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Former NCAA star swimmer Riley Gaines was a topic of conversation Friday night on "Real Time with Bill Maher."
Rep. Katie Porter, D-Calif., and pundit Piers Morgan discussed Dylan Mulvaney and the Bud Light partnership controversy when the conversation veered into Lia Thomas, a trans woman athlete born as a biological male, winning a women's NCAA Championship in the 500 freestyle last year and tying with Gaines in a separate event. Porter said people should be able to have a civil debate over limitless self-identity and what that means for a society.
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Penn swimmer Lia Thomas, left, and Kentucky Wildcats swimmer Riley Gaines at the NCAA Swimming & Diving Championships at Georgia Tech on March 18, 2022. (Brett Davis / USA Today Sports)
Porter added that she disagreed with Gaines and that sporting bodies should be the ones to determine whether transgender people get to compete against biological males or females. Morgan chimed in and asked what Porter disagreed with exactly.
"I think that what she has done is try to turn this – we talked about people becoming – using things to kind of get likes and get clicks," Porter said, pointing to Maher.
Morgan added, "That’s not what she’s doing."
PROTESTER ARRESTED OUTSIDE RILEY GAINES SPEECH AT UNIVERSITY OF BUFFALO
SEC champion swimmer Riley Gaines speaks during the Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas on Aug. 6, 2022. (Reuters / Go Nakamura / File)
"All I’ve seen her do is stand up for women’s rights to fairness and equality. She actually competed against Lia Thomas, and it was obviously unfair," Morgan said. "Lia Thomas won one of the races in the NCAA Championships by 50 seconds against a bunch of biological females who simply couldn’t keep up. That cannot be right. It cannot be fair."
Porter said it’s something sporting bodies should be handling instead.
"And by the way, Riley is speaking up for herself – and that is her prerogative and I respect her free speech," Porter said as Morgan maintained that Gaines was "speaking up for every female athlete in the world."
Morgan said there are two solutions to the issue – transgender people could compete against members of their biological gender or begin the creation of an open category.
Katie Porter and Piers Morgan (Getty Images / File)
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"What you cannot do is continue to allow more and more trans athletes to start decimating women’s records – in some cases irrevocably," he said. "It’s just not fair."
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