Former NCAA 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 debacle when the conversation veered into Lia Thomas winning an NCAA Championship in the 500 freestyle last year and tying with Riley 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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Porter added that she disagreed with Gaines and 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 OF RILEY GAINES SPEECH AT UNIVERSITY OF BUFFALO
"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 were two solutions to the issue – transgender people could compete against members of their biological gender or begin the creation of an open category.
"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."
