← The Riley Gaines Show
The Riley Gaines Show
61 Boys in Girls Sports in ONE County?! Parents FOUGHT and WON | The Riley Gaines Show
00:37:56
Loading summary
Transcript40 lines
- [00:00]
A
Foreign.
- [00:05]
B
They tell us it's not really happening. Well, tell that to Jefferson county in Colorado that has 61 boys competing on girls sports teams. That is in one county. Welcome back to the show today. I am super excited. We are talking to a true warrior for girls. She is a friend of mine. I've had the honor of standing with her before. Her name is Lindsay Datko. She is the founder of Jeffco Kids first in Colorado. She is a wife, she is a mom, she is a teacher, and she is one of the most relentless child advocates out there. What started for her as a parent group pushing back during the pandemic has become really a force of thousands of parents in the state of Colorado, but really nationwide, fighting for transparency, fighting for safety, fighting for parental rights. Again, this is in Jefferson County Public Schools. Her team at Jeffco Kids first has documented 33 cases of sexual abuse, misconduct and grooming by staff since 2022. That's only in less than four years, really, at this point. These are cases that the district tried to bury entirely. But just last week, Lindsay and Jeffco Kids first really helped deliver a massive Title 9 victory. The US Department of Education ruled that Jeffco violated federal law by letting men, or I guess in this case, boys, into girls bathrooms, locker rooms, overnight accommodations, and of course, even on girls sports teams, as I said, with boys occupying 61 girls roster spots. This is exactly the fight that we have been in nationwide. And Lindsey, she's really leading the charge in Colorado. So stay tuned here. Well, Lindsay, thank you for joining the show. I was talking about you in the introduction and how the pandemic was one of your kind of aha moments. Of course, you're a teacher. You're a mom in Jefferson County. Can you talk about that I can't stay silent anymore moment that led you ultimately to finding Jeffco Kids First.
- [02:13]
A
Yeah. And, you know, both my mom and I are teachers and they were about to shut school, school doors. And as teachers of young readers, we thought if they do this, their. Their reading is going to suffer immensely. And so my mom actually Woke up at 2am One night with this thought. Let's start gathering our friends. Let's start letting them know we want to have the choice. She calls it divine inspiration, and I really think it was. And since then, we gathered 30 friends, we started chipping away and ultimately mastered our open record system so much that we pushed our health director to resign through the corruption that we uncovered and bipartisan support from elected officials. And we thought that was our big crowning moment. And really, what we have learned is all of that experience has led us to today. During the pandemic, parents made six so many discoveries peering over their kids shoulders through remote learning that our mission naturally shifted into all of these transparency issues and egregious issues that again that we've landed on today.
- [03:28]
B
Yeah, egregious is putting it, I think even mildly, especially in your county in the state of Colorado, your group put together a report highlighting third 33 cases of staff sexual abuse and misconduct in Jeffco schools since just 2022. So can you talk about some of the patterns that you saw, how you were able to even uncover these things, report these things? Have we seen any accountability since? I'm so curious about this.
- [04:02]
A
Yeah. So since we put out that report which the DOJ has shown interest in, we are now at over 37 cases and most of them occurring in 2024 and 2025. Let me give you just a small taste, Riley, of those cases to show just how egregious it is. In one case, migrant children were targeted, given fake medical exams by an employee in a school office and were molested. And that is going through the legal process in the courts. Another one, weapons, drugs, fentanyl were used. The Jeff Co school's employee encouraged her victim to bring a gun to school and target a colleague. In the midst of this sexual abuse, there was a case, a huge case that went international out of Columbine High School where a student was groomed by her teacher and ultimately whisked away to California after declaring her homeless right behind the parents backs. So much deception in that case. And I'll share just one more recently, a school psychologist was charged for assaulting a child under 15, multiple charges there, originally charged with soliciting for child prostitution and they found ketamine on him when they arrested him. In addition, he worked with another school employee in that school to purchase plan B for that for one of his victims who. And it just, it goes on and on. But here's the kicker. The chief of schools who was right under the superintendent in authority, purchased child pornography and went under investigation and then committed suicide. But through our open records requests, we discovered that he was in charge of the adult to student sexual misconduct trainings. And I share that. Yeah, because that shows you what we're dealing with here and just how damaged our system is.
