Riley Gaines Is Tired Of Hearing People's Excuses For Not Speaking Up For Women And Female Athletes

Riley Gaines welcomed Michelle Smyers - a Pennsylvania high school board member, wife, mother, and grandmother - onto the latest episode of the 'Gaines For Girls' podcast.

Smyers specifically addresses a situation in which Sasha Yates, a transgender tennis coach at Gettysburg High School, allegedly entered the high school girl's soccer team's locker room and undressed. On another occasion, the biological male allegedly entered the locker room and began asking these high-school-aged girls about their menstrual cycles.

Despite these claims and concerns from parents, the school board voted on September 5 to rehire Yates as a coach for the new school year.

After hearing Smyers' story, Gaines applauded her for being one of the two board members to vote against the re-hiring of Yates. It also led Gaines to explain it's well past time for others to speak up for female students, female athletes, and women in general.

"The more I hear people say 'there's nothing we can do' and 'I don't want to risk losing my job,' I'm sick of hearing that," Gaines explained. "I used to have some sort of empathy for it, I used to could understand because those risks are real. But is it not worth it?"

Smyers made it clear that it is worth it.

"To me it's worth it. I am absolutely willing to sit up there while people launch insults and be a little uncomfortable for the sake of our female student population, our female athletes," Smyers said.

Be sure to subscribe to ‘Gaines For Girls’ wherever you listen to your podcast including Spotify and Apple Music.