The New York Times profile of former NCAA all-American swimmer Riley Gaines has been vigorously labeled as ‘petty and misguided’ by American business executive Jennifer Sey.
Sey, a national championship gymnast, winning the 1986 all-around crown, exclusively gave her scathing rebuttal of the story to Daily Mail on Wednesday, stating, ‘From the very first sentence it is all wrong.’
Gaines and Sey have worked closely together for over a year with sports-clothing company XX-XY Athletics.
Sey founded the venture last March, with Gaines serving as one of the brand’s ambassadors.
‘The article about Riley Gaines in the NYT is illustrative of the vast divide between everyday Americans who simply believe in biological reality and a media machine still pushing a narrative,’ Sey told Daily Mail.
Daily Mail has reached out to Times spokespeople for comment.
The NY Times profile of Riley Gaines has been slammed by business executive Jennifer Sey
Sey and Gaines work together with the brand XX-XY Athletics, which was founded in 2024
Lia Thomas and Gaines have been connected since the 2022 NCAA Swimming Championships
‘Despite the fact that 80% of Americans agree that women’s sports should be for women only, and the fact that all of the major governing bodies have established rules to ensure that that is the case, the legacy media pushes a narrative that only bigots and mean conservatives who hate the LGBT community are pushing for fairness in sports,’ Sey added.
Gaines rise to fame started as a competitor of Lia Thomas, finishing in a fifth together in the 200-meter freestyle at the NCAA Championships in the final race of her swimming career.
Thomas later became the first openly transgender woman to win an NCAA title in the 500-meter freestyle later that day.
Both Gaines and Thomas have been intertwined since, on opposite sides of the debate of transgender men competing in women’s sports, which has only intensified since Donald Trump started his second term as United States President in January.
One of Sey’s biggest takedowns of the Times’ story, written by Dallas-based reporter Ruth Graham, is her description of the defining competitive moment between Thomas and Gaines, with all eight swimmers taking part in the championship race looking ‘indistinguishable from one another.’
‘No, they did not look indistinguishable. Will Thomas is (6-foot-4) with the broad shoulders and wing span of a man,’ Sey continued. ‘None of the women look anything like him. But the writer tries to make the case from the outset that Thomas is just another woman!’
‘Thomas is favorably described as “quiet” suggesting a meekness. When in reality, Thomas cheated his way into the NCAA finals in 2022 by declaring that he is a woman. He was ranked 554th in the 200 freestyle in men’s the year prior.
‘In one year, he catapulted up to 5th. No training differences. No coaching change. The only that changed was the category he was competing in. There is no analysis or questioning of this rapid rise.’
Thomas is the NCAA’s first openly transgender woman national champion from the 2022 event
Gaines has been a critic of trans athletes competing in women’s sports over the last few years
‘Any athlete or coach knows that that kind of rise from 554th to 5th in one year in impossible. Any governing body knows. If a person didn’t switch categories, they’d be investigated for doping. It is simply impossible.’
Sey also takes issue with the view that Thomas has ‘largely dropped’ from the public eye in the time since the 2022 NCAA championships, while Gaines has built her personal brand its back.
Graham describes Gaines as someone who has ‘essentially not stopped talking about a race that lasted less than two minutes.’
‘She can’t stop talking about it? That lasted two minutes? Everything about this is designed to make Gaines seem like a petty bitter grifter. When in reality, she had trained her entire life for that moment,’ Sey stated to Daily Mail. ‘Sporting events often (always?) come down to a few minutes or seconds. Why minimize it?’
‘It was the last race of her competitive career. She placed 5th in the entire country. That is an achievement and she deserved to have her moment on the podium.’