- [06:14]
B
Oh my gosh, it's like the wolf and the chicken coop analogy. What in the world are the hiring practices to allow such deviant people, deranged people, really sick people, into these positions where they're ultimately affecting and impressioning and a very vulnerable population. That population being the youth, your children. Oh, my gosh. And so you talk about the DOJ is now being involved. What does that look like?
- [06:45]
A
Yeah. So the hiring practices first, you know, when the police are involved, that's when we see more accountability. But in Colorado, grooming is not considered criminal. And so we have so many misconduct cases where it doesn't rise to the level of criminal, such as grooming students. And one girl was sent a message from her bus driver. You know, you like older men and given gifts, and nothing happens. Yeah, yeah. It's every employee, every level that we're finding these cases. A little middle school girl was sent bizarre late night text messages from her English teacher. Again, nothing happens there. We have a team of legal experts and a private investigator, and we have just committed our lives to this volunteer work. But the patterns that we've discovered with these professionals is that they're basically, as they call it, passing the trash from school to school, from district to district. They're placing these students in the most at risk schools. So they have high schools for highly at risk students, students with high discipline needs. They're failing to report to the Colorado Department of Education. And so that then lacks a flag for other districts. And we're tracking them all over states. We've even tracked them in other states and other countries. It is a massive failure. It's a crisis. And one of our senators just tried to pass a bill to help ensure that reporting happens, and our legislature turned the bill down because the unions influenced that.
- [08:31]
B
It's so twisted, isn't it? And so you have 37 cases of some form of sexual abuse or misconduct in, I mean, gosh, what, four years now? You have to imagine how seemingly apparent it is now. It's been going on much longer than four years, right?
- [08:48]
A
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it's definitely. People say, you know, this has been going on, but for some reason in those 24, 25 years. 20, 24, it was just building and building. Incredibly disturbing. And we have seen the issues in our school district's culture that we believe have created this permissiveness around this kind of behavior.
- [09:14]
B
Yeah, I was going to ask you about that. Maybe the link between some of these misconduct cases and the district's broader policies, especially on gender identity and obviously privacy and these trusted adults, per se, that seem to keep parents in the dark.
- [09:33]
A
Yeah. And, you know, overall, it's this culture of deception. That's the word we use in our mission, in all of our work, that's how we are gathering people of all perspectives. It's deception. And it took us a good two years to really push back on certain policies. The transgender equal opportunity policy is actually not equal at all. It favors the transgender students. And within that policy, there were multiple instances of explicit deception of leaving parents out of a child's transition process and deceiving them. In addition to that, we have this term that's taking hold in our school districts across the nation, and it's trusted adult. Every single one of our sexual abuse cases was a trusted adult. And that term is actually the catalyst. It's the mechanism for driving the deception. It is leading children away from their parents to selecting a trusted adult. Where this signage hangs above classroom doors, allowing teachers to self identify as trusted adults. Curriculum leads them to talk to trusted adults about sexual education. And it basically is a parental estrangement mechanism. That term, in addition, so many egregious examples, but one is a training that we discovered where they were leading teachers to rename GSA clubs so that children could attend them. And having it not known by their parents, I could go on and on. But overall, it's this culture of deception, of pushing parents out, and it is real danger, real harm to real children.
- [11:26]
B
What does GSA stand for, these GSA clubs? What's that?
- [11:29]
A
That's actually a really good question. So GSA has long been known as Gay Sexual Alliance.
- [11:37]
B
Got it.
- [11:38]
A
But it is now Gender and Sexuality Alliance. And so that is something that has shifted. Now. It includes gender. And that is where a lot of deception happens. To bring kids in secretly and help them with their transitioning in the middle of the school day. And that's what that means.
