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 🤦🏻‍♀️

I think part of the problem for some is they can't get past seeing those kinds of views about abortion as "opposing women's rights." As in, they (often) actually think they are coming from a place where they area saying, oh, we don't care about the right to abortion or reproductive choices, we want to take rights from women."

Which is not at all how people with that view are looking at it.

It's a bit like TRAs charachterizing GC people as hating trans-rights, as if that is the goal for some transphobic reason, rather than it being an assertion about the nature of women's rights.

Pro-life campaigners typically believe that all living human organisms should be offered the legal protection of persons no matter what developmental stage, or something close to that. So they see abortion as a case of competing rights where there is a conflict between two persons and their fundamental rights which needs to be reconciled or worked through. It's not about a particular desire to take away rights from any party involved.

Anyone who thinks it's about a desire to simply remove rights from women will conclude that the people involved are just evil, which is part of the reason you get so much tribalism from some.

Absolutely. And even within what we might call the GC camp, there are plenty of divisions. I could go into detail about the issues I have with socfems, but (a) it would be extremely boring for anyone outside that world, and (b) the first rule of WPUK is you don't talk about WPUK.

I like to have the rule of thumb that there are potentially as many types of feminism as there are women advocating for women and girls, and I don't believe that there is one single true and correct brand, nor any leadership to whom I owe allegiance.

Much more productive to take useful contributions from whoever makes them, disagree where necessary and relevant, and don't sweat it about who qualifies to be a member of the club. Too many people want it to be a club, and I don't believe it should be.

Biles has always been a nasty piece of work, out for her and her alone and she gives no shits for anyone else

What SB has said in those tweets is bad enough, but if you say she 'has always been a nasty piece of work' then you are going to have to bring more evidence than just your words to the table.

I also think it's not just about the multiplicity of views, but the discourse between them is in itself really important.

This is, imo, one of the reasons feminism has suffered with gender ideology, and also part of why it's failed to make the gains it perhaps could have with women themselves. Many feminists have simply removed women like RG, who you might call conservative feminists, from the equation - they are labelled as anti-feminist and their ideas are rejected without even being heard.

As a result, feminist discourse has fewer ideas to work with, and some factions have little opportunity to have to refine their ideas against serious opposition from other women. It's been too easy for them and then when they need to stand up against really existential threats, they can't. When everyone in your bubble just accepts that what you are saying must be true you don't become very practised at making a case.

I do think there is a actually a fairly wide set of views held by posters on FWR, on many topics.

The purity spiral was that you laid into posts here calling her “marvellous” (which as I explained was based on someone else’s sneery post) as if that’s something that should be criticised, as if I should have been ashamed of liking her at all. That is a purity spiral however you slice it. It’s tedious.

There definitely is a range of views. But I think it's fair to say you're unlikely to find pro-porn and surrogacy posts here, pro gender ideology ones, anti-lgb. Abortion there is a range but most here are pro choice to some extent, and there is a range of views on the place of careers and the pill, but mostly w some support. Other things that I didn't mention may be more controversial, but I think the ones I mentioned do have fairly wide support here.

I agree w all you said. Again, I want to stress that while I have reservations on some of Gaines' views & actions, I certainly don't see her as anti feminist as a whole, she has done a huge amount for women, clearly, as her podcast shows, and her wider advocacy. I have said over and over again from the start that I support Gaines' trans advocacy w all my heart & that I support dialogue w GC allies like her. As I said earlier, I read a lot of various kinds of conservative women's writing myself, and I think dialectic w different views is really important.

@AliasGrace47 You criticising Riley Gaines is not the purity spiral. You do you. You criticising me for calling her “marvellous” for her female sports activism because you personally don’t approve of her politics on other issues I wasn’t referring to is the purity spiral. See the difference?

I am pro choice myself up to 1st trimester and feel strongly about that. However, I am v uncomfortable w abortion, while I prioritise the woman's bodily autonomy, I wish it could be as minimised as possible. I have wrestled w this in the past and I can absolutely see why pro lifers think as they do, especially w the grotesque extremities the Dems have taken abortion to in the US

So while I strongly oppose efforts to ban abortion in the 1st trimester, I certainly don't see Gaines or other pro lifers as evil. That would leave a lot of the suffragettes, Wangari Maathai, Fannie Lou Hamer & many others as evil! I do see pro lifers as threatening women's rights, but the only ones I would call evil are extremists who throw bombs.

As I have said countless times now, I do NOT tribalistically oppose Gaines' assistance or GC feminists collaborating w her. I think her work on this has been v courageous & influential, & she is definitely a valuable ally for GCs

So it's alright to criticise a GC figure, but you can't criticise a poster's description of them? Or you can criticise descriptions, but only by referring to the figure's stance on GC, not on any other issue?

