Olympic champion Simone Biles had time to go toe-to-toe with an NCAA swimmer turned conservative pundit who’s known for her anti-trans athlete views.
It all started when Riley Gaines decided to take shots at a Minnesota high school girls’ softball team celebrating their state championship. One of the players is a transgender woman, and that was enough for Gaines to hop online and mock the league for blocking hateful comments.
Unfortunately for her, seven-time Olympic champ Simone Biles jumped in on X (formerly Twitter) and did not hold back.
“You’re truly sick,” Biles posted. “All of this campaigning because you lost a race. Straight up sore loser.”’
Gaines, who tied for fifth with Lia Thomas (a transgender swimmer) at the NCAA Championships in 2022, has been on an anti-trans campaign tour ever since. Since the incident, Gains has said she felt “cheated, betrayed, and violated” by competing against Thomas.
Biles, never one to stand by in silence, kept going:
“You should be uplifting the trans community and perhaps finding a way to make sports inclusive, OR creating a new avenue where trans people feel safe in sports. Maybe a transgender category IN ALL sports. But instead… You bully them…”
“One thing’s for sure is no one in sports is safe with you around.”
Whether it’s advocating for mental health, remember when she bowed out of multiple Olympic events in Tokyo to protect her peace?—or standing up for marginalized communities, Biles consistently shows up with strength and grace.
But Gains wasn’t done; she hopped back on X to say how disappointed she was in Biles, claiming the gymnastics legend shouldn’t be “advocating for transgender women in women’s sport.”
She also posted a video on Instagram directly addressing Simone Biles and dug up old tweets from 8 years ago from the gymnast and accused her of being a hypocrite.
‘ahhhh good thing guys don’t compete against girls or he’d take all the gold medals !!’ the old post from Biles read.
Gaines, for her part, has become a prominent voice in the national debate over transgender athletes in women’s sports. Earlier this year, she appeared at the White House alongside President Donald Trump, who signed an executive order aimed at restricting transgender women and girls from competing in female categories.
Meanwhile, courts and sports organizations around the world continue to weigh in.
SkySports reports that in April, the UK Supreme Court ruled that the legal definition of “woman” refers to biological sex under equality law, prompting several UK sports bodies, including the FA and the England and Wales Cricket Board, to revise their policies on transgender athletes.
Still, Biles raised a broader point that’s resonating with many: Is there a way to protect fairness in competition and create space where transgender athletes feel welcome and safe? Her suggestion of a separate category for transgender athletes isn’t new, but it’s sparking conversation.
At the heart of it, this moment is less about one gymnast or one swimmer and more about the future of inclusion in sports. The questions aren’t easy, and the answers definitely aren’t one-size-fits-all. But clearly, the debate isn’t cooling down anytime soon.
