Transgenderism in athletics has a handful of supporters still unwilling to be morally and intellectually consistent. Sadly, one supporter is Simone Biles, the most decorated female gymnast of all time.

Here is what went down.

On Friday, Biles harangued Riley Gaines, a women’s rights activist, for calling out the Minnesota high school softball team whose star pitcher is a gender-confused boy. She posted on social media: “@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 [sic] for sure is no one in sports is safe with you around!!!!!”

Biles followed that up with this one-liner snipe: “bully someone your own size, which would ironically be a male.”

For her part, Gaines responded: “This 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. 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.”

Gaines then found this 2017 Twitter post from Biles: “ahhhh good thing guys don’t compete against girls or he’d take all the gold medals !!” To which Gaines replied, “Oop don’t you hate it when your past self completely undermines your current nonsensical argument? How has 2025 Simone reconciled with the fact 2017 Simone was a ‘truly sick bully’ by her own standard?”

This exchange was, as Gaines put it, “so disappointing.” Biles clearly knows that being a male or a female matters when it comes to her own sport. That’s why they have different events for men and women, and it’s why different skills are judged based on gender. Men’s bodies are much more suited to incredible feats of strength, whereas women’s bodies tend to demonstrate flexibility and grace. Biles knows this and is pushing a narrative that is ridiculous. Yet she decided to address her disagreement with Gaines by calling her a sore loser and a bully.

Gaines tied for fifth place against gender-confused swimmer “Lia” (Will) Thomas but was forced to give way to satiate his ego. Many other women and girls have also had trophies, roster spots, and other sports accolades taken away from them by gender-confused men. Technically, most, if not all, women would be in the category of “loser” against a male in their sport. That’s the point, which is why Gaines has made it her mission to defend women’s sports for future girl athletes.

Gaines isn’t a bully. The gender-confused men who force their way into women’s locker rooms and playing fields are the bullies — as are those in power who protect them. Women are being gaslighted, blackmailed, and threatened into silence.

Having a “transgender” category isn’t a solution, either. According to Fox News, this strategy has been tried: “In 2022, World Aquatics, the international governing body for swimming, updated its eligibility policy to effectively ban transgender athletes from competing in women’s events. The following year, the organization launched and debuted an open category at the World Aquatics Swimming World Cup in Berlin. The organization later confirmed that upon the close of registration, no entries had been received for the open category.”

No one wanted to participate. Why? Because gender-confused men feel entitled to compete against biological women. At the end of the day, the debate about transgenderism in athletics isn’t just about fairness, though that is a valid point. It’s about truth. A man is not a woman, nor is a woman a man. Men and women are built differently and wonderfully. They excel at different things. We are different but equal. The pseudoscience of transgenderism denies that truth.

Finally, Biles’s one-liner admonishing Gaines to pick on someone her own size is, in fact, bullying. As The Federalist’s Jordan Boyd points out, “Bodyshaming Gaines, a fit 5’ 7” female, by comparing her physique to a male’s is not simply a low blow on Biles’ part. It’s an accidental yet important admission to the indisputable fact that men and women are biologically different.“

Biles is woefully wrong both in her stance against women and in her approach to "debating” Gaines. The question is, why does she accept the lie of transgenderism now when she clearly has (or had) enough common sense to realize that men in women’s sports is a disaster waiting to happen?

Maybe Biles identifies with “trans” people because, as a leftist, it’s all about victimization. If you’re a woman, you’re “victimized” if you can’t get an abortion. If you’re a person of color, you’re perpetually “victimized” by white people. If you’re gender-confused, you’re “victimized” by a party and an ideology that promotes integrity and morality. In other words, the gender apologists proclaim that if you feel like you might be a girl in a boy’s body (or a boy in a girl’s body), then you should absolutely disfigure that body with synthetic hormones and surgery, discard that “dead name,” and ignore those trying to help you from going off the delusional cliff.

The victimization of black Americans and the gender-confused is totally different. Blacks were genuinely oppressed under slavery and then Jim Crow laws. Unfortunately, they are still being told today that they cannot succeed because of their skin color unless DEI policies assure them a “win.” However, the fact that Simone Biles can be held up as the best female gymnast of all time as a black woman kinda takes away the theory that you cannot succeed if you’re non-white. She is the ultimate American success story.

Biles has faced many challenges in her career. She came from a broken family, was raised by her grandparents, was victimized by Larry Nassar, and struggled even at the top of her Olympic career with mental health issues. And still she persevered.

Not all left-wingers think like Biles does, either. Martina Navratilova, a tennis legend and a member of the “LGBTQ+ community,” came to Gaines’s defense, saying, “Riley is MAGA and I couldn’t disagree with her more on politics but on keeping sports safe and fair for girls and women I agree with her [100%]. As most people, republicans democrats and everything in between do also.” Tennis is another sport in which the differences between men and women make the gender gap obvious.

My hope and prayer is that Biles’s eyes are opened to the insanity of her stance. At the same time, we don’t need her. Though her voice protecting women would be lovely, the number of men and women willing to put their reputations on the line to defend women’s sports is growing — all so that the next Simone Biles has a chance to stick the landing and not have her gold swiped away by a gender-confused dude.

UPDATE: At noon today, Simone Biles wrote:

“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 to get personal with Riley, which I apologize for. 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. My objection is to be singling out children for public scrutiny in ways that feel personal and harmful. Individual athletes — especially kids — should never be the focus of criticism of a flawed system they have no control over. I believe sports organizations have a responsibility to come up with rules supporting inclusion while maintaining fair competition. We all want a future for sport that is fair, inclusive, and respectful.”

Riley Gaines responded:

“I accept Simone’s apology for the personal attacks including the ones where she body-shamed me. I know she knows what this feels like. She’s still the greatest female gymnast of all time. A couple of things. Sports ARE inclusive by nature. Anyone can and everyone SHOULD play sports. Competition, on the other hand and by definition, is exclusive. So the idea of ‘competitive equity’ is nonsensical. Secondly, the boys are publicly humiliating the girls. To suggest that women and girls must be silent or ignore a boy who is PUBLICLY hurting or humiliating them is wrong. You can’t have any empathy and compassion for the girls if you’re ignoring when young men are harming or abusing them. I am not ashamed to be a voice for the voiceless. Lastly, I agree with you that the blame is on the lawmakers and leaders at the top. Precisely why I’m suing the NCAA and support candidates who vow to stand with women. That’s why I joined @realDonaldTrump at the signing of his Executive Order. I didn’t see you there or championing this effort with your platform. Women’s sports can’t be used as an excuse for girl’s to center the feelings and validation of men and boys. I welcome you to the fight to support fair sports and a future for female athletes. Little girls deserve the same shot to achieve that you had.”