Watching Rep. Katie Porter try to dismiss Riley Gaines on HBO’s Real Time was a masterclass in Democratic performative compassion — Porter sneered that Gaines was merely after “likes and clicks” for speaking out against biological males competing in women’s athletics. It was obvious to anyone paying attention that Porter was trying to tar a woman who has taken real risks for female athletes as some attention-seeker, a cheap political dodge that insults both Gaines and everyday American women.
Fortunately, not everyone on the panel drank the Kool-Aid; Piers Morgan and even Bill Maher pushed back hard, calling Gaines’ activism legitimate and the situation plainly unfair to biological female competitors. The crowd’s reaction — spontaneous applause and audible agreement — told the truth the mainstream left refuses to acknowledge: ordinary people recognize when fairness is being stripped away.
Riley Gaines herself answered with dignity, explaining she put her own life and plans on hold — including dental school — not for clicks but because she saw something that needed defending for future generations of women. That courage to sacrifice comfort for principle is what conservatives have always admired, and it should shame elected officials who prefer headlines to protecting women’s spaces.
The larger point is painfully clear: too many Democrats and campus elites have embraced an ideological project that elevates identity politics over sex-based protections, and when confronted, they reflexively attack the messenger. That is exactly what happened in San Francisco and on college campuses where activists and administrators cheered protesters while dismissing the trauma female athletes report; this is not compassion, it is political theater.
The intellectual contortions offered to defend policies that allow biological males to compete in women’s sports cannot obscure the practical consequences — records, opportunities, and safety are being impacted, and the Lia Thomas episode remains a poster child for those consequences. Honest people, regardless of party, should be able to say that athletic fairness matters and that sporting bodies and lawmakers must set sensible rules to preserve women’s competition.
If conservatives learned anything from that TV moment, it’s this: stand firm for fairness, call out performative politicians, and keep amplifying brave voices like Riley Gaines who put principle above convenience. The future of women’s sports and common-sense protections won’t be defended by silence or by hand-wringing elected officials; it will be defended by citizens who refuse to let ideology steamroll reality.
