Simone Biles attacks Riley Gaines

Just catching up with your posts. That sounds positive.

I do think that we shouldn’t self censor or not listen to an important voice just because some people might misuse it for their own ends on different topics. That has been the cause of much silencing of women which I think we can all agree, it is important to push against.

I am so sorry, I misread the ADF podcast blurb. They were talking about religious views conflicting w trans rights, not with anything else. I thought they were discussing the ADF's general work, but it was specifically relating to a trans case in schools. I have been doing a lot of research into the US right recently, and in the podcasts I listen to generally if a conservative host invites a fellow conservative on they agree w the major issues, whereas anti-woke liberal guests are more likely to be brought bc the host agrees w on specific thing, eg. Trans. Gaines is a conservative Christian, and most disagree w lgb rights, while that doesn't necessarily necessarily mean they are hateful as such ofc, though some are.

I should not have made assumptions about the ADF interview just based on the blurb. Reading about more extreme stuff can make one over suspicious, and I am very sorry.

Additionally, I'm a young carer for my gran atm and this has meant a lot of lost sleep as she was ill recently, it was a poor decision to speak so soon on the ADF.

I repeat, I completely support Gaines' trans work, and I am glad to hear she may not be anti lgb. I hope Biles meets her comeuppance for this!

I don't really see why it matters that Gaines has views on other topics I strongly disagree with. What's relevant here is what she has said and done on the trans issue, and on that she has been admirable in my view. I think only a young conservative could have done what she has done as she hasn't as much to lose - if she moves in conservative circles she isn't going to fall out with her family/ lose all her friends etc for speaking out.

I suspect with Fox, they got burned with some culture wars subjects, saw how the tide had turned with LGB, and assumed T was a subset of the same thing. Also, connected to that, the Christian Right was rapidly declining and actual social conservatives had less weight.

Outside of very religious publications that don't impact the mainstream, for a long time the only voice in US conservative media against trans ideology was Maddie Kearns at National Review, and she's Scottish.

No.

You can identify the accuracy of citations on Wikipedia through doing your very own research.

I have looked at articles cited on Wikipedia and found them to be very much false and hugely biased and completely misrepresentative of the truth. Don’t just think because it has a citation on Wikipedia that it must be true. Follow the citation and then fact check as far as you need to on an article until you find the original source. And from the original source find out what was said or done. And if necessary, fucking go further and find out exactly what people believe or their values.

It is like the accusations of ‘far right’. What definition of ‘far right’ is being used. I have seen people being accused of being far right on MN and Wikipedia who are merely centrist. But once that label of far right is applied, it gets replicated and repeated by those who never do their own research to check.

And you are happy to condemn Riley’s views not based on anything that she said (unless I’ve missed your links?), but on something said 13 years ago by a man she recently interviewed?

Do you also dismiss all views subsequently expressed by interviewers of Muslim people? Their religious views go quite a bit further than Cameron’s.

@SionnachRuadh Interesting. I guess trans ideology serves male interests, which sits more comfortably with very right wing conservatives than sticking up for women

It's grotesque. Biles just comes off as really unconcerned - I'm alright, Jack, essentially. She had a rough upbringing as a toddler & you might think she would understand that this puts v vulnerable women in danger across the board. I suppose a lot of celebs born in hard situations forget & then get enmeshed in ivory towers.

The NY Times has started, very tentatively, to allow some sex realism on the op-ed pages. The amazing thing is that the majority of the readers are usually more sex realist than the writer. The position they're afraid of voicing is not nearly as unpopular with normie Democrats, or even the elite Democrats who read the NYT, as the liberal media think.

I assume the liberal media are following their own internal and external incentives.

Even most conservative media are pretty cautious on the subject. Listen sometime to Megyn Kelly talking about her journey away from Be Kindism to sex realism. She's now her own boss, so she can afford to be outspoken. But she says there's no way she would have got away with putting forward GC views on the air when she was at Fox.

So, you are defining Riley Gaines by something that Kirk Cameron said about same sex marriage in 2012? And you are assuming her own beliefs about LGB people based on that ?

And from her discussions with the ADF?

And have you, personally, listened to these podcasts?

Because I have now read the scripts for the ADF interviews on her podcast. They discuss the cases that they are fighting in court - about female only sporting events. There is no other discussion in these podcasts for the 3 of them that I have now read.

Please, can you link up where Riley Gaines has made statements that are hateful towards LGB people? I have looked where you told me to look and I must be missing what you heard on these podcasts.

Perhaps Biles looked it up on Wikipedia.

@AliasGrace47 you are wasting women's time with your careless, lazy posting. Do some bloody research yourself before you post. Unless wasting women's time is your objective

I can only think that most liberals in the US continue to believe that the medical processes trans women go through do fully remove the male physical advantage, because there is simply no media explaining the truth that any American liberal would ever come into contact with. This is the only way I can understand Biles' statements.

