Women’s sports activist and former Kentucky NCAA swimming champion Riley Gains has been disappointed with NCAA president Charlie Baker’s tenure at the organization and notes that the college sports authority has still not addressed the concerns women had over the 2022 NCAA championships, where male-born swimmer Lia Thomas competed and won trophies in several categories.
Gaines said that she initially had high hopes for Baker when he took over as NCAA head in March, Fox News reported.
Baker, Gaines said, had a reputation for “fairness and for considering all viewpoints” but has not lived up to that potential.
Riley Gaines speaks during a discussion on transgender athletes In women’s sports during a National Girls and Women in Sports Day event on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, Feb. 01, 2023, in Washington, DC. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
“Because of all this, I imagined that he would be adamant about prioritizing fairness and the integrity of sports rather than creating guidelines that limit opportunities for females under the guise of promoting ‘inclusion.’ And let me be clear: the guidelines he mentioned in this week’s Senate Judiciary hearing are no less harmful to women, no less discriminatory to women than those in 2022. Without single-sex competition, there can be no equal athletic opportunity,” Gaines exclaimed.
Baker, though, has not taken any time to recognize the anguish many women had over the Lia Thomas issue because she actually wrote him a letter in January explaining the problems.
“I explained the general consensus of how the female athletes felt disregarded and betrayed by the unfair competition and lack of privacy and vulnerability in our locker rooms where male genitalia was on full display. I explained how athletes, coaches, administrators, and parents were silenced amidst the controversy,” Gaines said.
She added, “I explained why it’s crucial to understand the scientific evidence that shows the impossibility of leveling the collegiate playing field through hormone therapy. I asked for an opportunity to meet face-to-face and sit down with him to better explain my (and so many other female athletes’) perspective and to work together to create a solution that would provide everyone a place where they can play fairly and safely.”
Unfortunately, she added, ten months has passed, and she has received no answer at all.
Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker speaks on Orange Line renovations at a press conference at the Tufts Medical Center MBTA station. (Carlin Stiehl for The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
During his testimony before a House committee, Baker tried to speak out of both sides of his mouth on the Lia Thomas issue.
On one hand, he said he would not “defend what happened in 2022” because he “wasn’t there.”
But on the other, he stuck beside the very rules that allowed Lia Thomas to compete like he did in 2022.
“What I will say is, we have very specific rules and standards around the safety and security of all our student-athletes, and anyone who hosts one of our national championships has to accept that they know what they are and then abide by them accordingly,” he said.
Then he made a vague claim that “I don’t believe that policy would be the policy we would use today,” but did not say what would be different, though he claimed the current NCAA rules are more strict now.
“As I said before, the rules around transgender athletes generally are more restrictive today than they were in ‘22. And I can state pretty clearly that no one’s going to get forced into any sort of situation that’s going to make them uncomfortable,” he insisted. “We make that very clear in the guidance that we give to anybody who hosts one of our championships, period,” he said.
“I can tell you that the standards with respect to participation for trans athletes in women’s sports have been adjusted since then and continue to be adjusted based on conversation with other governing bodies,” he averred.
But NCAA rules still allow trans athletes to participate and to use women’s locker rooms and changing facilities.
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