Riley Gaines sends message to Simone Biles amid trans athlete feud
Political activist Riley Gaines and former US Olympics gymnastic star MyKayla Skinner fired off a plea to Simone Biles in the wake of the Supreme Court's women's sports ruling on Tuesday.
Donald Trump secured a landmark victory this week when the Supreme Court paved the way for states to ban transgender athletes from girls' and women's sports by upholding state laws.
The ruling overturned decisions by lower courts in siding with trans students who challenged bans in Idaho and West Virginia as violating the Constitution and a federal anti-discrimination law.
The bombshell decision came just over a year after Biles called out Gaines online for criticizing a Minnesota softball team that were competing with a trans pitcher, sparking a bitter social media feud between the pair over the issue.
Now, in the wake of Tuesday's ruling, Gaines, who has long campaigned against transgender athletes competing in women's sports, has sent a message to not only the Olympic hero but a number of high-profile female athletes to join her cause.
'Let this be a clarion call, not just to Simone, but to every, I think especially elite female athlete, professional female athlete, the likes of Caitlin Clark and Sophie Cunningham, Serena Williams, to link arms,' the former college swimmer told Outkick.
Riley Gaines fired off a message to Simone Biles after the Supreme Court's ruling this week
The former University of Kentucky swimmer, who first gained notoriety in 2022 when she tied trans athlete Lia Thomas for fifth in the NCAA Women's Swimming Championships, added that the ruling made her feel 'vindicated.'
'I feel, of course, excited, I feel optimistic about the future,' Gaines said. 'But I think the feeling that I feel the most of is vindicated.'
'Let it be known that you also think young girls are worthy of calling themselves champions one day,' Gaines added.
Biles' former Olympic teammate Skinner, who became a close ally of Gaines in the wake of her feud with Biles, joined the conservative activist in celebrating the ruling.
'Just being able to try to find my voice and how I could use my voice after Simone had come out against Riley, it had really affected me,' Skinner said. 'I have a little daughter, and we are hoping to put her in sports soon, and I just really want her to have everything that I got to have, all the opportunities.'
'I've broken records, I've been an Olympian, I was a college athlete, and I want her to have the opportunities that I had,' Skinner added of her daughter. 'And so this, for me, was a way that I felt like this is the time for me to come up and stand for what I believe in, stand with Riley, and to join in on this fight.'
Skinner, who previously accused Biles of 'bullying,' then turned her attention directly to the decorated gymnast, echoing Gaines's petition for her to join their cause.
'I think it would just be really cool to see Simone stand with us,' Skinner said. 'She's one of the best athletes in the world.'
Gaines shakes Donald Trump's hand on the day he signed an executive order on trans athletes
Biles' former teammate MyKayla Skinner says she was bullied by the Olympic great
'To be able to see her as my teammate, as an Olympian, as an amazing athlete that she is, to be able to stand with us and fight alongside Riley and everyone else on this road,' Skinner added. 'I would just love, love to see my teams, especially Simone, in step with us.'
Gaines's campaigning has won praise from Trump, who welcomed her to the White House before signing the 'Keeping Men out of Women's Sports' executive order in February 2025.
However, it has also triggered backlash from many including Biles, who branded Gaines a 'bully' in their now-infamous online feud.
'You're truly sick, all of this campaigning because you lost a race. Straight up sore loser,' Biles said, referencing the 2022 NCAA Championships where Gaines competed against trans swimmer Lia Thomas .
'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!!!!!'
The seven-time Olympic gold medalist then got personal in a follow-up tweet to Gaines, saying: 'bully someone your own size, which would ironically be a male.'
Four days later, Biles publicly apologized on X, writing: '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.'
University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas, who is transgender, and Kentucky swimmer Gaines tied for fifth place in the 2022 NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships
Gaines is known for campaigning against the participation of trans women in women's sports
In the lengthy apology, Biles also admitted she didn't have the answers on how to include trans athletes in sports in a way that keeps everyone happy - seemingly acknowledging how polarizing her criticism of Gaines had been.
While Gaines accepted the apology at the time, she continued to criticize Biles for her views and opinion - all while using the horrific abuse Biles suffered at the hands of Larry Nassar in defense of her own position.
Furthermore, the onslaught of backlash towards Biles for her remarks saw Skinner, former Olympic gymnastics teammate of the seven-time gold medalist, come forward with accusations of her own.
Skinner - who notably said that the US Olympic team at the 2024 games in Paris lacked quality outside of Biles - accused the Texas native of bullying.
After the war of words with Gaines began, Skinner claimed that there were 'many times' in her career where she felt 'belittled and bullied by Simone'.
Is France the Best Team at This World Cup or Is It Yet to Be Properly Tested?
Is France the Best Team at This World Cup or Is It Yet to Be Properly Tested?
France has blown opponents away at this tournament, becoming the first team to score three or more goals in five straight World Cup matches.Conor Orr|
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — Truly the stuff of fever dreams over here in section 225 along the stadium’s north side. Pass the man in the tight striped shirt wearing a red beret and holding a fake plastic baguette and you turn the corner to find a pair of men dressed as mimes. They are waving a French flag to fan a young supporter of Les Bleus who has overheated and is slumped down in a chair as security forms a wall around him to cool down.
