Riley Gaines

Riley Gaines is a 12-time All American swimmer from the University of Kentucky and the host of OutKick’s Gaines for Girls podcast. Riley’s entire life was changed when she was forced to share a locker room and compete against male Lia (formerly Will) Thomas at the 2022 NCAA Women’s DI Swimming Championship.

In addition, Riley is the director of the Riley Gaines Center at the Leadership Institute and an Ambassador for the Independent Women’s Forum who have continued to fight, protect, and drive the conversation through her podcast on OutKick, speaking at colleges around the country, and working with government officials to ban transgender women from playing in women sports. To share her experiences, Riley published her first book, Swimming Against the Current: Fighting for Common Sense in a World That’s Lost its Mind.

Riley graduated from the University of Kentucky in 2022 with a degree in health sciences with aspirations to be a dentist. She’s a Nashville native and lives with her husband.