GwensBackOnHerBS
27148
941
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Art by Vixen Studio 202
Sep 4, 2026 12:10 AM
GwensBackOnHerBS
27148
941
52
Art by Vixen Studio 202
PurpleMoonFlower
And yet there's hundreds of hours of right wing media ranting about her.
CaptainCaptObvious
I really don't understand why sports can't be decided by weight rather than race.
ghostofGracchusBabeuf
God it’s so irritating that lawmakers think they have to weigh in on everything while knowing nothing about the subjects they’re passing laws for. Laws about trans athletes are only one symptom of the world’s biggest Dunning-Kruger effect.
MilesOfWhyles
So before transitioning she was ranked 11th in Men's. After transitioning she was ranked 10th and 12th in Women's. JFC if that doesn't prove that it was a legit shift from one to the other I don't know WHAT does.
Osiricus
Riley Gaines sees all this attention and her podcast as a means to get "Trump rich" through appealing to MAGA and other right wing bozos. Outside of swimming, Gaines has zero idea about anything happening in the world...she's a true opportunist and remarkably poor one at that.
SergeyPrkl
I'm thinking, there are not enough studies yet. I want everyone to play together. Here in Finland, true mixed ice hockey teams are developing, current 10 year olds are the first batch that are coached deliberately into teams for everyone.
philipinoraven
And Gaines coach was an abuser and also covered up for an assistant coach who an abuser but she never called him a threat to women. And her original statement on tying with a trans person was pretty mild. She has obviously ramped up the hatred so she can get that bag. She’s the fucking worst. Except for maybe Rowling.
johnvilnis
So you are saying that transitioning didn’t give her an unfair advantage over other women?
Funny how actual facts show Conservatives to be fools so often.
IntegratedTraumaEarnedSecure
Damn don't just roast a bitch like that, where's your medal
SteveD31415
Tell me that trans people have an unfair advantage in getting into graduate school. Because athletics don't matter for s***. A bunch of pampered people getting attention for playing children's playground games.
aslum
The thing is, the right doesn't care about facts, it's just one more thing to create outrage about to distract from everything else.
UncleMeaty
She swims like a girl!
B4r4B4d4B45tu
Right-wing idiots don't understand that HRT greatly weakens trans girls, so there's no real advantage.
ThatOtherMacAvoyWoman
Women who go through male puberty will always have a larger lung capacity.
That said, I don’t think trans women have to suck for them to be able to play women’s sports. Some women are just born with advantages! Those used to be celebrated….
GwensBackOnHerBS
Studies show that trans women have less VO2 max than cis women, lung size isn't the biggest factor.
ThatOtherMacAvoyWoman
Good to know! My information is a few years old now.
urusername2
Here's an upvote from an 80 y/o straight grandfather!
GwensBackOnHerBS
😊😊😊
albakSPrince
if someone transitioning wants to compete in College sports, they should be given a medical exemption and be given up to two years of eligibility after all required surgeries have been completed. I just want women to be safe, in the way we don't allow heavy weight fighters to drop weight classes.
GwensBackOnHerBS
Surgery isn't required.
HRT for two years was the rule prior to trump turning trans people into a political football and that all worked just fine.
CyberHexx
And Riley Gaines is still running around like Lia ruined her chance to go to the Olympics. It's like, Girl? Nobody's stopping you from buying a ticket.
XXXSpork
https://i.imgur.com/Y3yiU7U
Antrobus55
Riley Gaines found a way to make money without working. The protofascists pay her to terrify the square and the stupid about what awaits them if they ever allow anyone other than Republicans to win elections. Greg Abbott's campaign ads are using this non-issue to tout his protection of wipeepo kultur and I'm surprised she isn't on the trail with him. Had Lia Thomas been Matthew Shepard, Riley Gaines would be just another person who finished in fifth place in something a long time ago.
ImAWeirdMom
https://media0.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPWE1NzM3M2U1M3MyYmJiMnRrdjlqN2J2cW9vZnM1M3hpNG91b25iaHNnNWFvcnlxNCZlcD12MV9naWZzX3NlYXJjaCZjdD1n/9EwnzGNjvmIG4/200w.webp
invisiblemaniac
B3N15
Gaines for me is a good example of how all this culture war bullshit works. 5th place in the NCAA championships is an amazing accomplishment on paper, but can be personally devastating to a competitive individual who has worked their entire life to be first. In that devastation is where the bullshit creeps in, it gives you an out by claiming its not your fault and provides you with a platform to chase that high you felt competing. This goes on until you are no longer useful and your discarded
Immycatsdad
*You're
PumpkinDriver5
Is she hadn’t shared 5th place, she still would have been in 5th place.
She just would have had to find a job.
expectnothingstillletdown
Tbh I kinda hate the implication that trans women should only be allowed in sports if they don't win.
