Simone Biles attacks Riley Gaines

[ItsCoolForCats]

Simone Biles has come out in defence of males in women's sports, and has attacked Riley Gaines for fighting against it. She said on Twitter:

"@RileyGaines
You’re truly sick, all of this campaigning because you lost a race. Straight up sore loser. You should be uplifting the trans community and perhaps finding a way to make sports inclusive OR creating a new avenue where trans feel safe in sports. Maybe a transgender category IN ALL sports!! But instead… You bully them… One things for sure is no one in sports is safe with you around!!!!!"

So, so disappointing. Both my daughters do gymnastics and are huge SB fans, so it is awful for her to show such contempt towards RG, who is fighting for a level playing field for women and girls in sport. And to suggest a separate category as if nobody has ever thought of that and tried it 🤦🏻‍♀️

Ok.

So I will go and find those podcasts. Will she be saying that she doesn’t support LGB people?

That's what I'm saying surely?

When it comes to women athletes speaking out, we've got who we've got. Riley gets a lot of oxygen because she has relative rarity value. If the most successful women athletes were doing what she does, she'd attract much less attention.

In any case, there's no level of success that'll be considered the 'right' one for people who don't want to hear it. Martina Navratilova has had comparable levels of success to Simone, and people who disagree with her either ignore her or bullshit.

https://x.com/bernese02/status/1931420157601079525 coming fifth was only one race

"OR creating a new avenue where trans feel safe in sports"

Meanwhile the person she is talking at is creating an avenue where women feel safe in sports.

Brainwashed to the max, disappointing.

I thought this from Jon Pike was an interesting take.

https://x.com/runthinkwrite/status/1931295352327450958

There's actually quite a lot Simone didn't say there. And still hasn't, nearly a day later.

I completely agree!!! I am NOT dismissing what Gaines went through. It's disgusting. I'm thinking about the TRA countertactics. I suspect Lia Thomas was swimming more slowly on purpose so that she would lose and then they could use that as evidence that trans women aren't stronger, which is nonsense. Hopefully that kind of dismissal will not work

I have listened to one Kirk Cameron Gaines for Girls episode (are there more?). 4 December 2024.

Kirk mentions LGB people. He stated that people who centre gender not sex have redefined homosexual people. This is a view that so many LGB people have discussed with us. There was nothing said to undermine or that was negative about LGB people. Rather the one thing discussed was supportive of LGB people.

There was a comment about books teaching morality that lacked actual diversity and focused on gay dinosaurs or trans ducks. And how they are based on gender theory.

It does discuss gender identity.

I am confused though. Surely we should be attacking the content that is in the episode? Yes, she has religious beliefs. Is that the issue here? That she is religious? I mean, I didn’t take much notice of these types of statements except for reviewing them for hate towards LGB people. But I couldn’t see anything hateful to LGB people in this episode.

Please, can you explain what I missed here?

And so countering TRA narratives doesn’t take focusing on shocking events.

I and others have spent years countering these weak arsed tactics. If women stuck to mentioning the cases you mentioned and reduced the focus on Riley Gaines because of below, it would mean women would be actively undermining our own well researched and supported by logic arguments of supporting female athletes at all levels of sport.

But also, it places the focus on the extremes. The extreme sports, the extreme losses. In fact, moving the focus to your suggestions is what would be counterproductive

“I do think the focus on Gaines' case can be counterproductive as TRAs counter that she only tied for 5th place w Lia Thomas, rather than being blatantly beaten.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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!

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

@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

Perhaps Biles looked it up on Wikipedia.

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.