Simone Biles deletes Twitter amid Riley Gaines trans athlete feud
Simone Biles appears to have deleted her X/Twitter account. (Getty)
Simone Biles appears to have deleted her X/Twitter account. (Getty)
Olympic gymnast Simone Biles appears to have deleted her X/Twitter account following a feud with anti-trans campaigner and former swimmer Riley Gaines.
Screenshots shared by The Daily Beast show that Biles’ X account, where she had more than 1.9 million followers, is not available, suggesting that it has been deleted. Her Facebook, Threads and Instagram accounts are still accessible.
The row erupted after Gaines mocked a Minnesota high school baseball team for having a trans competitor, prompting Biles to brand her a bully.
“You’re truly sick, all of this campaigning because you lost a race. Straight up sore loser,” Biles, who has won 11 Olympic medals, wrote in the now-deleted post.
Gaines became the darling of the right-wing press after tying for fifth place with trans swimmer Lia Thomas in a women’s college championship race three years ago.
She has since become a right-wing pundit, calling for transgender women to be excluded from female competitive sports while often misgendering and insulting trans competitors.
In her original post, Biles said Gaines should be “uplifting the trans community,” adding that “no one in sports is safe”, because of her rhetoric.
Earlier this month, she apologised for the post and a controversial follow-up in which she told Gaines to “bully someone your own size, which would ironically be a male,” writing that she regretted making the comments.
“I wanted to follow up from my last tweets,” Biles said. “I’ve always believed competitive equity and inclusivity are both essential in sport. I was not advocating for policies that compromise fairness in women’s sports. My objection is singling out children for public scrutiny in ways that feel personal and harmful.”
Responding to the disappearance of the account, Gaines wrote on X that Biles was “rightfully ridiculed” for having an “incredibly unpopular and morally indefensible take”, adding: “Sad to see such a phenom[enon] go down like this.”
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