PARIS, FRANCE-28 July 2024: Simone Biles of team USA competes on the balance beam during the Artistic Gymnastics Women’s Qualification at the the Olympic Games Paris 2024 at Bercy Arena / Riley Gaines speaks at a University of Oklahoma Turning Point USA chapter speaking event in Norman, Okla., on Wednesday, April 2, 2025. | Shutterstock / © NATHAN J. FISH/THE OKLAHOMAN / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
Iconic Olympic gymnast Simone Biles sparred with anti-trans activist Riley Gaines on Friday after Gaines mocked a high school softball team for having a trans player.
The women’s team posted a celebratory photo after winning the state championship. Gaines criticized the account for having its comments turned off and misgendered the trans player in the process. “Comments off lol,” she wrote. “To be expected when your star player is a boy.”
Biles replied with disdain, telling Gaines, “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!!!!!”
Biles was referring to the fact that Gaines has built an entire career out of the fact that she and trans swimmer Lia Thomas tied for 5th place in the 200-yard freestyle at the 2022 NCAA championship.
Gaines has viciously campaigned against trans people ever since, claiming she was somehow robbed of a title, even though she would have gotten 5th place whether Thomas had competed or not, and even though four cisgender swimmers beat them both.
Gaines replied to Biles saying that her take is “actually so disappointing.”
“It’s not my job or the job of any woman to figure out how to include men in our spaces,” she said. “You can uplift men stealing championships in women’s sports with YOUR platform. Men don’t belong in women’s sports and I say that with my full chest.”
Simone then responded, “bully someone your own size, which would ironically be a male.”
Biles’ defense of trans women in sports was clearly well-intentioned, and having one of the greatest and most well-known athletes in the world speak out for trans rights is no small victory.
That said, Biles’ proposal for a separate trans category in all sports is not consistent with what trans athletes are fighting for, nor is it necessary.
For one, a recent study found that trans women actually underperform when compared to cis athletes. The study confirms that transitioning presents various physical changes, such as a lower center of mass and fat distribution, decreased muscle mass and bone density, and lower blood oxygen levels.
Additionally, despite what the GOP would have us believe with their immense focus on the issue, there is actually a minuscule number of out trans athletes. Ultimately, the anti-trans right is attempting to tackle a problem that does not exist.
Reporting by the Associated Press in 2021 revealed that dozens of lawmakers who sponsored legislation to restrict trans athletes’ participation in school sports couldn’t cite a single example in their own state where trans athletes had caused problems.
As such, a separate category would merely create more stigma against trans people and isolate them from the teams they actually want to play on. It would also force them to be out to the public, and there would also likely not be enough competitors in any singular sport.
There are, however, some activists fighting for nonbinary divisions in sports for those who do not identify as a man or a woman, a movement which has had success in running.
