Simone Biles didn’t have to apologize for calling out Riley Gaines’ trans comment | Opinion
At the risk of being too self-referential, last week, I wrote about my admiration for Simone Biles, who offered a blueprint for dealing with anti-trans activism. I wrote that Biles read Riley Gaines “as an unserious provocateur, then treated her accordingly,” intuiting the value of mocking someone driven entirely by contempt.
In this case, Gaines, a former college swimmer, took on teens celebrating a softball state championship. In a series of tweets, Biles told Gaines that she should “bully someone your own size, which would ironically be a male.”
I loved it. Biles straddled between going high (in her suggestion that Gaines truly advocate for women’s sports by fostering an inclusive environment) and low, reminding her repeatedly that she’s a bully who sucks at swimming. Her words weren’t perfect, but they were absolutely in the right direction.
But Simone Biles backpedaled. And now, so should I.
Not about my values: Gaines is the same contemptuous loser she’s been since turning a fifth-place finish against a trans swimmer — and crucially, four other women who aren’t trans — into a national moral panic to facilitate a total ban on trans people in NCAA competition. But no, my frustration is with my mildly qualified praise of Biles, who apologized to Gaines on Tuesday while at least partially conceding to the lapsed swimmer’s exclusion of trans people in women’s sports.
“It didn’t help for me to get personal with Riley, which I apologize for,” Biles wrote on X (formerly Twitter). “I was not advocating for policies that compromise fairness in women’s sports.”
Biles’ hedging gave Gaines something I never thought she’d obtain: a victory against an Olympian.
“I accept her apology and see this as a really big win,” Gaines said during her Fox News appearance as she relished the biggest accomplishment of her athletic career. “You have this famous public figure now issuing a groveling public apology and backtracks after tweeting pro-trans propaganda.”
“Groveling” is a stretch long enough to cross the ends of an Olympic-sized pool — albeit, slower than her peers — but that’s why Biles shouldn’t haggle over how to include trans people with someone who detests the community she wants to protect.
It’s why you don’t give a cynical operator like Gaines, an unremarkable swimmer but world-class at claiming victimhood, a reason to employ her only discernible skill.
“I accept Simone’s apology for the personal attacks, including the ones where she body-shamed me,” Gaines wrote, in apparent response to the gymnast comparing her frame to that of a man’s.
The apology was wholly unnecessary. Biles is proud of her muscular frame, and she’s spoken regularly about redefining feminine beauty by flaunting the athletic physique that makes her dazzling acrobatics possible. You can reasonably assume that she would not tell Gaines that she ought to be ashamed of a toned 5’5.” Accepting this premise, it’s easy to see that Biles was cleverly showing how the standard Gaines applies when she trans-vestigates successful women’s athletes such as boxers Imane Khelif or Lin Yiu-Tang, she could easily fall short of the standards she clumsily applies to everyone else.
Ultimately, Gaines and Biles will be fine. But I’m most of all saddened by Biles giving credence to Gaines’ dishonest framing on fairness in sports.
Many sports governing bodies in the U.S. and around the world, like those covering international track and field’s World Athletics, have already introduced rules requiring women to meet hormone requirements. Gender-testing standards inherently discriminate against girls and women with atypically high testosterone. Is this “fair” to those athletes who were, quite literally, born that way?
Fairness is too complicated for one column and far too nuanced for a microblogging platform owned by an oligarch who infamously banned use of the word “cisgender.” Giving the concept of fairness the philosophical scrutiny it deserves is beyond what bigots like Gaines can muster.
I’d rather err on the side of letting the kids and grown-ups play. Biles probably would, too. But we know Gaines doesn’t. Playing into her established grift doesn’t help anyone except the grifter. I hope Biles tries to figure out what fairness and inclusion mean with those fighting to keep everyone on the same team.
This story was originally published June 14, 2025 at 5:27 AM with the headline "Simone Biles didn’t have to apologize for calling out Riley Gaines’ trans comment | Opinion."
