[13] As a junior, she won the 100-yard butterfly and 100-yard freestyle in the TISCA High School Swim & Dive Championship in Knoxville in 2017.

[16][17][18] Following on from her earlier promising results at SEC events, Gaines was less successful at collegiate and national level, and she was never able to qualify for an Olympic Games, or for a Pan-Pacific or World Aquatics Championship despite numerous attempts to do so.

In March 2022, while swimming for the University of Kentucky in the 200-yard NCAA freestyle championship (her final competitive event race before retiring from the sport), Gaines tied for fifth place with University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas, who subsequently became the first openly trans woman champion in the NCAA women's division after winning the 500-yard freestyle later in the same event.

[25] By January 2023, Gaines had participated in a small protest at the NCAA Convention, appeared in campaign advertisements for former US Senate candidate Herschel Walker, and spoken at a Donald Trump rally.

[26] In March 2023, Gaines was an invited speaker at a Texas Senate committee in support of legislation that would categorically prohibit transgender college athletes from competing in sports divisions that align with their gender identity.

[5] In April 2023, Gaines visited San Francisco State University for a Turning Point USA student chapter event and spoke publicly about her campaign against transgender athletes in women's sports.

[21][27] Gaines was escorted by law enforcement officers to shelter in a classroom, where she stayed for three hours while protesters continued to demonstrate outside.

[31][32][33][34] The executive order includes a variety of provisions, including a prohibition on transgender women and girls using bathrooms and locker rooms designated for women, a direction to state agencies to use sex assigned at birth to define male and female, as well as definitions for terms such as "man" and "woman.