with a sixth-place trophy after the NCAA decided to give Thomas the fifth-place trophy.
Since then, Gaines has become a vocal advocate for women’s sports, arguing that trans-identifying males should not be allowed to compete alongside women and girls.
She emphasized that women care about more than just abortion, the issue Democrats are hammering the most.
Kamala Harris and Michelle Obama are “failing miserably at the male vote so it seems like they’re going all in on the angry abortion-obsessed female contingent touting women’s rights,” Gaines said. “We are here to combat that narrative and say real women’s rights is ensuring equal opportunity. Real women’s rights is ensuring safety in our sports, privacy in areas of undressing. We as women care about more than the ability to dismember and abort a developing child.”
Gaines said she was “super enthused” to hear Trump suggest he would use his executive power to ban schools from allowing biological boys to play on girls’ teams.
She also said she has “absolutely” seen progress in the sports world since her experience competing against a biological man.
“On the legislative front of course, but even in terms of how the general public feels and the willingness and the ability to say, ‘That’s a man,’ kind of like the ’emperor wears no clothes’ parable,” Gaines said.
Gaines was joined on the panel by Gabbard and Sia Liilii, a women’s volleyball team captain at the University of Nevada Reno whose team forfeited a game against San José State University’s women’s team, which has a male player.
Gaines noted that the girls’ volleyball team was able to express the “emotional blackmail” their university put them through as well as their safety concerns.
“We wouldn’t have seen that type of unity and that type of outpouring of support from the community two years ago,” she said. “All that leads me to believe that yes, the tide is turning, and it’s turning in our favor.”
“It’s been a whirlwind for me,” she said of her personal journey. “This isn’t what I necessarily prepared to do. I just saw an injustice and I was willing to call it out, but it shows you how desperate society was for that. I don’t say anything profound. I don’t say anything overly wise. I say there are two sexes.”
Gabbard, a former Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii and Army veteran who switched to the Republican Party last week emphasized her belief that “this is not a small issue.”
“I just find it incredibly hypocritical,” she said. “This is coming from a Democrat Party, my former party, that claims to be the champion of women. You hear this all the time in this election right now. And it also is the party that says, we must believe all women. Why don’t you believe Sia? Why don’t you believe her teammates and those who are afraid of being smashed in the face by a male player at full force with a volleyball?”
Two former UFC champions and mixed martial artists, Royce Gracie and Carla Esparza, spoke on the second panel, which was moderated by Sage Steele, former ESPN SportsCenter host.
“Contact sports, but combat sports, I mean we’re putting people in danger here, I think that needs to be the focus,” Esparza said.
Steele asked champion gymnast Jen Sey, who previously spoke out about the abuse in the gymnastics world, why corporations are “sacrificing girls and women.”
“They’re cowards,” Sey responded. “Most people would rather stand with the crowd than stand apart and do the right thing, but courage is contagious.”
Also speaking at the event was Cynthia Monteleone, a Team USA Masters track runner who competed against a man in women’s races and whose daughter lost her first high school race to a boy on the girls’ team.
“Why is our current administration lying and pretending that they stand up for women when they’re trying to rewrite Title IX?” she said. “Not only did I have to deal with this. My daughter had to deal with this.”
Meghan McCain, daughter of the late Senator John McCain (R-AZ), and Frank Murphy, a former NFL wide receiver and Heisman Trophy winner who started a charity to mentor youth athletes, also spoke at the event.
“Especially now where it’s crunch time before the election,” Gaines told The Daily Wire, their goal is to “send a message loud and clear to voters, to our federal government, to leaders in corporate America, leaders in the academic world, that enough is enough. Do the right thing. It’s never been on the wrong side of history to stand with women.”