What is Riley Gaines hiding? We investigated…

[Brewdug]

This podcast appeared in my feed today via an affiliated show… I know it is naive but it’s still hard to believe how blinkered - and unbearably smug the US liberal wing is on this. This is rubbish ( from the ‘Center for Investigative Reporting’, which I now wouldn’t trust to tell me if it was raining), but still enlightening… wondered if anyone else had heard it.

A six month dig to discredit Gaines - we’re not supposed to notice that everyone they’re trying to gotcha in this won’t dignify any of it - that finds her hiding (spoiler alert) nothing?

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/reveal/id886009669?i=1000738472306

I don't give a shit if Thomas was wearing a bloody wetsuit the whole time
He is a man and has no business in female changing rooms - how is anyone elses behaviour relevant?

I think some are frightened by the idea of an organised GC movement building up because they know it would be popular.

I suspect people who are supportive of trans rights know about the discrepancies and the safeguarding fails but hope that policy can mitigate if no one looks too closely.

Thats why they arent arguing too much about men in womens sport, its the last thing they want to justify. Instead they have to pull down anyone who will speak up, the more capable and informed the better. The fact that she has money behind her off the back of womens rights indicates that there is support and that concerns them.

Shes not someone who follows the drama and will pivot to another issue, shes in it until men are out of womens sports. She not like Piers Morgan who will cause a fuss, but will likely get distracted eventually.

I have no problems with journalists getting paid. I also have no issue with women getting paid to campaign. That is the fucking point.

If Riley Gaines had changed what she has been saying over time or was spreading misinformation, I might consider that she was motivated initially by money. But I don’t believe she was.

Why do you believe she should be discredited for being a paid activist? Does it mean what happened to her didn’t happen? Should she not discuss it? Should she not be campaigning to protect female sports?

“It is fine, BTW, for a piece to be written critiquing someone you think should be admired.”

Is this aimed at me? Have you just assumed that I admire Riley Gaines? Well, I admire her for continuing to campaign after she had to be locked in a store room with security for hours while police finding cleared the building of violent protestors who tried to break down the door of the room she was in. But no. I don’t ’admire’ her more than any other women’s rights campaigner.

In the same way Thomas isn't?

Because apparently that is bad.

Purely from a political point of view, anyone trying to attack Riley Gaines by arguing about how much penis she could see is not persuading anyone to their side.

One woman said that Thomas was covered in a towel in this podcast. One.

This then leads to me saying ‘so what?’ Because that one woman didn’t see what other women have reported seeing. Was that one woman in that space the entire time, everytime that Thomas was? Was that woman always watching Thomas’ every move? No? So what this athlete’s testimony means is only relevant for the time they were in the room and were directly watching Thomas.

That you have dismissed a group of women’s testimony based on this single athlete’s testimony shows quite a lot about you.

Besides which, it also doesn’t matter all that much. Numerous women also reported that they felt that Thomas watched them get changed. Something that is also very important.

The interviewer did not clarify anything beyond the general comment. Yet time was spent with a general character assessment of Riley Gaines by that interviewed athlete. It was a poor quality interview.

If William Thomas is convinced he is a woman and every person besides Riley was convinced WT is a woman, why would he have had to turn to the wall in the first place? Doesn't that show nobody actually thinks WT is a woman?

You're thinking of fremdschämen

Logic, Igneococcus. Apparently, it is not needed anymore.

Now there's a thought, given that women are judged by how much bare skin and hair they show, from both sides, (too little, too much, on and on contd page 194), I have often wondered where the official guide to the acceptable amount of skin and hair women should be showing is to be found.
Now women can be judged by how much penis related bare skin and hair they should be impervious to, whilst of course being responsible for making sure they are following the (assorted man-made) guidelines themselves in order to keep assorted varieties of men happy.

Interesting.

I didn't recongise the name but my you tube short came up with left wing USA man re-teeting another left wing mans post - apparently it made no differnce to some woman swimmer who had to compete aginst Thomas as she came in forth and her time would still have been that.

I thought two left wing US men missing point by fucking miles again. So there's a smear campign against her.

Trump a shit show but you see the left in US and not that so sure they're better.

I think it is also safe to point out that a person who declares that women's testimonies are not to be believed when they say that they have been exposed to a male person's genitals is a misogynist.

It is the same type of person who makes a statement that female people should expect from someone who declares that Marion Calder and Maya Forstater's faces are masculinised, that women 'whore it up', that women have 'leaders' and obey them, that male protestors who intimidate women are just responding to the 'preceding provocations', and saying 'if you don’t allow male people to enter your groups, male people won’t know how to treat you with respect’.

I think we can safely point out the pattern of misogyny.

Amazing how she is paid so much to speak on an issue no one cares about…

How Right-Wing Superstar Riley Gaines Built an Anti-Trans Empire – Mother Jones

This is Pauly's article in Mother Jones.

A couple of things.

Firstly, RG was going to be a dentist, a much sort after and well paid profession in the US.

Second, I have no idea of her political leanings before all this started, but it is very easy to see why someone that wants women only spaces and sports would be pulled in to the American right wing of politics, especially when the American left is all for men in women's spaces and sports.

For a piece that comes under the title "investigations" there is a lot of opinion in there.

That Mother Jones image - the passive, blank-eyed woman, with no sign of a thought in her head, being made up and prepared for her public appearance...

This is why I always recommend reading Ira Levin's original novel of The Stepford Wives. (It's a short and pacey read, you can finish it in one or two sittings.) Feminist readers have usually taken it as a critique of conservative small-town sexism, but Levin didn't spare groovy progressive men who were just as misogynistic under the skin.

Mother Jones just said the quiet part out loud.

Indeed. But I honestly just laughed when I saw his reply to my joking post. I mean any excuse to derail will do apparently. What his reply had to do with what I actually said is a mystery but he doesn't care.

Its also interesting that the tag line for the youtube video is "Secrets of MAGAS number one sports troll".

Not exact selling themselves on journalistic rigour.

Three painful pages in, and the only element of Hows's argument that I've found convincing enough to take on board is their deep-seated conviction that language must be used with exceptional precision where rights and the law are concerned (eg. "changing into a competitive swimsuit in front of me" - paraphrased - is inadequate, with "naked in front of me" - or similar - required in its place).

I'm very glad to have this admission from Hows, as well as their own examples of just this degree of precision (eg. "six foot male").

Whatever else we may disagree on, this at least indicates Hows's explicit support of our ongoing use of "male" to describe transwomen, and, where appropriate, reference to their physical characteristics, in defence of the truth and our rights. This is a huge concession on their part, and a step forward for us.

Yep, it used to bother me when it happens to me but I honestly find it comical now.
(Middle aged woman here who is probably peri menopausal)

They are creating content for a very specific target audience.

I think zero people are going to read an article in Mother Jones and change their mind about anything.

They certainly aren't going to say 'Riley Gaines is just another blond schilling for the republicans ? Until I knew that I had my doubts, but now I'm fine with men in women's sports!'