Simone Biles apologizes to Riley Gaines for personal taunt in bitter feud over trans athletes
Simone Biles has issued a public apology to Riley Gaines for comparing her to a man in a bitter personal attack over her stance on trans athletes.
After Gaines, a former swimmer turned conservative commentator, criticized a Minnesota softball team with a trans pitcher last Friday, Biles called her ‘truly sick’ and told her to ‘bully someone your own size, which would ironically be male’.
But on Tuesday, Biles changed her tune. She wrote on X: ‘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.
SImone Biles has publicly apologized for her personal taunts aimed at Riley Gaines on X
Biles and Gaines have been caught in a war of words over transgender athletes
‘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.’
Biles also shared her apology on Instagram, captioning an image of her statement with three silver hearts.
The 28-year-old, a seven-time Olympic gold medal winner was slammed for her comments at the time, with many female athletes adamant that it is unfair for trans competitors to line up alongside them.
Biles taunted Gaines over a race where she finished fifth, alongside trans athlete Lia Thomas, in her first post last week, saying: ‘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!!!!!’
She then replied again to Gaines, saying: ‘Bully someone your own size, which would ironically be a male.’
Biles pictured alongside her husband Jonathan Owens – a Chicago Bears NFL player
Gaines shakes Donald Trump’s hand on the day he signed an executive order on trans athletes
Gaines caught Biles’ eye by mocking the Minnesota state softball champions Champlin Park, who won their competition with a dominant trans pitcher in Marissa Rothenberger.
She retweeted a picture of a team celebration on X, writing: ‘Comments off lol. To be expected when your star player is a boy.’
Gaines, who didn’t immediately repsond to Biles’ post, had criticized the Olympian in the aftermath of the attack. She unearthed a tweet from Biles in 2017 when the US Olympian said: ‘ahhhh good thing guys don’t compete against girls or he’d take all the gold medals !!’
Gaines reposed it and wrote: ‘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?’
Earlier this year, Gaines gave an astonishing recollection of sharing a locker room with Thomas at the 2022 200-yard NCAA freestyle championship in Atlanta.
She told Fox: ‘A 6-foot-4 man was allowed in to undress, fully expose himself. He was full naked and, of course, full intact inches away from where we, 18-, 19-, 20-year-old girls, were fully undressed.
‘I can’t even put into words the feelings of violation. It’s humiliating. It’s awkward. It’s embarrassing. It’s uncomfortable. But most importantly I remember feeling so betrayed by my university, by the NCAA, by people who I believed had our best interests at heart.
‘And in the blink of an eye they threw our rights to privacy as women entirely out of the window.
Gaines has consistently campaigned against trans athletes competing in women’s sports
‘What we saw result from that was women, rather than going into the locker room to undress, they found other outlets.
I know there were several girls, several of my teammates even, who opted to change in the janitor’s closet next to dirty mops as opposed to being exposed and exploited to a naked man.
‘So when they talk about “inclusivity,” what that really is is exclusivity and what they’re excluding is women out of women’s locker rooms
Thomas, previously known as Will Thomas, became the first transgender athlete to win an NCAA Division 1 title in the same year.
Gaines, meanwhile, was invited to Donald Trump’s address to Congress in March when the President turned his focus to keeping trans athletes out of women’s sports.
