Oklahoma Sooners’s softball coach Patty Gasso defended his players after some attended an event organized by the Women’s Defender Riley Gaines last week.
Gaines has defended justice in women’s sports since Lia Thomas tied with her in the NCAA Championship in 2022. Thomas also became the first transgender athlete to win a female swimming championship of the NCAA. Since then, current and previous athletes have joined to keep biological men outside women’s sports.
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Oklahoma’s chief softball coach Patty Gasso, shows during the University Softball Game between Oklahoma Sooners and UCF knights in Love’s Field in Norman, Oklahoma, on Friday, April 4, 2025. (Sarah Phipps / The Oklahoman / USA Today Network through IMAGN images)
Sooners’s pitchers, Audrey Lowry and Sam Landry, attended Gaines’s speech at the Turning Point USA event, according to Ou Daily. The women were far from being the only Sooners athletes in the event.
Gasso told The Ou Daily that he did not listen to Gaines’ praise to her and her team and that she would not comment.
“But the fact that our team is there is your right if you want to go or not,” he said. “Support and what they choose.”
Peyton Mcquillan, a Track Track athlete, defended Gaines’ message in an interview with the student newspaper.
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Riley Gaines speaks in a speech event of the Turning Point USA chapter at the University of Oklahoma in Norman, Oklahoma, on Wednesday, April 2, 2025. (Nathan J. Fish / The Oklahoman / USA Today Network through IMAGN images)
“She just wants to make sure everyone has a fair opportunity, and it is clear that she cares,” he said. “It is very easy to interact with him.”
Haley Bergstrom, an Oklahoma rowman, backed biological males outside girls and women. He pointed out the biological differences between men and women. “Biologically, men only have an advantage over women, whatever happens,” he said. “So we would like to keep that simple, but there is no problem against trans people in general.”
Gaines received Pro-Trans protests at school.
“I am really disturbed by the type of panic that I have seen in recent years: the suggestion that trans people are dangerous, who are damaging society, that letting trans people participate in everyday life is somehow a risky thing that should be avoided,” said the librarian Cynthia Teague al Oklahoman.
“In particular with sports, there are so few trans athletes at the elite level, and participating in sports is something that I think trans adolescents should be able to do.”
Kay Holladay has a sign that protests in a speech event of the Turning Point USA chapter at the University of Oklahoma for Riley Gaines in Norman, Oklahoma, on Wednesday, April 2, 2025. (Nathan J. Fish / The Oklahoman / USA Today Network through IMAGN images)
NCAA altered its policy to keep biological men out of women’s sports. However, women’s sports defenders have said that the organization has left lagoons in their policy to keep the door open.