I don't want to do that at all. I completely agree that the trans issue is essential & any campaigning is welcome. I am concerned about anti-women policies that could potentially be pushed by some sections, not all of the US right. I completely support Gaines' right to speak out on trans, I respect her bravery and I support GC feminists allying with her.

Part of me struggles to understand why Biles of all people doesn't get that male and female bodies are different and that males should not be in female sports. But things are next level polarised and crazy in the US - opposing trans ideology equals being a Trump supporter and therefore evil and wrong about everything.

Argh the Wikipedia thing was a v stupid thing to say on its own. What I meant was that you can find out things accurately from Wikipedia, IF they give citations to articles. Yes I know that articles need to be treated w scepticism too.

Yes I am aware that Wikipedia unsourced stuff often lies, and that the Guardian etc often misrepresent stuff, esp about GC. Generally if trying to ascertain someone's views I rely in articles they have written themselves or footage of them speaking w context.

Thanks for taking the time to listen to those podcasts - you mean that pp has untruthfully misrepresented Riley’s views on LGB people several times in this thread? That’s a pretty poor show.

Hmm...well maybe Cameron has changed his views. In 2012 on Piers Morgan he stated that homosexuality was 'unnatural, detrimental and ultimately destructive to so many of the foundations of civilisation.' Or maybe he thinks it's sensible to be more diplomatic now, to build alliances against trans.

https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2012/03/03/piers-kirk-cameron-gay-marriage-unnatural.cnn

what? this doesn't make any sense

stop with all the "apparently" and just say what you actually mean - are you saying she's literally shrunk herself or her dh is lying when measuring her or what? Why would being 2 and a half inches shorter than she really is be what "they" want or make any difference to her views about trans women in sport? 5'5 or 5'8, she's still clearly far smaller than Lia Thomas!

apart from anything else 5'5 and a half which is apparently what her husband measured her as, is still an inch and a half taller than the average woman in the US so still not petite. By your reckoning, if she's really committed to her argument she'll be shorter than simone by this time next year!

I honestly find some people on here a bit naive. I agree we should ally w the right to fight trans. But people seem v naive about the reactionary views many right wingers hold. Just go on Wikipedia or search Riley Gaines view on different issues, and you can support in an informed way.

@AliasGrace47 - I’m afraid you’re naive if you believe anything you read on Wikipedia about women’s rights campaigners. You do know it’s been overrun with trans activists that write lies and nonsense about women and then lock it to prevent editing by the subject?

In the podcast, Cameron says this.

“So, while gay rights were once rooted to biological hard-wiring of attraction to someone who is biologically the same sex as you are, and that was the basis for, for gay marriage, the transgender movement is now undermining the very foundation of that argument in saying that gender is now fluid, it's on a spectrum, it's not biologically hard-wired into the person that I love. In fact, they can change and I can change. And so, those two things can't co-exist at the same time and they're at odds with one another, but they're in the same alphabet army, so it's hard to fight against your own soldiers.”

And she agrees with this.

From Gaines for Girls with Riley Gaines: Courage and Faith in Today's World with Kirk Cameron, 4 Dec 2024

I listened to it all. It was not long. This is not reconciling with either of them being hateful towards LGB people. I haven’t read the Wikipedia entry though. So maybe I will now go and see what wiki have said.

Edit. Have read the Wikipedia page and still am not seeing any issues that Riley Gaines has with LGB people. I have obviously not listened to the ADF podcast but I will now.

She has been through a lot at a very young age. She was forced by her coaches to
change in front of a male swimmer and compete with him. She has suffered unbelievable abuse, threats to her life, physical intimidation by a raging mob and was imprisoned for hours in a university campus.

She has been tireless in her campaigning for women’s sport and has had to learn how to manage a nationwide profile and master public speaking.

She IS marvellous.

IF she is against all abortion then I disagree with her view on that topic. Funnily though, despite the desperate attempts by several
to justify Simone Biles nasty attack on her by dragging in her views on other topics, this thread is not about those views.

RG doesn't really strike me as my cup of tea at all, but is objectively right when it comes to men in women's sport.

I suppose Biles is coming out with this nonsense now because (similar to RG to some extent) she thinks it'll help her launch a career as a culture warrior of some kind, though obviously not on the same 'side' as Gaines.

unlike Gaines her stance obviously hasn't in any way been informed by insights from her own sporting career. male gymnastics is a whole different sport to the one that the women do.

I kind of feel that, every time Riley Gaines gets mentioned - and she's not the only person this applies to - we end up having to play whack-a-mole with endless objections of "what about this thing she might believe or this person she might have met" to try and establish her right to say anything about her actual campaigning issue.

Martina Navratilova seems to get on alright with her.

She is allowed her opinions on a range of topics. None of that makes SBs words defensible or discredits her sports campaigning.