I suppose the fundamental difference here is that I see GC issues as of equal importance w others. Whereas it seems that most of this board prioritise GC above all other issues, and don't want to question whether aspects of the GC movement may damage other issues. I can understand and respect that stance, though I don't fully agree. It is a v hard situation by any measure for women at the moment. At least we can all agree that the tide is almost certainly turning against the TRAs and it seems highly unlikely they will ever reach this horrible level of power again.

I do agree to some extent and I like to read a big range of stuff myself. But I think everyone agrees that there have to be some distinctions. For example, someone who campaigns to ban porn, and someone who supports sex work is work. They may both claim to be feminists and centering women's rights. But their positions have fundamental incompatibilities.

I see what you and SilverBells are saying about feminism having many different viewpoints. But ultimately there have to be distinctions between feminist and not, bc some are incompatible w each other. The question is ofc what each feminist judges the line to be. It will be different for nearly everyone, I suspect.

You can do what you like, and I can call a purity spiral one when I see it. It’s not the first one on this board and it won’t be the last. All the frothing about Riley Gaines’ other political views on this thread is whataboutery. And as pp said a lot of it is based on guilt by association, and on hearsay.

I've repeatedly said that I was mistaken about her views on lgb rights, they are unclear, and I apologised. Her views on abortion are clear, as she has repeatedly stated them.

I don’t agree with her views on abortion, but it doesn’t stop me supporting her female sports activism. And that’s as far as it goes. I’m completely immune to scolding and guilt tripping and purity spiralling.

You called everyone naive, as if we can’t judge for ourselves who we should support, and then suggested we get our information from Wikipedia, of all places.

Anyone who thinks Wikipedia is a useful source for political information is the naive one here.

I think these sports stars should stay right out of all political activism, advocating for womens rights of course excepted. Simone can't win. She is hated by GC feminists for attacking Riley, someone who advocates fiercely for women having fair sport and single sex spaces, and she is now hated by trans activists who think she's horrible for advocating trans only sports. She can't win ever with trans activists, and she was stupid for wading in. She now has both sides off-side. She learned the hard way.

I agree @TooSquaretobehip- I hope she doesn’t feel the need to make a grovelling apology to the TRAs for offending them, but I think it’s a distinct possibility. It was a stupid, childish, ill-informed comment which she thought would please the trans community and their allies, but we know there is literally nothing that will ever satisfy these people.

Easy for Biles to say this in the twilight of her very successful career, no male female wannabe is likely to become a gymnast competing as a woman and certainly none hampered her career path or forced her to share a changing room with male bodies. But how really sad to see a woman who made a success of a difficult sport - then made brave admissions about the pressures of top level sport, and then made a come back into the arena and triumphed - pull up the proverbial ladder for other women before they can get a handhold. She should take a leaf out of Sharron Davis’ , Martina’s and Billie Jean’s book, and use her influence to support and encourage other women, and fight for their rights to have a level playing field in all sports. There are so many avenues of action for female athletes she could choose, including mental health and outing abusive coaches, but instead she chooses to support male cheats.

Pandering to transwomen athletes who want to steal titles, medals, scholarships and earnings from female athletes is not a good move Simone, and will tarnish your reputation for many. It really isn’t the final memory you want as your legacy.

I apologise for offending people w the use of naive. But I still hold the view that it is naive to be surprised, as many seemed to be, at the suggestion that Gaines could be anti-choice and anti-lgb. These are both common conservative Christian positions, it would be MORE surprising if she didn't hold any such views to some degree, and it can easily be looked up as she has the podcast.

Obligatory addendum : we don't know her view on the latter issue, I made a mistake which I have apologised for.

She did at least mention third spaces, bit it was a pathetic fig leaf. I wish and hope she will change. It's like TRA credo poisons everyone it touches, even previously nice seeming people, tho ofc no one really knows public figures. But it can seem to happen in friend or family groups, nice person indoctrinated & becomes blind.

I have explained that I was referring to Wikipedia source links, and reputable ones at that. On reflection I do agree that what constitutes a reputable newspaper is sadly debatable these days. However, as I added, if someone writes an article themselves or gives a video interview, that's a surefire way of knowing what they believe.

I’m not surprised when a GC woman is right of centre, it’s just not something that stops me supporting her female sex based rights activism. Not every woman has to be a feminist in order for their voice to be heard. Right wing women have rights too, and this thread is about Simone Biles making a weird and ill informed personal comment to Riley Gaines, not about Riley Gaines’ view on Trump or abortion, none of which justify the odd comment.

Exactly. Trans activists are never happy w any source, not the BBC, nor the Guardian, not the NYT. I expect though for many this is due to depression or other conditions where you can only see negativity, as opposed to the ruthless activists exploiting these vulnerable, and often young, people.