The transvestigators are now coming for this professional transphobe - INTO
Riley Loses

The transvestigators are now coming for this professional transphobe

Riley Gaines, center, gestures, while speaking with a panel during a roundtable event calling to protect women's sports held at The Captain's Club Golf & Event Center in Grand Blanc on Monday, August 5, 2024. The event hosted by Republican candidate for U.S. Senate Mike Rogers and his wife Kristi Rogers included women's sports advocates Riley Gaines and Paula Scanlan as well as former Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos as well as high school students.

Noted sore loser and transphobe-for-hire Riley Gaines has managed to reach a new all-time low by becoming the face of Tr*mp’s aggressive campaign to stop trans women from participating in team sports. But there’s a twist: instead of other transphobes lending Gaines their unmitigated support, they’re hard at work trying to transvestigate Gaines herself. On Facebook!

love how brain rotted those peoples brains are

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— illumi (@illumi.meme) February 18, 2025 at 3:45 PM

Alongside multiple posts from last year alleging (falsely) that NCAA Division I champion swimmer Lia Thomas is being stripped of all her medals so they can be redistributed to Gaines, the transvestigators are seemingly hard at work trying to prove that Gaines herself is also trans. Because I guess that’s the level of brainpower we’re working with when it comes to Facebook and X posts.

Perhaps Gaines is aware of this ironic twist—but something tells us that between making videos about “protecting women and girls” and trying to make Ivermectin available over-the-counter, it’s somehow slipped her notice. Tant pis!


Henry Giardina (he/they) is the editor of INTO. He lives in Los Angeles. Past publications include the New York Times, The Believer, The New Yorker, The Paris Review Daily, The Atlantic, Film Comment, and Gizmodo. He is @punkgroucho on Twitter.