Riley Gaines has spent years trying to get someone in Washington, DC to take women's sports seriously.
Congress finally held that hearing on Wednesday.
And every Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee left the chairs empty – but what those girls said in that empty room is something every parent in America needs to hear.
2,293 Medals. Senate Democrats Had Nothing to Say.
Concerned Women for America released a devastating count this week: 2,293 gold medals stolen from American women and girls by biological males competing in female sports categories.
That number comes from HeCheated, a tracking database compiling records going back to the mid-1980s.
It is not a rounding error.
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Those 2,293 medals represent a scholarship not awarded, a record not set, a podium moment that belonged to a girl who trained for years – then watched a biological male take it.
The total event count sits at more than 14,301 female competitions.
In California alone – the state that lectures the rest of America about women's rights – more than 611 girls finished second behind a biological male.
Concerned Women for America president Penny Nance put it plainly: "Biological men have distinct advantages over biological women."
"This reality not only puts women in harm's way, but it eliminates opportunities for biological women to earn a living and win competitions," she added.
The Testimony Democrats Refused to Hear
Kendall Kotzmacher is an NCAA softball player.
She told the Senate Judiciary Committee something that no policy document can capture.
"Knowing that we were playing a man is a feeling that you can't explain to another person," she said. "Showing up, seeing a male on the field for something you've worked your whole life for and knowing there is nothing you can do about it, is unimaginable."
A high school volleyball player testified about the moment she learned a biological male would be using the girls' changing area.
"All of us girls do our normal things," she said. "We get undressed, unconsciously trusting our friends next to us. It feels as if our protection was just stripped away from us. And they don't care."
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Kim Jones, co-founder of the Independent Council on Women's Sports, framed the entire debate in two sentences.
"You can protect the boy who wants to take a spot on a girls' team, or you can protect the girl for whom the spot was designated," Jones said. "We can't do both. We must make a choice."
Democrats answered by finding somewhere else to be.
Democrats Have Been Making This Choice for Years
This is not a surprise.
In March 2025, Senate Democrats voted unanimously to kill the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act – legislation that would have tied athletic eligibility to biological sex at birth for any school taking federal money.
Every single Democrat voted no.
That bill had already passed the House.
Trump signed a parallel executive order called "Keeping Men Out of Women's Sports" in February 2025.
Democrats filibustered the Senate version anyway.
A New York Times poll that same year found 79 percent of Americans opposed to biological males competing in women's sports – including roughly seven in ten Democrat-leaning respondents.
Democrats voted against their own voters to defend a position nearly four out of five Americans reject.
Now the Supreme Court has upheld state bans on biological males in girls' school sports – and most Democrat elected officials have gone silent, offering no public explanation for where they stand.
That’s because there is no position that is both honest and politically survivable.
What Democrats Actually Chose
The CWA report tallied $501,498 in professional prize money paid out to biological male athletes competing in women's categories.
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That is money taken from women who played by the rules of a system that was supposed to protect them – a system Democrats have spent two years blocking Congress from reinforcing.
Former professional soccer player Carly Smolak testified Wednesday that the current situation forces girls to choose between "playing co-ed sports or not playing at all."
"The message to young girls," she said, "is that boys can be better female athletes."
That is not a message.
That is a policy.
And it is the policy Senate Democrats are defending every time they skip a hearing, filibuster a bill, or go quiet after a Supreme Court ruling.
Sources:
- Mariane Angela, "Trans Athletes Have Stolen Nearly 2,300 Medals from American Girls and Women," Breitbart, September 23, 2026.
- Paul Bois, "Pro-Women's Sports Advocates Blast Dems for Failing Girls," Breitbart, September 23, 2026.
- Adam Pack, "Democrats Stay Quiet on Next Steps After Supreme Court Transgender Sports Ruling," Fox News, July 2, 2026.
- Adam Pack, "Vulnerable Democrats Flip on Women's Sports Vote After Opposing Similar Bills as Midterms Loom," Fox News, July 22, 2026.
- "Senate Democrats Unanimously Oppose Protecting Women's Sports," Legal Insurrection, March 2025.
- "Some Democrats Are Recalibrating Their Approach to Transgender Issues," Action News Jax, August 2026.
