Riley Gaines slams trans New Jersey swimmer who smashed another collegiate record

Former NCAA swimmer Riley Gaines says Title IX “literally means nothing” after a trans New Jersey swimmer who competed on the men’s team for three years smashed a collegiate record for the second time in three months.

Gaines, a vocal critic of trans athletes in schools, blasted the latest victory of Meghan Cortez-Fields, a senior at Ramapo College of New Jersey who on Friday finished the 200-meter individual medley with a time of 2:08:20 — shattering the previous records in the NJ Athletic Conference.

“Male swimmer from Ramapo College sets another school record in women’s event. Now tell me again the strides women have made when society applauds a man for pushing us off our own podium,” Gaines wrote on X following Cortez-Fields’ win.

“Title IX literally means nothing at this point,” she added.

Title IX refers to the rules set in the Education Amendments of 1972, which protects people from discrimination based on sex in education programs and activities that receive federal assistance.

Gaines has previously claimed that allowing trans athletes to compete in women’s sports is an affront to the protections laid out in Title IX for female students, while opponents say that trans students are also covered under the federal law.

Cortez-Fields had stirred up controversy from anti-trans activists last November when she set a new record and took first place in the 100-yard butterfly event in a Pennsylvania meet.

The fall season was Cortez-Fields’ first season competing on the women’s team after transitioning, which drew condemnation that led to the initial post celebrating her win in Pennsylvania being deleted from the college’s Instagram page.

Gaines was among the first to raise outrage about the New Jersey swimmer, using similar criticisms she used against her former rival, former UPenn swimmer Lia Thomas, whom Cortez-Fields cited as an inspiration.

Gaines described Cortez-Fields’ rise to success as unfair, claiming she had gone from a “less than mediocre male swimmer to a record smasher competing against the women.” 

Gaines also mocked Cortez-Fields’ tattoo, a picture of “The Birth of Venus” but with male genitalia, and called trans athletes competing in women’s teams a “festishized and sexualized movement.”

Ramapo College has defended Cortez-Fields’ participation on the women’s swim team, noting that she was following the regulations set forth by the National Collegiate Athletic Association.

“We have done everything the NCAA says needs to be done regarding trans athletes competing on the team,” the school said in a statement. “All of the steps were taken, and documentation was provided for approval of Meghan’s participation.”

The school claimed that following the backlash from critics in November, Cortez-Fields had received death threats.

New Jersey state Sen. Michael Testa (R-Atlantic) also slammed Cortez-Fields’ participation on the women’s team as he continues to push for his Fairness in Women’s Sports Act, which would require school-sanctioned sports in the state to be based solely on biological sex at birth.

The bill, proposed in 2022, has yet to be scheduled for a vote or hearing in the state Legislature.