At one point, President of the Human Rights Campaign Kelley Robinson attempted to pass off the lie that women could beat men at sports just as easily, but it was Gaines who blew that narrative out of the water…twice.

First, Robinson tried to tell Louisiana Senator John Kennedy that no man could beat Serena and Venus Williams at tennis.

“There’s been this news article about men that think they can beat Serena Williams in tennis. And it’s just not the case. She is stronger than them,” said Robinson.

Gaines was given time to speak by Kennedy, who destroyed that narrative with little to no effort.

“Both Serena and Venus lost to the 203rd-ranked male tennis player, which, they’re phenoms for women,” Gaines reminded everyone.

But Gaines went on to describe the differences between her and her husband who is also a competitive swimmer. She began by noting that if you were to look at accolades and national rankings, Gaines would look far better on paper than her husband. However, she confessed that when the two are directly compared to one another, her husband easily defeats her.

“He could kick my butt any day of the week without trying,” said Gaines.

Dem witness: "There's been this news article about men that think they can beat Serena Williams in tennis. And it's just not the case. She is stronger than them." @Riley_Gaines_: "Both Serena and Venus lost to the 203rd ranked male tennis player." pic.twitter.com/MSAnV6IA5t

— Greg Price (@greg_price11) June 21, 2023

The point Gaines is making is one that has been made repeatedly throughout history and it’s one that was generally understood until relatively recently. Biologically speaking, women are physically weaker than men.

This is offensive to say in the modern era, though it’s unclear why it should be. The physical dominance of men is readily admitted to by modern women in various ways. For instance, a sexual assault case brought by women against men is usually something that happens because the woman was unable to fend off the man doing the assault. If women were fully capable of fighting as well as a man was, then these sexual assault cases would be far fewer as these instances would begin with “he grabbed my butt” and end with “they had a hard time finding all of his teeth after I was done with him.”

Sadly, most sexual assault stories don’t end that way.

But this highlights why women need women’s spaces and that includes women’s sports. John Hawkins made a very good point about women’s sports, noting that there’s a reason we have them and that we call them “women’s sports”:

A biological man, by virtue of being a biological man, has enormous physical advantages over a woman in most athletic endeavors. That’s why we have women’s sports and not just “sports.” If we just had “sports,” there would be few women playing them at any level and almost none at the highest levels. If you find this confusing for some reason, go watch some games at your local high school and try to genuinely evaluate the speed, power, and athleticism of boy’s and girl’s teams. If you’re not blind, the difference will become quickly and obviously apparent.

As I’ve written previously, this is biology, not bigotry. Women shouldn’t be led to believe that they are competitive with men when it comes to physicality. It creates an open door for some bad decisions and some bad characters to take advantage of those bad decisions. It puts women in harm’s way and women don’t deserve to have their spaces stripped from them over a false political narrative.