Conservative activist and former collegiate swimmer Riley Gaines Barker has been appointed to fill a vacancy on the Sumner County Library Board.
Gaines is one of two newly-appointed board members to fill vacancies in Sumner County, according to Sumner ounty Commissioner Jeremy Mansfield.
Gaines was on the Swimming & Diving team at the University of Kentucky is a graduate from Station Camp High School in Sumner County. She also hosts a popular podcast, Gaines for Girls.
She was a 12-time NCAA All-American and, according to Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman, Gaines held a fifth-place tie with Lia Thomas, the first transgender athlete to win an NCAA Division I title.
Since then, she has achieved national acclaim as a leading voice about “keeping men out of women’s sports. The 25-year-old Gaines recently gave birth to her first child, a daughter. Her father, Brad, recently filed to run for Congress in Tennessee’s 6th District.
Gaines criticized the library board yesterday for permitting transgender, lgbt and other materials in the Sumner County library. “Tennessee banned tax dollars from funding woke gender ideology, but my own county’s library board is ignoring it. Concerned parents challenged these books (and others) in February, but to no avail. Remove this filth from our libraries!” along with images of books about gender identity, she posted on social media.
“Currently, there are nine positions on the board. One has been empty for several months”, she continued. “The commission and the committee on committees refuse to fill it. There are eight people: four conservatives and four non-conservatives. The non-conservative members are either liberal, democrat, or RINOs. If they show up to a meeting, they will be forced to vote for or against this policy that removes trans ideological books from the children’s section per state and federal law.
They do not want to go on record for voting no. It would ruin their reputation. This is why they are always absent from the meetings. They are waiting until the chairman (Joanna Daniels’) term is up in November. That way, they can reduce the number on the board to seven, which will give the nonconservative members the majority, making this policy go away, never to be voted on,” Gaines noted.
In August, the Sumner County Library Board again rejected a ban on transgender-themed books. The controversy began in May when the board tabled the first proposal to remove the books.
Mansfield announced that the library board will remain a nine-member board moving forward.
Steve Gill is editor and publisher of TriStar Daily.
