AOC To Anti-Trans Swimmer Riley Gaines: "Maybe If You Channeled All This Anger Into Swimming Faster You Wouldn’t Have Come In Fifth."

Riley Gaines has turned a 5th place finish into a national conservative platform against transgender rights.

Different Democrats speak about transgender people in very different ways. Some rely on vague gestures and political hedging—defending trans rights only when it’s convenient, and discarding them when it’s not. Others speak with conviction, choosing to lead with values of inclusion and solidarity for the most vulnerable. On Monday, after appearing at a packed rally alongside progressive New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez made clear which camp she belongs to. When anti-trans swimmer Riley Gaines—who infamously turned a fifth-place finish into a national crusade against transgender athletes—tried to bait her online by saying that they were responsible for “destroying |America| within,” AOC shot back: “Maybe if you channeled all this anger into swimming faster you wouldn’t have come in fifth.”

The post, made on Elon Musk’s Twitter platform, was viewed more than 36 million times and sparked an avalanche of conservative outrage. “Where Riley ended up is not the point…” wrote former tennis star and outspoken anti-trans activist Martina Navratilova. Daily Caller journalist Meg Brock responded with a bizarre insult comparing AOC to a stripper. Riley Gaines herself appeared on Fox News to demand a debate with the congresswoman over “socialism… removing God… and child sacrifice.” AOC replied once more: “And I would like to challenge this person to get a real job.”

Riley Gaines has built an anti-trans activism career around her fifth-place finish tied with transgender swimmer Lia Thomas. Because of her outsized visibility in that movement, many Republicans have falsely assumed Gaines was a historically elite athlete. During a congressional hearing on transgender athletes in 2023, Republican Congressman James Comer told Gaines she “worked so hard to be the best” and was “the best at female swimming, there was no question about that.” In reality, Gaines never won a national championship title in swimming. You can see that exchange here:

Riley Gaines’ fifth-place finish has since become the springboard for a career built on anti-trans activism. She joined the far-right Independent Women’s Forum as an ambassador, lobbying for conservative causes including bans on transgender athletes. She’s taken part in multiple state and federal lobbying efforts targeting trans people, appeared at events hosted by the hate group Turning Point USA, and even launched her own “Riley Gaines Center.” Despite never losing a medal finish in national competition to a transgender athlete, Gaines has become one of the leading figures opposing transgender participation in sports—targeting everything from chess to darts, where claims of any transgender “biological advantage” strain all credibility.

While some Democratic leaders shy away from confronting figures like Riley Gaines, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has never been one of them. In 2023, during a panel on transgender athletes, she said, “I want to dive into an issue more deeply into why targeting trans girls is particularly problematic not just for trans girls but for all of us… Trans people represent 1% of the population and we have spent so many resources and time figuring out how to more finely exclude them… and I’ve started to realize that a lot of these proposals here involve invasion of privacy of all women.” More recently, in a House hearing on a Republican bill to ban trans people from sports, Ocasio-Cortez delivered a searing rebuke: “Republicans, who have voted consistently against the Violence Against Women Act, who have taken the rights of all women to have control over their own body, who as women are bleeding out in parking lots, now want to pretend today that they care about women. And why? To open up genital inspection on little girls across this country in the name of attacking trans girls. We have two words. Not today.”

AOC was in good company at the rally with Zohran Mamdani that sparked Riley Gaines’s comments. Mamdani, the progressive New York City mayoral candidate, recently released a two-minute campaign ad that celebrates transgender history and calls for full protections for transgender people in the city. Rather than shying away from the issue, the ad treats trans rights as a moral and political cornerstone of his campaign—promising to “deploy hundreds of lawyers” to fight the administration’s anti-LGBTQ+ agenda. The rally itself took place in a city that just voted to enshrine constitutional protections for transgender people into law.

As the country moves into the next political era—one following an election Republicans poured unprecedented sums into anti-trans ads—some Democrats still seem unsure how to talk about transgender rights to their own voters. Others, though, have learned that the only real way forward that stands up for Democratic Party values is through unapologetic defense. Representative Ocasio-Cortez’s sharp response to Riley Gaines gave many transgender advocates a rare and refreshing sense of catharsis. For years, far-right figures like Gaines have spewed relentless vitriol without consequence. AOC’s willingness to meet that hate with humor and resolve offered a reminder to Democrats that confidence, not caution, wins the argument, and that those who stand firm on their values have nothing to fear from bullies.