She said:
"For daring to say that men and women are different, I’ve lost friends, of course, the media has been dishonest about me, I’ve been called every name in the book."
"My university told me I’d never get a job. No employer would ever hire me because they would look me up and see that I’m a transphobe."
Career or educational counseling that suggests not becoming the poster girl for bigotry might seem like sound advice to most people, but not to Gaines.
"They knew I wanted to go to dental school, and they said that I would never get into a dental school. No dental school would ever even look at my application if I spoke up about this."
You can see XX-XY Athletics' latest attempt to cash in on Gaines here:
But even on raging transphobe Elon Musk’s social media platform, people had no sympathy for Gaines.
Gaines has been singing this tune for four years now and even MAGA minions are bored with it.
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It's unclear if Gaines ever tried to get into dental school.
The direction of her life changed after she learned that altering her initial response of fully supporting trans athletes, but being upset about a trophy, to a vehemently anti-trans stance was extremely profitable.
In the 2022 NCAA Women's Swimming Championships, Gaines tied with transgender woman Lia Thomas. As with most competitions, awards are made in advance for the top positions, but generally only one of each.
Since there was only one fifth place trophy, Thomas was handed that one and Gaines held the sixth place one for the official photos. Gaines later received her fifth place trophy in the mail.
It was that perceived slight—being the one who got her trophy via mail—that Gaines initially complained about. But conservative media was desperate to find any perceived harm caused by trans women in sports and coming up empty.
Probably because they aren't dominating like right-wing pundits continuously claim they would and there are so few of them. In December 2024, the NCAA reported fewer than 10 openly transgender student-athletes competing out of over 510,000 total participants, or less than 0.002%.
Trans athletic bans are another Republican solution searching for a problem. So conservative media latched onto Gaines.
Gaines told the Daily Wire:
"In the 200-yard NCAA women’s final I tied Thomas. Despite going the same time down to the hundredth of a second, the NCAA gave Thomas the trophy as they explained this was necessary for ‘photo purposes’ and told me I had to go home empty handed."
Gaines's original tale of woe was about a cisgender woman being mildly inconvenienced by a trans woman—who could have been any woman who tied Gaines for the same finishing position in the final race. One person would get the fifth place trophy, one would hold sixth and get theirs later in the mail.
If Gaines had gotten her trophy at the meet and Thomas was mailed hers, Riley Gaines the right-wing transphobic activist wouldn't exist. Maybe she'd be a dentist.
In her first Daily Wire interview in March of 2022, Gaines said:
"I am in full support of [Lia Thomas] and full support of her transition and her swimming career and everything like that, because there's no doubt that she works hard too, but she's just abiding by the rules that the NCAA put in place."
The rest of Gaines shtick didn't start until an appearance on the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show where the host led the witness (Gaines) to the right words. After that point, Gaines began misgendering Thomas and referring to her as a "biological man" because it led to a more lucrative payoff.
Within months of her race against Thomas, Trump was summoning Gaines onstage at CPAC, saying:
"Where’s our beautiful, great swimmer?"
Soon Gaines would have a six-figure foundation bearing her name; a brand endorsement deal with XX-XY Athletics; a podcast; a byline on several books; deals to sell ivermectin, supplements, and financial services; and speaking tours commanding a reported $25,000 per appearance.
It's too bad trans people silenced her.
Wearing a black baseball cap and gold chain, Ritchson clapped back in the video:
"Well, guess what? The U.S. just raised the enlistment age to what? 42! Yeah, 'War Machine prophetic now!"
On March 20, the Army confirmed in a revised Army Regulation 601-210 that the maximum enlistment age will increase to 42, effective April 20. Previously, the cap was 35 for the Regular Army, Army National Guard, and Army Reserve. The minimum age remains 18, or 17 with parental permission.
The shift is aimed at attracting recruits in their late 30s and early 40s with prior technical or leadership experience—what the Army has described as an “older labor market.” It also marks the second time in 20 years the cap has been raised to 42, with the last instance occurring in 2006 during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
Ritchson didn’t stop at the policy update as written in his caption:
"What you have to complain about now!? Old people for the win!"
You can view the Instagram post here:
In War Machine, Ritchson stars alongside Dennis Quaid and Jai Courtney, but much of the conversation has unfolded off-screen. Early criticism centered on his casting has begun to lose traction as his response—and the policy behind it—circulates more widely.
