Journalist Madison Pauly has profiled former University of Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines for the latest episode of the investigative podcast Reveal. Pauly found that Gaines has made a profitable career out of her anti-trans activism.
The episode airs Saturday at 7 p.m. on 89.3 WFPL. She spoke about her work with LPM’s Bill Burton.
This transcript was edited for brevity and clarity.
Bill Burton: Former teammates described Gaines as friendly and respectful to all in her first few years on UK's campus. What caused the transformation to being anti-transgender?
Madison Pauly: Riley's entry to the anti trans movement really begins in 2022 around the NCAA Women's Swimming Championships. Lia Thomas was a transgender swimmer on the University of Pennsylvania women's team. It was her first year swimming on the women's team, and she was having great success. And so by the time of the national championships, Lia and Riley are both swimming in the same race, the 200 freestyle, and they tie. They come in place. As the story goes, as Riley often tells it, when they are given their trophies on the podium, Riley is told that her fifth place trophy will come in the mail. Lia will hold the fifth place trophy. To hear her describe it, this was the real turning point for her, the moment when she realized she needed to stand up and, quote, “Save women's sports from an impending threat of transgender athletes like Lia Thomas.”
BB: Her position has become profitable for her. Not only is she getting up to $25,000 for a speaking engagement, she's also a part of some very powerful conservative groups.
MP: Something that's really important is that she actually has held titles across a range of quite powerful conservative interest groups. One of those is the Leadership Institute, which opened a center in her name at the time the center launched in 2023. The Dick and Betsy DeVos Family Foundation, these are some of the biggest funders of the conservative movement, had donated 100 grand to open the center that year, and in the same timeframe, Riley had been paid by them $126,000 salary. The next year, the Leadership Institute paid her almost half a million dollars to lead this center. So it's clear that this road to becoming an anti-trans activist has been incredibly financially rewarding for her.
BB: One of the things her anti-trans rhetoric does is draw attention away from what is considered by most to be a much bigger problem within women's athletics. Abuse by coaches, including sexual abuse. That includes abuse from her own head coach, University of Kentucky's Lars Jorgensen.
MP: I wanted to find out what Riley was like before she became this very prominent political figure, and so I talked to some of her old teammates at the University of Kentucky. What I found was that they were so much more interested in talking about, when it comes to the problems in women's sports and the threat to them as women athletes, they were so much more interested in talking about their coach and the environment that he created on their team. As well as a lawsuit that has been filed against Lars Jorgensen by multiple assistant coaches on the team alleging sexual assault. Among the allegations are that he would rape these assistant coaches, and these are former undergrad swimmers on the team that he hired, that he raped them at his home after Christmas parties that he would hold. Jorgensen has denied these allegations in court. He and his lawyers didn't respond to interview requests, but the U.S. center for safe sport recently investigated these claims, and they came to the conclusion that Jorgensen should be banned for life from coaching.
