Paula Scanlan Talks Trans Sports Protests At Texas State Capitol: 'Definitely Not Civil'

Former University of Pennsylvania swimmer Paula Scanlan appeared to on OutKick's Don't @ Me with Dan Dakich to discuss the protests she and OutKick's Riley Gaines faced at the Texas State Capitol.

Scanlan, Gaines, and other women's sports advocates were in Austin to see Governor Greg sign the Save Women’s Sports Act. SB 15, as it is also known, mandates that athletes at state universities compete according to their biological sex. This comes after a similar piece of state legislation brought similar requirements to middle and high schools.

Of course, a common sense piece of legislation being signed into law wouldn't be complete without lunatics showing up to protest it.

Although, as the former student-athlete pointed out it didn't seem like a lot of them even knew what they were there to protest.

Scanlan said her uncle found himself wading through the crowd of protestors and took some photos.

"He took pictures of the protesters, they were bragging about their signs to him. He even noted that some of them had signs that had nothing to do with sports," she explained. "I'm not sure if some of these people even knew why they were there."

That seems to be a common occurrence at these protests. You can't judge a book by its cover. Still, you can generally get a sense of if a book is a pulp detective or a romance novel by looking at it.

This is to say that the folks who were protesting didn't exactly project the image of sports fans by any stretch of the imagination.

Scanlan Says Protests Weren't Civil

Scanlan said that Gaines — the host of the Gaines For Girls podcast — posed the question that is on a lot of people's minds when they see throngs of protestors hanging around with signs in the middle of a weekday.

"Riley, pointed this out to me: it was the middle of the day at 2 pm. Do none of these people have jobs?" she said. "I thought that was quite funny."

It's a fair question. Although, it makes you wonder who would hire anyone who acts the way these people do when they don't agree with someone. Scanlan said protesters threw water on signing attendees, even children. Others were even spit on.

"They got water bottles dumped on them," Scanlan said of attendees who had the unenviable task of exiting the Capitol through the mob of protestors. "A woman from the Independent Women's Forum that I work with, she was actually spit on in the eye and she did press charges, and the person was arrested.

"So it was definitely not civil."

Paula Scanlan testified before Congress in July. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

Save Women’s Sports Act Is A Major Victory

Whether or not protesters like it or not, the bill is now law. Something that Scanlan — who said she has a lot of family in Texas — noted is a huge moment on several levels.

"Governor Abbott took the step of saying, "You know what? The NCAA can get mad and these various organizations can try to sue. But we as Texas universities will not allow biological men to compete on women's sports teams,'" she said. "That was that was a huge thing."

Scanlan noted that some symbolic victories came with the Save Women’s Sports Act. Her former teammate, transgender swimmer Lia Thomas, is from Texas. Additionally, Scanlan hoped that a state as large as Texas will set an example for other state legislations to follow,

"It's a really big deal for Texas to do something like this," she said. "It's such a large state and it will also give other states the ammunition to also make the same decisions. It'll help encourage them to also pass the same types of laws."

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