Olympian Simone Biles attempted to publicly shame me for speaking out against a Minnesota high school softball team that won a state championship.
Their pitcher was a male.
‘To be expected when your star player is a boy,’ I wrote.
That apparently set Biles off.
On Friday, she accused me of being a ‘bully’ while body shaming me by comparing my 5’5′, 135-pound frame to that of a man.
‘You’re genuinely ill, all this campaigning just because you lost a race. A plain sore loser,’ Biles expressed on X, a message viewed by over 60 million users.
‘You should be supporting the trans community and maybe finding a method to make sports inclusive OR creating a new path where trans individuals feel secure in sports. Perhaps a transgender category IN ALL sports!! But instead… You harass them… One thing is certain: no one in sports is safe with you around!!!!’ Biles added.
‘Bully someone your own size,’ she added, ‘which would ironically be a male.’
On Friday, Biles accused me of being a ‘bully’ while body shaming me by comparing my 5’5′, 135-pound frame to that of a man.
Olympian Simone Biles attempted to publicly shame me for speaking out against a Minnesota high school softball team that won a state championship.
Simone has frequently criticized body shamers and admitted that even she isn’t immune to negative remarks about her athletic physique.
‘I’d be lying if I told you that what people say about my arms, my legs, my body … of how I look like in a dress, leotard, bathing suit or even in casual pants hasn’t gotten me down at times,’ she wrote on Instagram in 2020.
That made her comments all the more disappointing.
With just two tweets, Simone Biles managed to incinerate the legacy she worked so hard to build as a role model. And even in her apology to me on Tuesday, which I accepted, she misses the larger issue at play.
In a statement posted to Instagram, Simone wrote: ‘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.’
She added: ‘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.’
What she doesn’t realize is that sports are already inclusive by nature – anyone can and everyone should play sports. But to ensure fair competition, exclusion is necessary.
It is wrong to tell women and girls to silently endure public humiliation as male athletes steal their awards, their titles and their dreams. And the general public, regardless of political affiliation, agrees.
Simone has, on multiple occasions, spoken out against body shamers and confessed that even she is not immune to negative comments about her athletic bui
What Biles doesn’t realize is that sports are already inclusive by nature – anyone can and everyone should play sports. But to ensure fair competition, exclusion is necessary.
A New York Times poll published in January found that 79 percent of respondents – including 67 percent of Democrats – believe men have no place in women’s sports.
This is common sense, yet Simone is using her platform to take the opposite position, leaving the rest of us, especially young girls with dreams of calling themselves champions, to bear the consequences.
Beyond Simone’s cruelty and abandonment of understanding why she achieved her success, here’s the bigger question: Why are female athletes forced to deal with this issue at all? Why is this our burden while the people who create and enforce these discriminatory policies remain untouched, silent, and shielded from the fallout?
We’re the ones forced to explain why the obvious is wrong. We’re left to cat fight on a public forum, providing entertainment and ‘content’ for 60 million viewers while the people at the top (whose job it is to protect us) have abandoned us.
This is where Simone and I can come to an agreement: our lawmakers and our so-called leaders need to be held accountable.
The US Olympic & Paralympic Committee (USOPC) and the NCAA aren’t just asleep at the wheel — they’ve locked the doors, turned off the lights, and handed the keys to a small group of bullies masquerading as activists.
The leaders of these organizations are paid enormous salaries to uphold policies that ensure fair play and safe environments. That’s their job. They are bound by federal law — Title IX in the case of the NCAA, and the Ted Stevens Olympic and Amateur Sports Act for the USOPC.
But they’re not doing their jobs; they’re hiding. They won’t speak up. They won’t take a stand. They won’t enforce their own rules. They allow girls to be humiliated on the field. They force female athletes to give up awards, privacy, and safety. They let young women be violated in locker rooms, on social media, and in the press, for simply asking for fairness.
A New York Times poll published in January found that 79 percent of respondents – including 67 percent of Democrats – believe men have no place in women’s sports.
Their silence is cowardice. And that cowardice has created a vacuum—one where female athletes are forced to fight alone, while those in power remain conveniently quiet and relieved the mob isn’t going after them this week. But this is an opportunity to do the right thing, to protect women and girls and to clean up this mess.
Apologize to the athletes you’ve failed – that’s the bare minimum. If you don’t, then expect to see us in court, because that’s where this is heading — and I’ve already put my name on that fight against the NCAA.
And to everyone watching this unfold: Do not stand on the sidelines. Don’t let the fear of backlash scare you into silence.
There is freedom in speaking the truth. There is power in knowing you’re on the right side of history.
And trust me, history will remember who spoke up — and who didn’t.