- [12:02]
B
I've got a question for you. What does comfort that actually carries you from morning to night really feel like? Lately I've been thinking about how the little things that we use every single day, so I mean, what we sleep in, what walk around in, how those actually shape how we feel. And that is why I have been loving Cozy Earth. If you're watching@YouTube.com I hope you are, you can see that I have their classic cuddle blanket actually in my chair with me. I use it every single episode. But I also have one of their comforters on my bed. It is next level. It's incredibly soft. It's not heavy. It's designed to be breathable and temperature regulating so you're not waking up. Just like overheating and constantly adjusting in the middle of the night. It really does feel like you're laying on that Perfect cloud like balance where you just kind of settle in and stay asleep longer and you wake up feeling incredibly refreshed. My husband loves that comforter. And then I have their essential socks which sounds pretty simple but you notice the difference immediately. They are soft, they are cushioned in all of the right places. They are breathable enough to wear all day long. Whether you are running around, whether you're at home, whether you're traveling, which if you have been in the airports these past few weeks, then you are a warrior. Their socks come in calf, quarter ankle and no show. So they really just fit into your routine without you having to think about it. So if that interests you, which it should, you should go to cozyearth.com they have a 100 night sleep trial. You're not going to need it. They have a 10 year warranty because they believe in themselves. I believe in them. You can use my code Gaines G A I N E S yes for 20 off. If you get a post purchase survey be sure to tell them that you heard about Cozy Earth from me again cozyearth.com code gains. Now you mentioned some of these clubs being on these, I imagine mostly high school campuses. On the flip side of that, I think following Charlie Kirk's assassination there was kind of a cultural revolution if you will, even in, I mean several blue, deeply blue counties and states where you saw young kids wanting to start like a club America, which is kind of like a turning point chapter for high schools. Are you seeing administrative pushback when maybe pro Christian, pro conservative chapters are being are attempted to being started by students?
- [14:36]
A
You know that hasn't come up a lot. I know of students who were inspired to try to do a TPUSA chapter. It's not as common to hear about that kind of chapter, but we definitely watch for that to make sure that that is going to be, going to be respected as well. And what we always push for is these clubs need to take place after school hours when parents make the ultimate decision and have full knowledge of whether or not their children are attending. But we definitely watch for that to make sure that, that every club is going to be respected as you mentioned. Yeah.
- [15:19]
B
So I got to spend some time with you guys, gosh, what maybe a year or two ago at this point. And I got to meet the parents of a young girl, I think she was 11 years old at the time, who was sent on an overnight trip. Can you give a little detail? You know what I'm talking about. Can you shed a little light on this and how ultimately now The US Department of Education has launched an investigation into this. Give us a little insight here.
- [15:46]
A
Yes, that case has been just integral to this investigation. And what happened was there's a school trip to Washington D.C. where little 10 year old children, fifth grade, will go on these trips. And this little girl found that she had been paired with a biological male announced by him in the same.
- [16:10]
B
Which he was also 10ish years old.
- [16:13]
A
Right, she was also 10 years old. So not just in the same bedroom, but in the same bed. She became very alarmed and unsettled and went to the bathroom and called her mother. Her accommodations were not nearly as respected as the boys accommodations. But what's fascinating is at that same time, and Alliance Defending Freedom has taken on that child as a client. And at that same time, our organization, Jeffco Kids, first began receiving weekly reports. Our students, our sixth grade students go on a week long mountain trip, it's called Outdoor Lab. And they would come home and tell their parents, my high school leader, who's 17 and a child may be 11, of an opposite sex, was bunking, sharing sleeping spaces, monitoring showers, and they had no idea, no notice to parents, that this would be a possibility. And this became a very common report. In fact, one of our high schools even explicitly recruited transgender students for outdoor lab. And so that means they would be sleeping and bunking with the opposite sex children. So all of this was happening near the same time. And our families, at our encouragement, began making many reports to the Department of Education. And both of those, the little girl in the bed, the outdoor lab situation, were referenced in their launch in their press release of this investigation. And so we're so glad that they're taking it so seriously. And yeah, it's been over three years of us pushing for that. So this is a huge moment for us. And then on top of that, Riley, is the sports issue that the Department of Ed brought forward.
- [18:12]
B
Well, that has circulated online and oh my gosh, it totally debunks the whole it's not really happening narrative that we see all the time, even from legislators in the state of Colorado who say, well, it's not really an issue here. What JEFF ko, Kids First. And what the Department of Education has ruled is that it certainly is an issue and not just an issue. It has overrun the county. 61 boys on girls teams. Absolutely. A violation of title nine. What went through your mind as someone who has kind of been on the front lines, especially locally in the county? What went through your mind when you saw these numbers?
