Over Memorial Day weekend, former swimmer turned conservative personality Riley Gaines made headlines by taking on a new adversary: Kermit the Frog.
His offense was serving as a commencement speaker at the University of Maryland last week, where Muppets creator Jim Henson earned his degree decades earlier. Among the green guy’s bits of advice to the Class of 2025: “Rather than jumping over someone to get what you want, consider reaching out your hand and taking the leap side by side – because life is better when we leap together.”
Gaines appeared on Fox News show “Hannity Special” to decry the address the very next night. “It’s unserious, it’s out-of-touch and frankly, it’s insulting,” Gaines said of the university’s choice to feature Kermit, before smearing the progressive slant of the speech itself.
It would be funny, devoid of context – a grown woman appearing on a news program to discuss the scourge of leftist puppets indoctrinating young people into the cult of the Rainbow Connection. But you can’t discuss the interview without discussing why Gaines was there in the first place – which Kermit actually, if unintentionally, touched upon.
She achieved her level of prominence – which includes a significant social-media following and gigs hosting sports podcasts for Fox – as an anti-trans influencer, pushing against trans women’s involvement in sports and lobbying for prohibitive legislation in that vein. This all came following a March 2022 loss to trans swimmer Lia Thomas, who edged Gaines out of fifth place at an NCAA meet held that day. (Nevermind the four cisgender women who also beat her, I guess.)
Of course, Gaines is not the only woman to push for trans exclusion with the metaphorical microphone she was given. JK Rowling, UK-based author of the “Harry Potter” series, has become an anti-trans crusader as well, dedicating a considerable portion of her immense wealth to furthering that cause in England. (Wealth that only stands to grow as the HBO adaptation of her books continues to develop; wealth she already plans to use to strengthen her campaign against trans women.) Back in the U.S., Rep. Nancy Mace is doing the same, now seemingly unable to visit a public restroom without tweeting about its lack of gendered signage.
They’re all guilty of the same crime: Women betraying women. And they’re certainly not alone in committing this broader wrong. (See Broadway star Patti Lupone’s recent dismissive, frankly rude treatment of fellow greats Audra McDonald and Kecia Lewis for a more interpersonal, also-high-profile example – though of course, that sort of derisive and underhanded behavior plays out between women on all tiers of society, from friendships to boardrooms.) But it must be said that conservative female lawmakers like Mace have worked against their fellow women to a whole other level than even the rich, prominent, outspoken celebrities – by codifying regressive sentiments like anti-trans views, as well as anti-abortion stances, into laws.
Their actions aren’t just hurtful – they’re harmful, even deadly. Here and abroad.
An example: Georgia’s 2019 abortion law – which prohibits abortion after just six weeks of gestation – was introduced, in part, by a cohort of women Republicans: Rep. Jodi Lott, Rep. Darlene Taylor, Rep. Ginny Ehrhart and Sen. Renee Unterman. Though it was ruled unconstitutional in 2020, that order was reversed in 2022, not long after the fall of Roe v. Wade (also brought about by a woman). And now, it’s the law currently keeping Adriana Smith and her family trapped in a sort of hell on Earth. Though medically declared brain dead, Smith is being kept physically alive until August – because she was eight weeks pregnant when admitted to the hospital, and the law dictates that the child be “carried” until it is old enough to live outside of the womb.
Another example: Sara Millerey González, a trans Colombian woman, was brutally murdered in April, in an especially galling attack being called a hate crime by authorities – crimes that are spiking of late because of the anti-trans sentiments being disseminated by the likes of Gaines and Rowling, and drafted into legislation by the likes of Mace, experts say. González’s mother, Sandra Borja, was with her as she died. In her last moments, she told her daughter that “she was going to be with God, because no one in heaven was going to humiliate or discriminate against her for being her.”
While notably horrific, neither example is unique. Anti-abortion legislation is killing women around the nation; anti-trans hate is killing women around the world.
It all begs the question: Who is actually being protected and uplifted?
The answer: The bad actors themselves. These women – the politicians and the public figures alike – have sold out other women in pursuit of grabbing and holding tight to a small portion of power. These women were given the keys to a vehicle for change – and they’ve chosen to drive over their sisters with it, aiming directly at those who need help the most.
I’ve always believed that there is something sacred about the bond between women – that in addition to the shared responsibility that comes with our general humanity, we must be especially aware of helping out those of us hurt most by the way our world works. For women, that means taking particular care with and for one another. (White women, we have an especially important responsibility in this regard.)
To live in this nation, this world, as a woman – is to know bone-deep frustration and fear. To be passed over, looked through and looked down upon. To be mocked or mansplained. Derided, then dismissed. To be and feel perpetually less safe at any given moment, in any setting – especially our own homes.
Which makes woman-to-woman betrayal that much harder to stomach.
Thankfully, examples abound of women who do honor the ties that bind us – the types of women we celebrate here at The Story Exchange. Women leaders like Maine Gov. Janet Mills and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez; entrepreneurs running women-focused businesses like Maggie Gavilán and Emily San Jose of Mother Euro and Adrienne Bitar and Jenny Han of Seen Nutrition; nonprofit founders like Anita Saville of Women’s Money Matters and Nikki Porcher of Buy from a Black Woman; and movement makers like domestic-worker-turned-organizer Dorothy Bolden and abolitionist, suffragist and writer Frances Ellen Watkins Harper.
At our best, we women can be the most powerful teachers and leaders-by-example of how love is action. It’s intention and protection. It’s doing for and caring about one another.
And at our worst… we’re on Fox News, complaining about “woke” puppetry – using an ill-gotten platform to broadcast hateful causes and messages that claim our sisters’ lives.
We get to decide who we want to be. ◼️