Arbitrarynamehere
It sucks that this is the implication to the counterargument of trans women dominating sports. Still creates that negative outcome. I don't know what the answer is either but hopefully it's just one of those things that improved with society being less transphobic over time.
KinetoPlay
The answer is just allowing it more. Letting people play what they want will show if it's some magic win button. Then there can be charts and graphs that show the truth. And I think if you got enough sports data that you wouldn't be able to pick out the trans athletes just by their stats.
FiftyShadesOfMascarpone
The answer is what developed countries with modern, science-based medicine were already doing: Early gender-affirming care. Puberty suppression followed by HRT once adolescents are old enough means they never have to go through the wrong kind of puberty and develop the wrong skeletal built and musculature. Their musculoskeletal development is 100% that of the sex that corresponds to their gender identity. Zero physical advantages. And this is how …
FiftyShadesOfMascarpone
we can tell that the entire conservative panic is bad faith BS. Just like their faux concern for children, family values, morality, anything they pretend to care about. Because they're not just against trans athletes but also against trans kids who desperately want to transition. Just like they're against abortion but also against sex ed, contraceptives, and anything that would benefit poor kids once they're born (free school lunch etc.) It's all about social control and courting the bigot vote.
Arbitrarynamehere
That doesn't solve the problem we're talking about though, that being bad faith attacks from the right. That part I don't really know what to do about except continue allyship until the right gets pushed further out of polite society and can't make these flagrantly abusive attacks in public anymore
ImAWeirdMom
I know you would never post AI, or BS, but thank you for finding this to share from an actual artist with actual facts.
GwensBackOnHerBS
I am bad at telling if something is AI and they slip through sometimes.
Rogerwilco1974
It happens. I'm rabidly anti gen-AI but I've had friends smugly point out when I've accidentally posted something ai generated.
ImAWeirdMom
Yeah, true for me too, but we try!
StNickCage
Count zee fingers.
Anfalicious
The fingers trick rarely works anymore. The clankers still don't know how light and shadows work, yet.
ImHereToExplainTheJoke
The sad part is that Riley will go down as more notorious and richer than Lia ever will because of her transphobia. Also Lia’s a perfect case study for why the whole “trans women playing in women’s leagues is unfair” thing is a load of bull.
corndude101
It’s not really a load of bull though. As a coach that has been in charge of women’s teams and men’s teams it’s a lot more complicated than people think it is.
Once the body goes through puberty a male to female will have different anatomy that can give them advantages.
For example, when a. Girl goes through puberty her hips get wider for child birth. This can throw off mechanics and in the sport I coach, we see a lot of ACL tears after puberty as females adjust.
1/
Goldensands
meme2zombie
So you think you know better than hundreds of doctors and dozens of pro sports leagues and the famously conservative Olympics itself?
Pelican3
College athletes compete for a limited number of spots at the NCAA championships. For most swimmers just qualifying is the pinnacle of the 20 years they’ve trained in the pool. Getting bumped by an athlete with a biological advantage is unfair. We already have separate male and female competitions maybe a third trans category should be created.
ChloePrice
You know what else gives advantages? Genetics. Do you think someone like Jon Jones in the UFC is competing under completely fair circumstances while having way more reach than everyone he fights? Do you think someone like Shaqille ONeal is playing basketball with the same entry as most other players? There are women who have very high testosterone levels completely natural. There are people who have opposite-sex chromosomes but naturally develop as the other. Name one concrete example where 1/2
ChloePrice
a trans-athlete who was genuinely trans, didn't detransition, didn't come out and admit it was some kind of PR stunt etc. dominated a sport and that dominance can be linked and/or explained to their assigned-at-birth sex affected their body in a way that was unfair. Just one. The USA has like what? Two trans athletes at the collegiate level? Like what are we saying 2/2
GwensBackOnHerBS
Who to trust, a high school coach with an agenda, or actual doctors? Hm
M4UsedRollout
Have you coached trans athletes though? I think you’re still assuming trans women are like cis men. Studies have shown that a couple years of HRT reshape the body. The only thing that doesn’t change is the bone structure itself. Trans women end up woman-shaped, just a little taller on average.
Here’s a writeup of the latest study to come out (early 2026). https://www.transresearch.org.au/post/trans-women-in-sport
There really doesn’t seem to be much to worry about.
MilesOfWhyles
But from the above info, she went from Rank 11th in Men's to Rank 10th/12th in Women's. Doesn't that show that it really didn't make much of a difference? And as a coach, you probably are HIGHLY aware that there are some competitors that have major genetic advantages (better lung capacity, longer arms, lower production of lactic acid, etc). If evidence like this post shows that there wasn't a big gain, how does that differ from one swimmer having an advantage for any other reason?
corndude101
This isn’t evidence. This is one instance. We do not know why that happened or why there was a drop.