You can view the action-packed trailer below:
- YouTubeNetflix
As of March 2026, War Machine, directed by Patrick Hughes, holds a 69% critics' score on Rotten Tomatoes, with audience ratings in the mid-to-low 70s. The response reflects a divided reception, as echoed across social media, with some viewers taking issue with the film’s tone while others have rallied behind Ritchson’s rebuttal.
You can view the reactions here:
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Ritchson has also been in the news following footage published by TMZ that appears to show the actor in an altercation with a neighbor. The video shows Ritchson in a physical exchange with another man while two children sit nearby on motorbikes.
According to sources cited in the report, Ritchson did not initiate the confrontation and was allegedly pushed off his bike twice before the fight was recorded. The report also says the neighbor told police a struggle occurred, during which Ritchson allegedly struck him in the back of the head.
Ritchson is set to appear in the action thriller The Runner, Amazon’s untitled Navy SEAL project, and Motor City, continuing his run in action-heavy roles.
While having a conversation with his girlfriend, he realized how little information he actually knew about it, so he watched an entire video that offered a 3D rendering of what happens to a woman's body during the menstrual cycle, focusing on the five-day period itself, and his eyes were opened.
You can watch the video here:
Some TikTokers were left skeptical, wondering how he was only reaching these conclusions now.
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Seriously, did he think this was the woman's version of a "man cold" or something?
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Others pointed out that there were far more symptoms than "just" cramps and bleeding.
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Not to mention how young girls are when they first start menstruating.
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Now that the TikToker was better informed, his fellow TikTokers encouraged him to share the knowledge.
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Though his fellow TikTokers were skeptical at first about his newfound knowledge about the menstruation cycle, @connortalkslol did not stop his research with the 3D rendering.
Instead, he continued to research what he found in the comments section, including comparisons of period pain to heart attacks, period cramps being miniature versions of contractions that women experience in the weeks leading up to childbirth, "period poops," "period jellyfish," the dangers of endometriosis, and a woman's inability to take off time at work for menstruation purposes without being reprimanded.
One TikToker summed up all of Connor's research perfectly:
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It seems like this is information that should already be well-known and widespread across the entire human population, but because of how health education is structured, young boys and girls are still often segregated into boy-only and girl-only groups to learn the information that pertains specifically to them, like menstruation for girls and young women.
Arguably, though, this is information that affects everyone. From understanding what their mothers, sisters, cousins, close friends, girlfriends, possibly wives, and of course, coworkers, are going through, it's just as important for men to receive this information as it is for women when they are young so they can better understand and empathize with the world around them.
Lilah is a keeper of several dozen chickens that she had raised from eggs, and she keeps them as pets and sells their eggs to members of the community. But the neighbor's dog had already attacked on her property multiple times, sometimes killing one chicken and sometimes several.
The neighbor insisted that this land belonged to the dog and that there was nothing they could do about the dog's behavior. They placed the responsibility on Lilah to close up her chickens where the dog wouldn't be able to reach them. The problem was that Lilah had an enclosed area for the chickens, a yard to free graze, as well as their front porch, and the dog welcomed itself into every space.
Lilah noted that after the sixth attack, the neighbor remained unwilling to help, so Lilah's husband stated that he planned to shoot the dog if it came on the property again to attack the chickens.
While she didn't want anything bad to happen to the dog, it was clear that the situation wasn't going to improve if something with the dog itself didn't change.
You can watch the video here:
In a video posted the next day, Lilah collected video footage from her outdoor cameras of many of the incidents in which the neighbor's dog came on to her property and hurt her animals.
In many cases, the dog could be seen cornering and killing the chickens, while others caught glimpses of the dog racing through the yard after the flock, with notes of how many chickens he'd killed that day. In the final segment, Lilah found one of her chickens wounded and brought her into her home, hoping she'd recover from her severe dog bites.
While they didn't necessarily condone violence, some TikTokers pointed out it was Lilah's right to defend her livestock by any means necessary.
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Others went so far as to say that she would be negligent toward her family if she continued to be so patient.
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As heart-wrenching as it might be to think of hurting the dog to stop the behavior, this was one of those situations where the dog had basically been taught that this was okay behavior because of not being corrected sooner, and other animals were harmed and killed because of it.
Though they might not need to harm it, perhaps filing reports and putting a price on each chicken would encourage the dog's owners to better retain it.
