Riley Gaines warns potential Supreme Court victory won't end battle to protect women's sports

WASHINGTON — Female athletes are hopeful the U.S. Supreme Court will side with “common sense” and “truth” by upholding bans on trans-identified male athletes competing in women’s sports. 

Speaking outside the nation's highest court on Tuesday, athletes and advocates for women's sports reflected on their Christian faith as they wage this battle. 

As justices heard oral arguments in the cases of Little v. Hecox and West Virginia v. BPJ — the cases challenge state bans on trans-identified male athletes competing in women’s sports in Idaho and West Virginia — both supporters and opponents of the law gathered outside the Supreme Court for dueling rallies. 

Riley Gaines, who is among the most well-known critics of policies allowing trans-identified male athletes to compete in women’s sports, urged the Supreme Court justices to rule in favor of “common sense and of truth,” as she clarified misconceptions the public might have about the two cases. 

“Even with a favorable ruling, I will tell you, it’s not enough,” she warned. “Understand that the cases that are being heard are not to decide if states must protect us as women, if we must have rights to equal opportunity, to privacy and to safety. That’s not what it is. It’s if states even can. It’s the bare minimum that we’re fighting for,” she declared at the rally hosted by the conservative legal nonprofit Alliance Defending Freedom, which has represented several female athletes. 

Gaines urged supporters of the state bans to “fight for the states to continue to act” to protect women’s sports.

In addition to Idaho and West Virginia, other states have also passed laws or regulations prohibiting trans-identified male athletes from competing on women’s sports teams, including: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia and Wyoming.

A Supreme Court ruling against the state laws in Idaho and West Virginia would likely have a ripple effect on similar laws in the more than two dozen other states that have passed them. 

Other female athletes who spoke at the rally recounted their experiences of being forced to compete against and share locker rooms with men who self-identified as female.

Brooke Slusser, who previously played volleyball for San Jose State University, shared her experience after speaking out against the presence of a trans-identified male athlete on her team.

“I committed to a school that all I wanted was to find the love for the game again,” she said. “I was guided to living with a certain room of girls on my volleyball team, and come to find out that one of those girls was actually a man.” 

“Not only was I being put in harm’s way every single day going into the gym, but I was also having to share a living space with this man. [...] “I ended up having to move back home to Texas with my family, not finish my last year, senior season of school. [...] I had to move back home and heal from the trauma that I went through.”

She added, “When I brought this to my coach, he cursed me out just for saying ‘what if these teams start to forfeit?’” Her coach also characterized her as a “bigot” and a “hateful human being” who was “ruining this program.”

In an interview with The Christian Post, Slsusser said she decided to take a gap year rather than finish her senior year because of the trauma associated with her advocacy and plans to finish her education elsewhere. 

Sam Kelley, a former athlete from Connecticut who now runs an organization called Fierce Athlete, was one of several speakers who highlighted their faith during their remarks. “I am passionate about this issue first and foremost because I am a Catholic Christian,” she declared. 

“We want them to learn virtue, confidence and perseverance," she added. "We want them to learn God’s intention for sport. And I think that’s the silver lining in all of this, the resurrection, if you will, that people are acknowledging God’s design. That He created us male and female and that that sexual difference is … beautiful and good and holy. We have seen people come and have conversions. We’ve seen Bible studies. I’ve talked to women on the UPenn women’s swim team who started a Bible study when everything was going on.”

Stephanie Turner elaborated on how her faith played a central role in her decision to take “a knee back in April to protest against a man competing against [her] in women’s fencing.”

Expressing her disgust at “men repeatedly winning women’s world fencing titles while representing the United States and standing on women’s national championship podiums draped in women’s medals,” Turner recalled how “For years, I quietly adjusted my life to avoid unfair competition.”

“I delayed registering for tournaments. I withdrew when male competitors entered women’s events. I missed regional and national competitions for years, not because I lacked ability or dedication but because the category created for women was no longer protected,” she explained. As she found herself forced to compete against a trans-identified male last year and after “praying for strength from God,” Turner decided to take a knee. 

Sara Casebolt, who competed for a “small classical Christian high school in Idaho called Logos School,” shared how she finished behind a trans-identified male athlete in a 1600-meter women’s race. “When the purpose of women’s sports is forgotten or ignored, it radically devalues opportunities and achievements that female athletes have worked so hard to earn and even worse, destroys women’s sports as a whole. And this loss doesn’t stop at sports,” she asserted. 

“When we lose the definition of what God created women to be, we also lose the beauty, dignity and uniqueness of womanhood itself,” she added. “My encouragement to you all is to hold fast to truth. Jesus says in the Gospel of John that if we abide in His word, we will know the truth and the truth will set us free. Truth is not something that confines us or oppresses us. It is something that ... liberates us, bringing clarity where there’s confusion and courage where there is fear. The ultimate goal is to pursue truth in all areas on all issues.”

Selina Soule, one of the first female athletes to speak out against policies allowing trans-identified male athletes to compete in women’s sports, reacted to the progress made in the nearly eight years since she began her advocacy against Connecticut’s policy of allowing boys to compete in girls' sports as a high school student in an interview with CP: “I am just so grateful for all the incredible women that have since joined me in this fight. When I first started, I was really the only one speaking on this issue.”

“All we care about is keeping sports safe and ensuring that women play on a fair and level playing field,” said Soule, maintaining that trans-identified athletes “can compete in athletics, they just need to compete in the category that’s most in line with their biology.”  

Soule reiterated her experience during remarks at the rally: “During my junior year at the 2019 indoor state open championship meet, I lost out on qualifying for the indoor New England Regional Championship meet in the 55-meter dash by just two spots, with the top two spots being taken by those male athletes. I was robbed of a chance to compete in this race, and I was forced to watch my own race from the sidelines as I had qualified for that meet in two other events.”

“Losing out on competing in the regional meet was demoralizing, and seeing that the adults who were supposed to stand up and protect us didn’t want to do anything, I knew I had to stand up and fight for women’s rights,” she added. “At just 16 years old, I started doing national television interviews, sharing my story of competing against the males. At the time, no one else was speaking out on this issue, so I had to become a role model, not only for myself but for every girl out there facing this injustice.” 

According to Soule, “Women deserve to win in their own sports, not just earn a participation trophy. Science and common sense tell us that there are great physical differences between men and women, and that leads to men performing at a much higher level than women. Men have no place competing against women. Sports are about biology, not identity.”

Soule concluded her remarks by expressing hope that “the Supreme Court will stand up for women so that the next generation of girls will not have to suffer the same pain and heartbreak I went through during my four years of high school.”