Was it because of the therapy? Possibly.
Was it because the athlete was getting older? Possibly.
Were there any injuries that limited ability? Possibly.
This post’s mistake is that correlation does not always mean causation.
ImHereToExplainTheJoke
There has never, not once been any instance of a trans athlete who, after transitioning, shot to the top of the rankings in women’s sports. Every trans athlete I have ever seen or heard about who is allowed to compete has always either stayed around the same level of performance relatively. Maybe some variance in their stats, but not like what transphobes seem to think. HRT hits fast, and it hits HARD. Like 6 months in, 20%+ loss of bone density hard.
corndude101
I’m not saying it’s going to make them the best, however having undergone male puberty, there will be benefits.
It’s hard to tell that if that person had transitioned earlier (youth) vs later (adulthood) if they would have even been as high as they were if they had never gone through puberty.
There isn’t enough data to conclude that there’s absolutely zero influence from having been a male at one point.
corndude101
Males do not go through this and we do not see as many ACL tears. Because of their hips, women tend to plant on their right foot and twist their knee to go right, while males tend to push off their left foot to go right.
Those subtle difference can be big in sports.
Men will generally have bigger growth sports and grow much taller than women after puberty… this can be a distinct advantage in certain sports.
I personally really like Neil deGrasse Tyson’s idea of sorting competitors by
2/
georgejimmydoodle
Get a lot of all tears in the pool, do ya?
ImHereToExplainTheJoke
When you remove testosterone everything else can be explained and accounted for by means of genetic difference. Athletic competitions will always and forever be inherently unfair because of the underlying genetics.
RayBabbitt
You’re arguing with people who are providing anecdotal evidence, while you’re offering systemic evidence. There’s no point in arguing with people who are right, even when they’re wrong.
Chilichunks
Other way around.
FlowerIsland
We provide statistical evidence and studies. He doesn't
corndude101
Testosterone levels and letting them compete this way.
Much like you have in combat sports. They have weight classes… so if you’re from 100 - 125 lbs you compete in this bracket. If you’re 220 - 240 you compete in that one for example.
I think this makes the most sense and is quite possibly actually the fairest measure for competitiveness in all of sports.
But the main reason why we separate men and women sports is because there is such a huge difference.
4/
ImHereToExplainTheJoke
I think you should quit yapping and go read up on how HRT affects the body and how fast it does its job. The data you’re asking for exists. We are no longer in the “does being a trans woman give you an advantage over other women” phase. We’re in the “okay, let them compete and see if they do indeed start dominating as the transphobes think” phase. When transphobes think of trans women they think of burly men in dresses and makeup, not people undergoing a form of second puberty.
corndude101
I know what they do. So taking these drugs will suddenly make a man trans woman shrink from 6’ 5” to 6’ 2”?
No it won’t.
The average height of men in the US is 5’ 9”. The average height of women is 5’ 3”.
Undergoing treatment after puberty can give a distinct height advantage.
Yes the drugs reduce muscle and bone density, but the structures that bear the weight of the body are different.
So, maybe you should quit yapping and take a course on Human Development at a local university.
corndude101
A few years back, the US Women’s National Soccer Team took on the U15 FC Dallas boys team in preparation for a competition.
The women were the best team at the world in women’s soccer at the time.
They lost 7-2 to a group of 13-15 year olds who ended the match scoring a goal with 7 players against 11 on the field.
The best women’s team in the world couldn’t beat a group of teenagers whose team was middle of the pack in the MLS Youth league…
So it’s not a “load of bull.”
4/4
obviouslyrob
Your argument, summarized:
Chilichunks
Oh no you don't, tell the class ALL of the details of that match. You think you're slick leaving out that it was a behind closed doors, informal training match. It was not meant to be won or lost, but instead testing out new strategies and there are no details about rules, formations, who played what position, nothing aside from a 5-2 loss that everyone was open and honest about and that's it. You ain't slick and you ain't clever boss, run it back.
MelodyLightfoot
What you're missing though is the fact that gender affirming hormone therapy changes the body and depending on when it is applied can even completely negate things. There's a reason why it's reffered to as 2nd puberty in adults. For starters, muscle mass drops, BUT bone density does not this means that trans women have to put more effort towards just moving their bodies around which usually also affects cardiovascular outpout negatively as per findings by the Olympic research commitee. 1/
Chilichunks
Setting classes by testosterone level is one of the stupidest things I've ever heard lol Neil needs to stick to space.
corndude101
Someone was picked last during elementary school.
It actually makes a lot of sense, but you’d have to be a sports person to understand.
WillUleimi
He didn't really advocate for it, it is just a spitball thing he shoots out when he is talking to transphobes about Trans women in sports.
This person acting as if NDT is actually trying to push this forward as a real idea is definitely overstateing what has actually been said.