Riley Gaines was one of a number of speakers at The Danbury Institute’s Life & and Liberty Forum Monday afternoon. The event included a panel discussion on the abolitionist vs. incrementalist approaches to eliminating abortion and speakers such as the Standing for Freedom Center’s Ryan Helfenbein and WallBuilders founder David Barton.
The Danbury Institute is “an association of churches, Christians, and organizations aligned to affirm and preserve God-given rights to life and liberty.”
The organization fulfills this mission “by influencing culture and public policy [and] upholding the free exercise of religion,” in addition to “inspiring the vigorous involvement of an informed citizenry, and promoting Judeo-Christian values as the proper foundation for a free and prosperous republic.”
The crowd assembled for the Life & and Liberty Forum gave Gaines a standing ovation at the beginning and end of her speech. Gaines commented that people might “feel at least a little bit silly for giving me a standing ovation…for merely saying men and women are different.”
“It’s bizarre to me,” she said, adding, “What a joy it is to be here.”
Gaines went on to explain how events of this past weekend unfolded as she discovered Biles’ comments to her on X. Gaines said she was someone who had been “starstruck” by Biles and that Biles is “the best gymnast this world has ever seen, arguably one of the best female athletes this world has ever seen.”
Gaines explained a number of errors and misconceptions in Biles’ words to her. “First of all, I didn’t lose,” she said, referring to Biles’ suggestion that Gaines had lost to Thomas. But even if Thomas had won, “it doesn’t matter,” Gaines said. “Winning or being a champion Olympic medalist doesn’t qualify you to be able to speak on these issues.”
“Secondly, she said I should be uplifting transgender people,” said Gaines. “Why? Why is it my job? Why is the job of a woman to validate the feelings of a man?”
“Why is it my job,” asked Gaines, “to make this person feel safe or happy for that matter?”
“It’s not my job actually,” she said. “If Simone wants to use her platform to advocate for that, then by all means, that’s the beauty of America”—although Gaines said she is free to call that sort of advocacy “stupid.”
Gaines then mentioned Biles’ comment, “Bully someone your own size, which would ironically be a male.”
“This is hilarious to me for two reasons,” said Gaines. “No. 1, because she’s admitting that women and men are physically, biologically, categorically different.”
