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Simone Biles remembers her fans

Jun. 15, 2025 5:00 am, Updated: Jun. 15, 2025 9:13 pm
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Regardless of why she may have felt it necessary, I’ll offer props to Simone Biles, the most decorated gymnast in world history, for her apology Tuesday to Riley Gaines.
Gaines is a former NCAA Division I women’s swimmer-turned conservative activist who rose to prominence after she tied in competition with a transgender-identifying male swimmer and spoke out against policies that allow males to compete on women’s sports teams.
Biles had previously blasted Gaines on social media platform X, formerly Twitter, shortly after Gaines criticized a Minnesota high school girls’ softball team whose pitcher was reportedly transgender.
Biles takes a swipe
“@Riley_Gaines_ You’re truly sick, all of this campaigning because you lost a race. Straight up sore loser,” wrote Biles. “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!!!!!”
@Riley_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… https://t.co/pjpzuZ0AlO
— Simone Biles (@Simone_Biles) June 6, 2025
In a second post, Biles added, “(B)ully someone your own size, which would ironically be a male …”
Gaines called the comment “disappointing” and said is not the responsibility of any female to figure out how genetically male athletes can compete in female categories, pointing out that Biles has a platform of her own in which she can “uplift” trans-identifying athletes. She also shared a post Biles had made in 2017, before athletes choosing teams based on gender identity became a thing, in which Biles had joked that it was a “good thing guys don’t compete against girls or he’d take all the medals!!”
The exchange made waves nationally. On Tuesday, Biles returned to X and took a different tone, saying in part, “These are sensitive, complicated issues that I truly don’t have the answers or solutions to, but I believe it starts with empathy and respect. I was not advocating for policies that compromise fairness in women’s sports.”
She also issued an apology directly to Gaines.
Apology unexpected
Biles’ apology was a bit of a surprise. For one thing, most people who favor being “inclusive” to transgender athletes in girls’ sports are quite entrenched in that position. One would have to be to deliberately disregard common sense, social realities and something called science in support of a position justified only by feelings – the feelings of only some, at that, and at the expense of most others.
Additionally, it’s not typically expected of people in Biles’ orbit to apologize for flaunting the same opinions and having the same outbursts as their ultra-famous peers. Especially when the dig is directed at a hardcore conservative such as Gaines. If (self-described liberal) author J.K. Rowling of Harry Potter book series fame can become widely despised for criticizing men in women’s bathrooms, slamming a MAGA conservative like Gaines is a mere afterthought.
Celebrities play by different rules
Virtually all of those at the top of pop culture royalty already profess the surface-virtue tenets of pro-trans “inclusion” philosophy. They get to. Thanks to their fame, it is rarely held against them. Not even by those who disagree – which polls show is two out of every three people.
And Biles is indeed at the top of pop culture royalty. She is no mere mortal, but a cultural icon. Her peers at one time may have been other young women and elite gymnasts, sure, but now they are her fellow ultra-celebrities such as Taylor Swift and Caitlin Clark and others who live in the same world of monumental fame she does, largely insulated from ordinary people who do things like drive to the grocery store and work a regular job.
She achieved that level of fame by being the greatest gymnast of all time – the GOAT, a moniker earned through talent, her work ethic and ultimately, her performance. The fact that she achieved all of it while competing against girls – and only girls – was apparently an insignificant detail at the time of her comments to Gaines.
Maybe Biles would feel differently if she had been made to compete with someone born male, as Gaines had to do at the end of her career. But it’s highly unlikely Biles will find out for sure. Unless she re-enters the grueling regimen of elite training and competes in the next Olympics at the age of 31 – ancient by gymnastics standards – we can assume her competitive days have concluded. She doesn’t answer to the scorers’ table anymore, or coaches who influence the roster or the USAG and US Olympic Committee officials who failed to protect her from the abuse she and countless others endured during their competitive days. Simone Biles is no longer an athlete – she is now entirely a brand.
Evidently, that brand took a bit of a hit last weekend from the comments to Gaines.
Some of Biles’ fans experience what Biles did not
It’s easy to understand why. The plurality (likely even the majority) of Biles’ fans are – surprise! – girls. Girls who parked themselves in front of their TVs for three straight Olympics to watch their hero compete for gold, girls whose parents fork over the dollars for the products she promotes. Girls who began gymnastics because they want to be like her.
But that fanbase also includes girls who have learned – in increasing numbers over just the last few years – what it feels like to lose a meet or a match or a race to a trans-identifying male who enjoys a distinct physical advantage. And girls who live in places where local law mandates that trans-identifying males be given access to their locker rooms.
It also includes girls who, already struggling with their own body image, can’t help but feel sexually violated when someone with a male body insists on undressing and showering in front of them.
And girls who are afraid to seek a separate space to dress because they’re afraid that their teacher won’t like them or their coach will find a way to punish them.
And girls who have been bullied and belittled – by many who don’t even follow sports – for daring to publicly say, “This is wrong.”
I wanted to follow up from my last tweets. I’ve always believed competitive equity & inclusivity are both essential in sport. The current system doesn’t adequately balance these important principles, which often leads to frustration and heated exchanges, and it didn’t help for me…
— Simone Biles (@Simone_Biles) June 10, 2025
“My objection is to be singling out children for public scrutiny in ways that feel personal and harmful,” Biles continued in the apology posted Tuesday. That’s something we can all agree on. The objection only goes awry when people neglect to consider that transgender-identifying athletes are far from the only ones in the crosshairs of public scrutiny.
After all, being singled out for public scrutiny is the very thing that has afforded Gaines a public profile large enough to catch the attention of the legendary Simone Biles. If Gaines hadn’t been targeted for opposing males in girls’ and women’s sports, no one would know who she is.
Maybe Biles realized that the backlash on social media came from more than just right-wing zealots and had a meeting with her publicist. Maybe brand executives reminded her that consumers aren’t going to buy the stuff they pay her millions of dollars to endorse if she alienates them before they click “Complete Purchase.”
Then again, maybe Biles is just a normal, genuinely decent human being who did what a lot of normal, genuinely decent people without a massive platform do: fire off an emotionally charged reaction with little to no forethought.
Either way, she apologized. Whether or not her apology was drafted by a team of attorneys or public relations specialists, something good has come out of this.
Biles might have done the fairness argument a favor
If even someone as famous as Simone Biles can be called to the carpet for promoting ideology at the expense of fairness – and moved to respond in a manner that acknowledging how much fairness matters – it suggests that those who oppose allowing trans-identifying athletes competing based on identity instead of biology are gaining in numbers. And they’re also gaining in voice.
That makes for a good day for girls who play sports.
On top of that, one of the greatest female athletes of all time is now the record that “fairness in women’s sports,” as she put it, shouldn’t be compromised. If I were Riley Gaines, I would be saying “thank you” to Simone Biles for taking the conversation mainstream in a way that few others can.
I’m sorry to see Biles’ reputation take a hit. But it’s not destroyed by this – nor should it be.
Biles’ crown as the most decorated female gymnast in history, however, may have to come off one day. The same goes for other female titans such as Allyson Felix, the most decorated women’s track and field athlete of all time, and Katie Ledecky, the most decorated swimmer. That’s a good thing, for it will mean someone else reached their level of greatness - and then went even further.
Should the greatness of any of the women we’ve idolized over the years ever be outdone, it’s only right that it be outdone by another woman.
Comments: 319-398-8266; althea.cole@thegazette.com
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