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 🤦🏻‍♀️

When your 4'8" everyone looks like a giant to you, maybe the comment was 'small women' syndrome.
Are we sure SB is black, or is she just 'identifying' as black, I mean my senses tell me she's black, but my senses tell me the Lisa Thomas is a man, and apparently my senses are wrong, he's a 'women'.
RG's politics are irrelevant, she's been campaigning to get men out of women sports, the fact that she, along with 77 million other Americans, is MAGA is DARVO, it was a nasty post, the fact that is start with "You're truly sick..." says it all.

This is such a good fucking point.

Simone Biles (appropriate name) defended a women's team that won with transgender participants.
Hang on, the US women’s gymnasts have TIMs in their team?

Possibly not to be found @RomanCavalryChoir, skip described feminism as an entitled, special princess movement. I mean we can all see there’s not a more explicit sense of princessy entitlement than expecting women’s sport to be for women…

Indeed. Are 'Reform and their handmaidens' far right like PP suggests? What do we call parties to the right of Reform? Who gets to decide? BBC?

Haha, no, sorry, I wasn't clear!

It's a girls' softball team that have a trans-identifying male as their pitcher and unsurprisingly won.

Riley commented on that, which prompted Simone Biles attack on her, accusing Riley of bullying the team.

Biles was defending the softball team that won the female tournament by fielding a male participant in a key position.

How ridiculous.

For those wanting to see one of the tweets that kicked this off, it was a tweet about this winning team. The male pitcher did an awesome job! But was on the female team. Not one girl leaving the plate for first base.

x.com/riley_gaines_/status/1931057465887728023?s=46

It’s anything that @Skipthisbit doesn’t agree with I think.

Simone Biles' views seem to be that it is OK to body shame other female athletes and that it is Riley Gaines' job to ensure trans inclusion in sports.

Trans people are already included in sports providing they respect the same anti doping rules as anyone else.

If Simone Biles thinks transgender sporting categories are the answer and that it is up to female athletes to make that happen, she should volunteer herself for the job, not Riley Gaines.

None whatsoever.

If we are to take people's actions into this doesn't that mean that those on the "Left" that support trans-activism.

Are Pro no-debate
Beat women up
Kidnap women when they try and discuss the issues
Hold women for ransom when they try and discuss the issues
Are against women only spaces.
Hate lesbians as they won't sleep with men (homophobic)
Hate gay men as they won't sleep with women (homophobic)
Ignore the law (both UK and US) (criminals)
Ignore safeguarding for children.

And these are ones directly related to the right wing/left wing way the thread has gone.

Or alternatively we are allowed to support causes and ignore others politics.

And Simone Biles is just another sports person pulling the ladder up behind them.

And this is the Guardians write up of the whole thing, talking about how supportive the trans player's teammates are, but not a word about how the opposition teams might have felt. And and all those who piled on to criticise Biles were right wing conservatives and influencers of course. No mention of the fact that 80% of Americans don't support males playing in women's sport. Such balanced journalism 🙄

www.theguardian.com/sport/2025/jun/07/simone-biles-riley-gaines-trans-athlete-twitter

Wow the comments on her Insta are blowing up. Im guessing it’s a matter of time before her PR shut down posting comments which is always what happens when these people can’t quite fathom a decent response in their defence. I wonder how SB would enjoy having a male gymnast in the women’s team

When you can't defend the indefensible you have to distract and discredit. Riley Gaines is right about the unfairness of males in female sport and this is what the subject is about.

If she is against abortion, well I disagree with her over that, I don't support her views on abortion just because I support her views on males in female sport.

But nuance doesn't exist with people who roll out the "far right" label for everyone they don't agree with.

Presumably all those commenting will be dismissed as nasty right-wingers as well

While I respect Gaines' advocacy, I dislike her. She's pretty chummy w orgs like the Alliance Defending Freedom who oppose lgb rights not just t.

Simone Biles' comments are awful though. I used to really admire her but it's hard to forgive this.

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. Angela Carini is a much better case to argue w as we all saw brutal violence & unfairness there... Or Semenya, who has lied about being a man all along.

She does ally w stuff like the Alliance Defending Freedom who are pretty virulent about lgb people, as well as the charmingly homophobic Kirk Cameron. This does NOT invalidate her trans opinions.

I agree that her trans advocacy is v important. But re abortion, her views being shared by millions of Americans doesn't make them any more acceptable just bc many share them. Millions of 1950s Americans supported segregation, and the criminalisation of homosexuality was supported by many into the 90s. As Anatole France said, ' If 40 million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.'

Ofc she wouldn't campaign for the dems. But it's much more than that. As we've seen, she's v anti abortion & lgb rights, among others. This does not negate her trans advocacy, but it doesn't make her 'marvellous' as pps called her.

I agree about partisanship. I don't think the 2 you mentioned are politically active apart from on trans stuff tho, while Gaines is actively pushing the above anti-abortion & lgb etc on her podcast. However, in the trans struggle we need all support.

Disappointing that the guardian article doesn't acknowledge that separate categories for transgender people are something that, I imagine, most women are hugely in favour of. It paints the GC side as wanting to stop transwomen playing at all which just isn't the case.

I don't really like this attitude that the US is v different & many agree, so that makes these opinions more acceptable. As I put in previous posts , segregation & other extreme views were popular there not all that long ago. Does that make it more excusable- bc lots of people believe it? There is never an excuse for not thinking for oneself. If we all stuck w what everyone else believed we'd still be in the Dark Ages.

Is RG notoriously MAGA (more so than the rest of Americans who voted Trump)? Not that it would change my stance on supporting her re trans swimmers in women's competition.

But I saw her giving a House speech after the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act 2025 was passed. She seemed really angry at Democrats - due to their stance on women's rights - rather than a massive Trump stan. The view she expressed was that Trump won the 2024 election not simply because of his politics and what he offered America but - her words - because the American people made a commonsense choice to reject the Democrat party's "absurdity" on the issue of trans ideology (among other things).

Riley Gaines has a different perspective in that Thomas was also being a creep in the changing rooms. It’s not necessary to agree with her on anything else, or like her. But her voice is important IMO.