Simone Biles attacks Riley Gaines

The point is that this exceptional athlete is trying to appease the group who believe that male people should have access to female single sex provisions.

The point that Riley is making is that even Simone’s status didn’t protect her from extreme transactivist tactics and that the public may actually take notice of that. All for making a statement that Simone supposed supported transgender inclusion in sport (and they should be included, just in then correct category for their sex). And had presumably now discovered that it didn’t support what those actvists want at all.

Then why did Gaines feel the need to say “You have this famous public figure now issuing a groveling public apology and backtracks after tweeting pro-trans propaganda, if you will”?

That seems an overt point about status.

I wonder if it works the other way too, like is Riley automatically more qualified to speak on the subject than a TRA who's never been good enough to win any collegiate medals or be invited to an Olympic Trials?

I found this account using the quote and saying similar about Biles’ medal tally.

https://x.com/highbrow_nobrow/status/1932873514744250644?s=46

“Context: Simone Biles is the most decorated gymnast in history, with 11 Olympic medals and 30 World Championship medals—including a record 23 World golds and multiple all-around titles.

Riley Gaines, despite an impressive collegiate swimming career, has zero Olympic medals and is best known for tying for fifth place with swimmer Lia Thomas in the 200-yard freestyle at the 2022 NCAA Championships, a result she publicly protested because Thomas identifies as transgender.”

I don’t understand why someone would think that this is relevant. And yet…. Apparently Riley Gaines should be considered to be in the wrong in making an observation about the apology.

I believe also that this tweet is also using performance to shame Riley for even starting to campaign for protecting women’s sports.

This tweet proposes:

Simone Biles : outstanding and exceptional athlete - therefore no negative observations should be made.

Riley Gaines : didn’t win and is a bigot protesting against someone who is transgender. (Rather than protesting that a male person should never have been included in the race)

I can only assume that Olympic Golf medallists are the only people’s voices who should be considered valid in this discussion. Anyone else should be shamed for their poor performance and their bigotry.

Just for clarity.

The excerpt above from Riley Gaines is from a TV interview.

https://x.com/highbrow_nobrow/status/1932839462058213844?s=46

This is the tweet accepting Simone Biles’ apology for context. I believe it was linked to up thread.

x.com/riley_gaines_/status/1932493510868906128?s=46

“I accept Simone's apology for the personal attacks including the ones where she body-shamed me. I know she knows what this feels like. She's still the greatest female gymnast of all time.

A couple of things. Sports ARE inclusive by nature. Anyone can and everyone SHOULD play sports. Competition, on the other hand and by definition, is exclusive. So the idea of "competitive equity" is nonsensical.

Secondly, the boys are publicly humiliating the girls. To suggest that women and girls must be silent or ignore a boy who is PUBLICLY hurting or humiliating them is wrong. You can't have any empathy and compassion for the girls if you're ignoring when young men are harming or abusing them. I am not ashamed to be a voice for the voiceless.

Lastly, I agree with you that the blame is on the lawmakers and leaders at the top. Precisely why I'm suing the NCAA and support candidates who vow to stand with women. That's why I joined @realDonaldTrump at the signing of his Executive Order. I didn't see you there or championing this effort with your platform.

Women's sports can't be used as an excuse for girl's to center the feelings and validation of men and boys.

I welcome you to the fight to support fair sports and a future for female athletes. Little girls deserve the same shot to achieve that you had.”

Why shouldn’t Riley Gaines give an answer in a TV interview when asked a question about this incident. Do people, such as the person who tweeted the snippet in their own commentary analysing Gaines’ reaction, really expect that she should have deflected and not made an observation about the incident?

Why shouldn’t she be making an observation about what motivated and shaped the apology?

Just for full context, this is during an interview on Fox News. RG has not posted this on her X account.

If your assessment refers only to Riley's comment, it's pointless. The entire reason Riley has the upper hand is because of Simone's original attack. Trying to consider Riley's comment in isolation is a complete waste of time.

There will come a point where, if Riley is still going on about it, she'll lose the upper hand. Less than 24 hours after Simone's apology is not it.

Why do you think their medal tally is of any relevance to the arguments they've made here or how they've conducted themselves?

My post related only to Gaines’ comment. Of course Biles’ original comment was out of line. However, the more Gaines takes digs at her - particularly ones like these - I feel she does lose the upper hand.

