On paper, former swimmer Riley Gaines is a puzzling choice for MAGA’s appointed “victim” of trans people. Gaines has built an entire career on a single incident when she was a college swimmer, when she tied for fifth place during the 200-yard freestyle at the NCAA swimming championship in 2022.
As a senior at the University of Kentucky, she finished in the middle of the pack with Lia Thomas, who had drawn national attention for being trans. Logically, Gaines’s woe-is-me tale doesn’t make much sense as a moral outrage over trans women in sports. Four other swimmers outswam Thomas, which seems to be proof against conservative claims that trans women have an unbeatable advantage. Nevertheless, Gaines portrays the moment as when her “dreams” were “shattered,” but most people would hardly use such heavy language for the difference between tying for fifth place versus having that also-ran trophy by yourself.
Despite the underwhelming facts of her tale, Gaines turned her unmemorable swim meet into the entire foundation of her career as a MAGA figurehead. She never had the chops to be a professional swimmer, but she has done well as a professional victim, devoting her life not just to eradicating trans women from sports, but to opposing trans rights altogether. Gaines compares trans women to rapists and pedophiles, and claims that LGBTQ rights activists wish to “fully eradicate women as a whole.” She even calls trans people and their allies “demonic” and aligns queer rights with Satanism.
The trans panic currently gripping the Christian right is an extension of the Satanic panic that took hold in the 1980s — a worldview that owes little to reality or to the teachings of Jesus. Instead, it’s rooted in the visual and emotional language of horror films…
Such language isn’t metaphorical for Gaines or her audience; she means it quite literally. The trans panic currently gripping the Christian right is an extension of the Satanic panic that took hold in the 1980s — a worldview that owes little to reality or to the teachings of Jesus. Instead, it’s rooted in the visual and emotional language of horror films, especially the more reactionary tales of demonic possession, such as “The Exorcist” and “The Conjuring.” These followers unabashedly argue that “transgenderism” is a tool of Satan and that acceptance of gender non-conforming people is a form of demonic possession.
That, and not her fifth place trophy, is why Gaines has become the face of the anti-trans movement. Simply put, she looks the part. Every demon possession story requires a cherubic — and ideally blonde — little girl to be the face of the “innocence” threatened by Satanic forces. Think Linda Blair in “The Exorcist,” Heather O’Rourke in “Poltergeist” or the family of all daughters in “The Conjuring.” Although Gaines, at 25, is a grown woman, she has a round face and a girlish demeanor, making her able to evoke the trope of the demon-terrorized child that has captured the Christian right’s imagination for decades.
The Christian right’s obsession with demons, exorcisms and Satan presents itself as deeply rooted in history. But in reality, the community’s fixation is a relatively recent development driven more by Hollywood films than ancient traditions. In “The Exorcist Effect,” religious studies associate professor Joseph Laycock and film expert Eric Harrelson document how the Satanic panic of the 1970s and 1980s grew out of the popularity of horror films like “Rosemary’s Baby” (1968), “The Omen” (1976) and, of course, “The Exorcist” (1973). Evangelicals may think their fixation on demons comes from the Bible, Laycock told Salon via email, but their ideas are actually inspired more from Hollywood. Supposedly true stories of Satanic cult activity, for instance, “appear to be scenes from horror movies,” he explained, and “‘The Omen’ popularized an obsession with the number 666.”
For mainstream America, fears of Satanism and demons peaked in the 1980s and receded in recent years into an embarrassing joke, with people laughing at how harmless cultural phenomena like Dungeons and Dragons, heavy metal and Ouija boards were temporarily the source of genuine paranoia. But for the Christian right, the belief that dark magic is all around us has not receded. If anything, it’s surged in recent years, due in part to the popularity of “The Conjuring” films and constant talk of devils and witchcraft on social media.
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For mainstream America, fears of Satanism and demons peaked in the 1980s and receded in recent years into an embarrassing joke, with people laughing at how harmless cultural phenomena like Dungeons and Dragons, heavy metal and Ouija boards were temporarily the source of genuine paranoia. But for the Christian right, the belief that dark magic is all around us has not receded. If anything, it’s surged in recent years, due in part to the popularity of “The Conjuring” films and constant talk of devils and witchcraft on social media.
The target of Christian right fears of Satanic evil has shifted from rock music to LGBTQ people, especially trans people. Queer-positive media is routinely depicted on the right as Satan’s strategy to weaken the defenses, especially of young people, allowing demons to take over.
In a recent appearance on Fox News, Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., argued that Netflix is using mind control techniques to turn children trans, attributing it to “demonic” forces “from the pits of hell.” Republican Florida state representative Webster Barnaby accused trans people who testified against an anti-trans bill of being literal “demons and imps” who only “pretend that you are part of this world.” MAGA influencer Seth Gruber blamed Charlie Kirk’s murder on demons who enter individuals through the “ideology of trans.”
The list, sadly, goes on and on. “Demons” appears to be the right’s prevailing theory for why people are trans.
But once you realize that the trans panic is an outgrowth of decades of Satanic panic, the role Riley Gaines plays comes into sharper focus. Nearly every story of demonic menace requires a young, helpless woman — or better yet, a girl — as the idealized victim the devil wants to possess. In “Rosemary’s Baby,” Satan literally rapes Mia Farrow’s character. But most of the time, the symbolism of demonic possession violating the “purity” of the small, usually blonde girl is slightly less blunt. Even when the whole family is menaced, as in “Poltergeist,” the evil entities have a special yearning to possess little blonde girls.
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Wittingly or not, Gaines seems to understand that her ability to play the “victim” of these supposedly demonic trans forces depends on presenting herself as girlish. She favors fluffy lace, pink outfits. Despite promoting her athleticism, she avoids being seen as strong and capable, preferring sports photos that emphasize how “cute” and “lil” her clothes are. Gaines and her MAGA audience love to talk about how petite she is; in June, she even posted a video of her much-taller husband measuring her to “prove” she’s only 5 feet 5 inches tall. Since female swimmers, like their male counterparts, tend to be tall, the video only served to make Gaines look childish and came at the expense of her athletic image. Even her purported ambition — to have a swimming trophy — can be seen as childlike, especially as she never pursued a post-collegiate career as a professional swimmer.
When Gaines casts herself as the hero in a drama of “spiritual battle” against “[d]emonic beings,” she’s tapping into a trope that is deeply embedded in the subconscious of the Christian right, one that has been placed there far more by horror flicks than Bible study. On a rational level, her story doesn’t make sense. Trans people haven’t taken anything from her. And with her swimming days behind her, they certainly aren’t a danger to her now.
But Gaines’ supposed victimization doesn’t need facts to back it up. As with most things MAGA, her fears lie entirely in the realm of fantasy, driven by highly emotional imagery that allows her, and the movement more broadly, to abandon any lingering attachment to critical thinking. Gaines looks exactly like their image of a victim. Somehow, that makes every lie she tells about the imaginary dangers from “demonic” forces to be true, facts be damned to hell.
