Riley Gaines Claps Back at ‘Lady Ballers’ Critic

Swimmer Riley Gaines had some choice words for a sports commentator who criticized a movie about transgender women in sports.

Gaines, who has been a vocal critic of transgender women competing in female categories, attended the premiere of the controversial new film Lady Ballers on Wednesday. The movie, directed by The Daily Wire’s co-founder and co-CEO Jeremy Boreing, follows a school basketball coach, played by Boreing, who forms a team of men to pose as women as a means to dominate women’s sports.

The debate over transgender athletes has been at the center of the culture war against transgender people, with prominent conservatives calling for a ban of trans women competing in female categories.

Even 1976 Olympic decathlon champion Caitlyn Jenner, who came out as a transgender woman in 2015, has led the charge and started a foundation called Fairness First to combat “radical gender ideology.”

Fairness First’s website says that the organization is “a big tent movement, non-partisan in nature, with the intention of protecting women and girls in sport—especially in light of recent events with radical gender ideology.”

Boreing posted about the film Lady Ballers on X, formerly Twitter, and the cast followed suit. “Hollywood won’t make a movie about how laughably absurd it is that we now allow grown men to call themselves women and then dominate women’s sports. So we did. Introducing our first feature-length comedy, ‘LADY BALLERS’,” Boreing wrote.

Sports commentator Keith Olbermann replied to him: “Wow. What an a**-sucking cast.”

Gaines then clapped back at Olbermann, who had previously vowed to quit X, by writing, “Aren’t you supposed to be crying on some other platform?”

Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz makes a cameo in the film and has been a leading voice in the culture war against transgender people.

“Leftist radicals are trying to permanently destroy women’s sports. It’s so outrageous, it’s almost comedic that the radical left is allowing men to dress as women and then dominate women’s sports,” Cruz told the Daily Caller.

“They’re so out of control, the regular news headlines are starting to read as if they were written by the (Christian news satire site) Babylon Bee.

“I was proud to appear in The Daily Wire’s new comedy that will call out the leftists destroying women’s sports and taking opportunities away from female athletes. Oh yeah, and the movie is funny as hell too,” Cruz added.

However, a number of advocacy groups have said that transgender women should compete in sports with cisgender women.

One medical study found “there does not seem to be any reason to expect advantage for transgender people prior to puberty of or for transgender people whose gender-affirming treatment begins at the onset of puberty.”

“To date, the only established driver of athletic advantage in men over women is testosterone. Further, the existing literature suggests that treatment to lower testosterone may be sufficient to erase that advantage in at least some athletic activities,” wrote Joshua D. Safer. He is the executive director of the Mount Sinai Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery.

“In addition, there is a need to prioritize the need to motivate people to participate in sport for better health,” Safer added.

The release of Lady Ballers comes in the same year where advocacy group Human Rights Campaign (HRC) declared a state of emergency for LGBTQ+ populations in the U.S., citing the unprecedented number of hostile bills introduced to legislatures across the country.

More than 500 anti-LGBTQ+ bills have been considered by state legislators across the country and Congress in 2023, more than any other year on record. Of those, 220 target transgender people, with many focused on trans girls and women in sports to prevent them from playing on the team that aligns with their gender identity.