Why shouldn't Gaines comment on it again, she was the wronged party! And grovelling was clearly about her grovelling to the horrid trans activists. Gaines wasn't saying Biles was grovelling to her. The 'apology' to Gaines was barely even an apology.

What is vicious, is body-shaming a woman and calling her names. That is vicious. Do you often take up for the bully and the bad guys?

I read the ‘grovelling’ as being aimed at Biles attempting to placate angry transgender activists. In that respect, I think it can be considered grovelling. And I think it is an important comment about the tactics of those extreme trans activists. And that even that apology will never be enough for some of those activists.

Comments like the one you responded to confuse me too. Why should someone’s sporting success be a gauge as to whether they should apologise for unprovoked and very personal attacks or not?

Why should women have to accept being berated, undermined and attacked just because the person attacking is a sporting great? Why should someone who has been attacked by a sports star feel they have to be kind to that person?

She really, really, really does have the higher ground on the comments about appearance.

I expect that's the main reason Simone apologised, actually. Might have got away with just the first tweet. But the second one torched years of no doubt expert, expensive branding work positioning her as an advocate for women's body positivity.

RG also realistically did need to respond to the apology in some way. Things like writing articles about it after the acknowledgment were more of a choice, but the fact is, Simone's actions meant Riley experienced a great deal more attention, plenty of it negative. It's still impacting RG this week and potentially will for a while yet. People are allowed to respond to things that have happened to them.

Also, I read the acknowledgment of Simone still being the greatest in her sport as Riley pre-emptively responding to all the loser, jealous remarks that inevitably accompany anything she has to say about women in sports.

Not half as 'vicious' as Biles' comments about Gaines' appearance.

And of course, RG has the higher ground. She didn't out-of-leftfield launch a personal attack on Biles, did she?

I'm not sure why this 'athletes status' thing is relevant. You can win lots of medals at the Olympics and still be wrong about things.

Gaines is keeping it going by commenting thus on Biles’ apology: “Gaines: I accept her apology and see this as a really big win. You have this famous public figure now issuing a groveling public apology and backtracks after tweeting pro-trans propaganda, if you will.”

I didn’t see Biles’ retraction as “grovelling” and to suggest so is somewhat vicious, IMO. There’s really no need to also issue ‘I accept her apology’ statements’ - it just seems overly imperious where she really doesn’t have the higher ground. (And her statement above reflects that - ‘I got an athlete much better than me to apologise - to me’.)

Biles needs to understand that it's the sports organisations, schools and coaches who are putting children into these positions of being publically called out.

Because most people know it's unfair for boys to play on girls teams, because of their biological advantage as well as taking a spot from a talented girl.

Riley Gaines called it out, but if Riley hadn't, someone else would! This is completely inevitable.

Equity in sport? I remember a long while ago there was talk of including disabled runners into men's (and I guess women's) running, but it was quashed because those blades they wear give an advantage of speed.

Sport has rules for fairness and it's not bigoted to follow them.

Simone Biles issues apology after 'getting demolished' in debate over transgender athletes

I think she just really doesn't understand the issue at all. She's taken it at face value that Gaines must be a dreadful person because all gender critical people are evil Trump supporters and therefore fair game. Hopefully she will reflect on things and if she ever speaks on the issue again will be more informed. I'm not holding my breath though!

Simone was still rude about Riley and body shamed her and I can see this being a bigger issue for her going forward.

Even when Simone was blissfully ignorant that her 3rd category suggestion made her a disgusting transphobe, why she thought Riley was the person to advocate for it is a mystery. I can't think what would be less likely, Riley being willing to take any of that labour on or TRAs being willing to listen to her about it!

Yeah it's interesting.

Simone seems to have coded herself 'good/kind/tolerant' and coded Riley 'bad/nasty/bigoted' and took it from there. The truth is that Riley's just further along the trajectory than Simone. She knows there is no pleasing 'both sides'.

Are Simone and Riley’s positions even that different given Simone’s statement about a third category?

I have no idea what Riley thinks about the introduction of a third category. I haven’t heard her speak on the subject. She may be in favour for all I know. I just know that she - rightly - doesn’t think it’s her responsibility, or indeed the responsibility of ANY women and girls, to campaign for it.

If Simone feels so strongly about the introduction of a new category that so many of the TRAs she simps for feel is transphobic, SHE can campaign for it.

The fact she body shamed someone is absolutely shocking and nasty and will affect her legacy. It’s made a lot of people think of her in a very different way.