Around the corner comes Max, an athletically built male of about 5’10” who is dripping sweat beneath what looks like a heavy, non-breathable blonde wig decorated in a kind of braided pigtail. He’s wearing a traditional Swedish dress for Midsommar atop shin guards, soccer socks and tennis shoes. Follow him through the concourse and onto the patio, and you’ve arrived at Camp Sweden.
The fan section of Swedish football—which also cleverly featured fans wearing yellow shirts with the word IKEA written on them—was paltry in size to the overwhelming number of French supporters here among the 83,000 attendants in New Jersey, but for the first 40 minutes, the chants of ‘Allez, Allez, Allez’ (‘Onward Sweden’) did not relent.
Max said Swedish fans took pride in their FIFA ranking for kindness, but when informed that France were heavy favorites, his eyes narrowed and he assumed a joking fighter’s posture. When asked if he believed, as Sweden seemed to escape one piercing attempt on goal after another (including a 19th-minute goal by Kylian Mbappe that was called back upon review) by the blistering French attack over the course of the first 40 minutes, he smiled.
“Of course I do,” he says. “I f—- flew here.”
France and Kylian Mbappé Take Charge
Of course, in rapid succession just before halftime, just after halftime and a third time at the 73rd minute, France eventually honed its eye for the goal and obliterated any chance of a stunning upset. Gone were the scattershot follows, the moments where Les Bleus’ incredible strikers were slapping their heads in frustration.
Kylian Mbappé sliced between two defenders and pounded the ball in the far side of the net. Bradley Barcola slipped between a pair of Swedish defenders, took a quick touch and scored again. Then Mbappé, one last time, punched the ball to the far corner of the net, just off the outstretched hand of Sweden's keeper, Jacob Widell Zetterström. After the last one Mbappé found an open swath of space and skied into the air, a bit like a toddler pretending he was a rocket ship blasting off to the moon.
Outside of the confidence that momentarily reverberated from Camp Sweden, though, the eventual 3-0 result was heavily expected. France became the first team in World Cup history to score three or more goals in five straight matches, though those matches were against some of the Cup’s lowliest opponents: A lukewarm Senegal, Iraq and a second-string Norway, none of which are in the FIFA top 15 World Rankings (Iraq hovers in the mid 60s). Sweden was in organizational tatters leading into the World Cup as well.
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Just How Good is This France Team?
It brings up the important question, as France advances to play Paraguay (another team outside of the Top 30 in FIFA World Rankings, though riding high after a stunning upset over Germany in the opening round) in the second stage of the knockout tournament: Are we responsible for believing what our eyes tell us to believe? Or, is it merely another victory over a small, bright-eyed, understaffed army like we saw in Camp Sweden?
“We knew we had to be perfect,” Graham Potter, Sweden’s manager said afterward, noting that, even if Sweden was perfect, it may not have been enough. “We needed a couple of miracles.”
When asked if he thought any team could beat France, he said: “Of course, it’s football, anything is possible, but I haven’t personally seen a better team.”
As Mbappé was subbed off in the 86th minute, France manager Didier Deschamps stretched out his arms and bowed several times, welcoming the 27-year-old star to the bench. Mbappé has now played in 18 World Cup games and has scored 18 goals. He is now the lone record holder, passing Ronaldo and Leonidas, for the most goals ever scored in the knockout stage of the World Cup (10).
What France Does to Opponents
French soccer, at this very moment, is the picture of versatility, with an amoebic attack that is grounded in a concept that is simple theoretically but almost impossible to achieve in real time: Make yourselves fluid enough to empower your goalscorers. France has dominated by mastering width, drawing double teams at both ends of the pitch and thinning out defenses that still cannot manage to bracket the team’s fleet of strikers. Even with quarterly hydration breaks, the tiring effect this has on defenders is debilitating.
They are also appropriately dominant. Before Mbappé’s first goal, he made a backward no-look pass to Ousmane Dembélé that looked more like a dance step (the pair have more mutual assists for one another than any tandem dating back more than 50 years). Every part of his facial expression suggested that he planned for the moment to go viral. France possessed the ball more than 60% of the game and had a shot advantage of 12-3.
Les Bleus appear comfortable enough, then, to sidestep the question of opponent quality. Deschamps admitted that “for us, it wasn’t that difficult” to reach the round of 16 but cautioned a reporter who mentioned the cementing confidence among French fans and journalists.
“Slow down, please,” he said. “There are issues, there’s always room for improvement.”
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Published 2 hours ago | Modified 17 minutes ago
CONOR ORRConor Orr is a Senior Writer for Sports Illustrated with more than 15 years of experience covering the NFL. His work has been cited in Best American Sportswriting and has won a PFWAA award. Prior to Sports Illustrated, he covered both the Giants and Jets for The Star-Ledger. Conor lives in New Jersey with his amazing wife and three children.
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