Simone Biles took offense to college swimmer Riley Gaines’ disparaging comment about a trans high school athlete—and the chalk started flying in both directions.
Simone Biles wasn’t afraid to dive headfirst into controversy to call out behavior she found toxic.
Riley Gaines—a former college swimmer who has become an advocate for banning trans girls and trans women from competing in girls’ and women’s sports—drew Biles’ ire June 6, when she mocked the Minnesota State High School League.
The league had turned off comments on an X post celebrating the 2025 Softball State Champion Champlin Park, whose 17-year-old star pitcher is trans.
“Comments off lol,” Gaines wrote. “To be expected when your star player is a boy.”
In a June 6 X post, Biles called the 25-year-old Fox News pundit “truly sick” and “a sore loser,” seemingly in reference to Gaines tying for fifth place with Lia Thomas, a trans woman, in a race at the 2022 Women’s NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships. The gymnast, 28, also slammed Gaines for sowing division and punching down instead of using her platform to find a way to “make sports inclusive” or create “a new avenue where trans feel safe in sports.”
Gaines was unfazed, calling the 11-time Olympic medalist’s response “so disappointing.”
Of course, that was only the beginning.
Their war of words went viral, and Biles eventually offered an apology for getting personal instead of just arguing on behalf of her position.
Gaines, however, was happy to keep invoking their feud, even bringing it up while confirming to a Turning Point USA audience that she’s pregnant with her first child.
Read on for all the details as to how Biles vs. Gaines started and how it’s going:
