When Riley Gaines brings her “Pick Up the Mic” tour to our college campus, it usually turns into much more than a typical guest speaker event. Instead of just another talk in a classroom, her visits normally create bigger conversations amongst students about gender, sports, and what feminism actually means. Gaines, who is a former NCAA swimmer, has become a well-known activist who speaks out against allowing transgender women to compete in women’s sports. While some people see her as standing up for female athletes, others, specifically those from a more liberal background, see the issue as much more complicated.
Gaines often frames her message around fairness in sports. She claims that women’s athletic categories were created because women were historically at a disadvantage and not included in male-dominated sports, and that biological differences can give transgender women an advantage in competition. On the surface, this argument might sound familiar to many people. For decades, feminist movements pushed for equal opportunities in athletics, especially through laws like Title IX, which helped increase funding for women’s sports across the United States in colleges and at the professional level.
But where the debate really starts is when everyone starts asking who exactly we are speaking about when we talk about “protecting women”? From a feminist perspective, the answer isn’t always as simple as Gaines presents it to be. Many modern activists shine a light on the fact that gender equality movements should also include all people who identify as women. Transgender women, in particular, are often a part of that conversation.
This is where the disagreements come in. On one hand, fairness in sports is a real concern, especially for athletes who have spent years training. On the other hand, excluding transgender women entirely can reinforce negative ideas about gender that feminism has been consistently attempting to challenge. For feminists, the goal is often not just to protect opportunities for women, but to open those opportunities up in ways that recognize the differences in every woman’s experience.
College campuses are one of the only places where these debates happen in such mass. Universities are supposed to be a safe space where students are exposed to new ideas and challenge their predetermined notions. In that, Gaines’ tour definitely accomplishes something; it gets people talking. Students leave these events debating fairness, inclusion, science, and policy in ways that probably wouldn’t happen any other time.
From a liberal perspective, the solution isn’t necessarily to stop speakers like Gaines from coming to campus. Free speech is an important part of academic environments. Students should be able to hear arguments they agree with AND ones they strongly disagree with. At the same time, it’s also important that transgender students and their experiences are included in the conversation. For many of them, discussions about sports participation aren’t just political debates; they’re about belonging and whether they feel accepted in the community around them.
Gaines’ tour also reflects a larger cultural moment in the United States. Conversations about transgender rights have become a major political issue, often framed as a conflict between protecting women and supporting LGBTQ rights. Many liberals reject that system entirely. Instead, they argue for the equality that every person deserves.
In the end, Riley Gaines’ campus appearances highlight how complicated the issue of gender and sports has become. The conversation isn’t just about competitions or athletic communities. It’s about how society defines gender, how feminism continues to move forward (or backward), and how people balance fairness in sports while still being inclusive to people who fall outside the “standard” that is formed by society.
For all students watching these debates unfold on their campus, one thing is clear: feminism has never been truly defined. It has always grown and changed over time. The real question now is whether the next generation will use feminism to draw stricter boundaries around who can identify and be perceived as a woman, or to imagine a more diverse, more inclusive vision of equality.