Right in front of her were her supporters, mostly women dressed in casual or formal clothing, clapping as she spoke.But just to their left stood a horde of pro-transgender activists, some wearing costumes and others partially unclothed, shouting curse words."They're so angry," Gaines told Fox News Digital of the crowd that day."On our side ...
you saw people smiling and embracing and hugging each other ...but you look across the bike racks that were there separating us, and you saw anger, and you saw negativity, and you saw screaming, and you saw vitriol, and you saw colored hair, and you saw colored hair, and you saw piercings, and you saw what I would describe, honestly, just visually looking at it, was island of the misfit toys.
Not to be like, mean, but just speaking pretty objectively here."SUPREME COURT MAKES RULING ON TRANS ATHLETES IN WOMEN'S SPORTSUS conservative political activist Riley Gaines speaks outside the US Supreme Court as justices hear arguments in challenges to state bans on transgender athletes in women's sports on January 13, 2026, in Washington, DC.(Oliver Contreras / AFP via Getty Images)Nearly six months after Gaines stood on those steps, the pro-transgender activists now sit on the losing side of the court's decision.
Gaines and her "Save Women's Sports" activists can look back on that rally, and the obscenities hurled at them while they spoke, as obstacles in a winning fight, after the Supreme Court justices ruled Tuesday to uphold state laws that ban trans athletes from girls' and women's sports.Six years before Gaines stood on those steps — and almost three years before her infamous tie with Lia Thomas — Idaho State cross-country runner Mary Kate Marshall was put in a position that would change her life.In 2019, she and teammate Madison Kenyon competed against a biological male from the University of Montana.
The following year, they joined the lawsuit that would reach the Supreme Court."I lost every race I ran against this male...