- [18:55]
A
Yeah. Unbelievable. And we just kind of sat in silence reading that report. And as soon as they launched, I again, because of that pandemic experience, understanding so well how the open record system works, I submitted a request to get all of that documentation. And when we read that report, which is 31 pages long, and that data showed up, we were stunned. And I want to be careful to say that The Department of Ed uses the words up to 61 because they make it so incredibly difficult to track this data. And I think that's why it went so wild online, is because it's very difficult to actually see it broken down. But what we found is in that data and it corroborates with employee reports, coaches on opposing teams. I just had a coach text me this morning and say, hey, this is happening in cross country a lot. And that's exactly what the data shows, that cross country was one of the main sports to have this issue, followed by tennis and then swimming and volleyball. And so it was just unbelievable to read that. And to Be honest, Riley, one is too many. 20 would have been shocking. But up to 61 possible males taking away girls dreams and scholarships, as you
- [20:23]
B
know all too well, it's so true. And you're right with one being too many and to just maybe shed light because again, if you haven't played sports, maybe, maybe you don't really understand. But one boy, it's not like a one to one, right? Like one boy doesn't affect one girl. You have one boy standing atop the podium or taking a roster spot or whatever, taking an opportunity, being the locker room, that affects every single girl. Think of how many girls in the state of Colorado play sports. That's how many are displaced when you have a man at the top. So to have up to 61, that is crazy numbers. And so of course you have, as I alluded to the lost opportunities. But you also have fears of safety. You talk about volleyball and tennis, sports where you're, you know, jumping up, spiking a ball, colliding into one another, where you have collision, things like that, you have safety concerns and obviously the locker room, there's a total violation of, of privacy. And when you're Talking about that 10, 11 year old girl sharing a bed, I think of myself at that age. You know, you're in fifth grade and I didn't go on overnight trips at the time because that's how timid I was to even leave my home. So being in a bed with even a girl doesn't sound overly comfortable. But sharing that space with a boy, oh my gosh, if you're a parent, or maybe you have younger sisters and you're listening to this. Think of, think of them. Put your daughter or your granddaughter or your sister in their shoes. That is a. That is a crazy thing. And so anyways, have you talked to parents specifically who have experienced, again, whether it's the violation of it, the lost opportunities because of these policies?
- [22:06]
A
Yeah. And I want to read a couple of their testimonials word for word just to show you.
- [22:11]
B
Please.
- [22:12]
A
Yeah. So here's one. This one just really deeply hits me, the breach of privacy here. One parent reached out and said, my middle school daughter was using the restroom and taking care of her female hygiene when a biological male appeared over the stall. Another, my kindergartener came home from school and told me her teacher announced that a boy in their classroom would now be using the girls bathroom. I confirmed with the girls, with the teacher. And my daughter is uncomfortable and confused. Showing all ages here. And here's one that really shows what everyone knows is going to happen when you just open bathrooms to males to come in freely and use the female restroom in an intimate space. He said, our daughter left class one day to use the restroom. She walked into the girls restroom at school to find there was a boy in the girls bathroom. They were engaged in an intimate moment, the boy and the girl. She left the restroom and went to tell an administrator that there was a boy in the girl's bathroom. They investigated, and the boy, who was known by students to generally identify as male, told the school that he is transgender. So nothing was done. And the parent, who is also a Jefferson county teacher, said, nowhere in any response were my concerns for my daughter's feelings or concerns for her safety and privacy in a female space addressed. And that really says it all right there. The bathroom issue. Girls are standing guard. They're leaving campus to use their. The bathroom at home. I mean, this isn't just a culture war, Riley. This is real kids, real harm, real privacy being breached.
