RILEY GAINES: The all-out war on female athletes ends now, thanks to President Trump

I experienced this first hand when the NCAA allowed Lia Thomas-formerly Will Thomas-to swim at the Division I Women's Swimming and Diving National Championships. Three years prior, he had competed on the men's team at the same university. Not only did Lia Thomas win a women's DI national title, robbing that honor from many female Olympians and American record holders, but he was allowed to dress and undress in the women's locker rooms. The female athletes did not consent to undressing alongside a fully intact male exposing his male genitalia, but the comfort and safety of women were not high up on the NCAA's priority list.

We female swimmers were told not to complain and to step aside to make way for the male swimmer celebrating his new female "identity."

Our dreams, our desire for privacy, our voices didn't matter to the university administrators or the athletic associations. It didn't matter to the laughably named Women's Sports Foundation, which has fought to enable men to enter and predictably dominate women's sports. And it certainly didn't matter to President Biden or Vice President Harris.

That cross-country trip showed that the people-American voters-were with us. They recognized that what we were asking for-fair competition and recognition of biological reality-was simple common sense. Normal people around the country know what a woman is and why we need women's sports leagues in the first place: Men and women are biologically different, and those differences have consequences for fairness and safety.

They were horrified to hear about women like my friend Payton McNabb, who as a high school volleyball player, was spiked in the head so hard by a male player that she has permanent brain damage and partial paralysis. They were disgusted to hear hard-working female athletes were having to forfeit games and championships to avoid a competition that was inherently unfair, and even dangerous.

And now, just days after taking office, he has made good on this promise. He has told female athletes that their dreams matter. Young girls don't have to wonder if they are wasting their time training and will be forced into competitions they are doomed to lose because of their sex. They now can feel confident that they will have leagues and rights of their own. On behalf of all these girls, thank you, President Trump, for standing with us.