- [23:58]
B
My gosh. Yeah. You think about if the only qualification to access female spaces is to say you are a woman, think of how many people would take advantage of that, whether it's in these high schools or middle schools even. But. But across the board, we see it all the time in prisons where male inmates who are often convicted of. Of violent sexual offenses, realize that the quickest way to get into a woman's prison, which sounds awesome to a rapist, is to say I am a woman. Well, they're doing that and they're getting access to. To these women in these facilities. And it's heartbreaking because these are women who oftentimes come from some sort of domestic violence background. Of course they have their own issues, but. But these are bruised and battered women a lot of times, and they're being exposed to that because he has merely said he is a woman. It's wild. And these are kids we're talking about, as you said, of course, Jeffco, they're. They're pushing back, saying that this ruling that has come from the Department of Education really has no basis in Title nine and that they're going to keep following state law. What's your reaction to that? And what exactly does the proposed resolution agreement require them to do? I mean, this week.
- [25:15]
A
Yeah, you know, they really can't hide behind state law. Now, we would have bet a lot that this would be their response to media they're calling erroneous. It's to be expected. With Jefferson counting, they will dig their heels and then we'll die. On this hill of gender ideology. The Department of ED basically outlined that they're denying fairness and equality to females in private facilities, overnight travel and sports. And what they're requiring of them was a four page document, again, that I was able to pull from open records that shows in vast detail. And so they're required to rescind and refuse policy on all of these issues, make a public statement, and post it prominently on their website. I love this Riley. We're calling this the Riley effect. They have to reinstate athletic awards to all females who rightfully deserved it and issue an apology letter to those females. So again, it's very detailed, it's four pages long, but that's generally what they're requiring of them. And today's the deadline. But let me just mention this. So the Department of ED is very clear that Title IX applies irrespective of Colorado's state law. And they are requiring Jeffco to acknowledge that and basically post that on their website. But in addition to that, we just had a settlement happen through our Colorado High School Activities association, which governs all of this high school sporting activities in our district. And so they settled, saying that they will not place penalty on any school district that wants to keep transgender students out of sports. And so they're of course using state law and that we call it Chassa Bylaws. But really, CHASA just freed districts to make their own policies. And so Jeffco's hands are gonna be tied, I believe, because not only that, enforcement is going to mean removing funding, and we're in a $70 million deficit. In a $1.4 billion budget, they can't afford a single dollar to be taken. And so we think with this pushback that they're going to land in court, there's going to be hearings. The doj, again, the sexual abuse work we did with the doj, we hope will help here, because they've already done a deep dive into Jeffco and seen how egregious it is, and they're the ones who will enforce and hopefully go to court and file an injunction. So we're just at the beginning of the ride, but, boy, are we feeling relief for our kids.
- [28:09]
B
Yeah, I. I would imagine so. And you're right. When you talk about pulling federal funds, first of all, the issue of. Of which this debate is even happening, but when you talk about pulling federal funds, I mean, these are like school lunches for kids. So you. You would imagine that they would be on the right side of this. But history has shown in other states where you can expect this to be happening, they continue to act defiantly. So we'll certainly be watching. Have you had any desire to maybe rebrand or take Jeffco Kids first kind of national? Because I would imagine with the success that you've had, you've had lots of parents reaching out, parents from, I'm sure, across the state, but probably from across the country who inquire, you know, how do they get something like this started in their own districts? What's maybe some practical advice you would give to them?
- [29:06]
A
Yeah, you know, I love that question. And I believe that the success we have had is because we have focused so locally. I love that we have exhausted every option, every elected official, every agency that could help us locally in Colorado, and that's when we turned federally, and that's where we're receiving the help. We cannot just simply throw our hands up and say, nobody helped us because this is safety, this is our children's privacy. And so we reached out, and luckily they're responding. We're so incredibly grateful for that need them to prove that Title IX does apply irrespective of these state laws in certain states. And so what I would say to parents is just start building support. You've got to advocate with facts. You have to be so focused on facts. You have to do it in a dignified manner where you're going to gain the trust of people around you, and they're going to want to support you. Our key people have been employees within Jeffco schools who bring information forward. They know that we're going to do it in a dignified way. We're not going to make up stories and we're going to verify. Learn to master your open record system. You can get information, it belongs to you as the public. And then don't just stop there, but turn it into results, push for policy changes, have meetings with leaders and make real change in addition to exposing and sunlight.
- [30:42]
B
See, I love that you hit on focus on the community locally, what's happening at the grassroot level, because I think so often people get wrapped up in what's going on in Washington D.C. and yes, of course it matters, especially in, in what's going on now in Jefferson County. It matters who's in the Oval Office. And of course you want those people on your side. But what has far more influence on your children and what they're, they're digesting and learning is what's happening at the local level. So I could not encourage that enough. I think it is so important that is how you see real impact and real change. So I'm so glad that you mentioned that. Even myself. I'm on our Sumner county, my county in Tennessee. I'm on our library board because I took issue with the books that were in our public libraries, paid for by taxpayers, you and me. But rather than just going online and talking about it, it's like, okay, well why don't I, why don't I do something about it? And in that there has been positive movement and change. So I love that there's two ballot initiatives on the November ballot surrounding kind of gender ideology. Can you talk about those and maybe how Jeffco Kids was involved or what your position on these things is?
- [32:06]
A
Yeah, it's incredible. So there's another statewide grassroots organization called Protect Kids Colorado. And what they have accomplished is absolutely unbelievable and amazing. They, it's never been done before, but they we found our elected officials, our legislature would not respond to these issues, that many of them should be nonpartisan, bipartisan, and they wouldn't even, you know, want to punish sex offenders, as you said. And so they turned to voters and they successfully gathered half a million signatures to get these initiatives on our November ballot. And one is men and women's sports and another is the gender mutilation issue. And so it's incredible what they've accomplished. But what I think is going to happen is hopefully these pass and what it's going to show is that Colorado is not represented by our legislature. Our legislature is not responding to Colorado as a whole. The voters are going to prove it and Colorado is going to reject this damage done to children is what we're going to see happen, is our hope.
- [33:27]
B
Yeah, these ballot initiatives are really, really difficult to pull off. And so to see the success thus far in the state of Colorado, it gives a lot of other states, I think just they feel as if there's a little cover provided there to push forward. I know we've seen it in Maine now, again, previously unsuccessful efforts. Now these are finally turning. And so I think a lot of that is to thank people like you, Lindsey, and of course, Jeff Ko Kids first. So thank you for your tireless advocacy. You know, starting a lot of this stuff back in the COVID era was a totally different time. It was a lot. Well, it felt, at least speaking personally, it felt a lot more consequential then in 2020, 2021, to say what you guys were saying as opposed to now in 2026, where I think it's becoming easier to say things like men can't be women and vice versa and that you are the arbiter of your child. You don't have to co parent with the government. I think it's becoming easier to say those things. But it wouldn't be possible without people in groups like yours. So thank you, Lindsay.
- [34:39]
A
Thank you so much. You've been our inspiration. You brought so much energy to Jefferson county when you came and attended our gala. And we're going to continue our mission to protect our children's future by securing their present. We're thankful for the national ripple waves and we hope our local work has an effect nationally.
- [34:59]
B
What, what's kind of next for you guys? Do you have anything big in the works and how can people support you too?
- [35:05]
A
Yeah, this is kind of our. Our big moment for sure. We're gonna have. We're gonna have to hold feet to the fire. We're talking about bureaucracy, fighting bureaucracy. And to see that through, we're gonna be working very hard to. To get a resolution here. You can visit our website at www.jeffcokidsfirst. we're entirely volunteer and depend on grassroots donations and support. And you can reach out to us there with any questions. We'd love to help anyone who is fighting a similar fight.
- [35:40]
B
Amazing. Amazing. Well, that support system, it makes a huge difference when you have other people you can lean on, maybe people who have gone through similar things. So highly encourage. If you're listening, watching right now, go to www.jeffco. kids first support if you can. Because sure, it's an investment, but there are few things more worthy of an investment than your kids in their future. So thank you, Lindsay.
- [36:06]
A
Thank you so much.
- [36:08]
B
Thank you guys for tuning in to the Riley Gaines show. Be sure to follow us here on YouTube.com RileyGaines you can subscribe. That way you never miss an episode. You can follow us over on Instagram at rileygain show. We'd love to hear from you. You can leave comments here. You can DM us over on Instagram. We want your feedback. We want to know what you want to hear about. We want to know what guests you want to see on the show. Be sure to share these episodes far and wide. It helps tremendously. When you do, you can share it with your friends or your parents or your neighbors. Heck, why don't you share this with that liberal in your life? You know the one I'm talking about? Share it with the person who needs to hear this message the most. We'll see you guys later.