Simone Biles deletes X account after backlash over transgender athlete feud with Riley Gaines

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK: Olympic gym­nast Simone Biles has seem­ing­ly delet­ed her X (for­mer­ly Twit­ter) account fol­low­ing a three-week-long war of words with for­mer col­le­giate swim­mer and con­ser­v­a­tive activist Riley Gaines. 

The pub­lic feud ignit­ed after Biles crit­i­cized Gaines for her remarks about a Min­neso­ta girls’ soft­ball team that includ­ed a trans­gen­der pitch­er, an issue that quick­ly esca­lat­ed into a broad­er debate over trans­gen­der ath­letes in women’s sports.

Known for her stance against allow­ing trans­gen­der ath­letes in female cat­e­gories, Biles took aim at Gaines, call­ing her a “sore los­er” in ref­er­ence to the 2022 NCAA Cham­pi­onships, where Gaines com­pet­ed against trans­gen­der swim­mer Lia Thomas.

How­ev­er, just days lat­er, Biles issued an apol­o­gy, acknowl­edg­ing the sen­si­tiv­i­ty of the top­ic. Accord­ing to the Gaines accept­ed the apol­o­gy, but the con­tro­ver­sy left a last­ing mark online.

Simone Biles of the Unit­ed States dur­ing the Artis­tic Gym­nas­tics Team Final for Women at the Bercy Are­na dur­ing the Paris 2024 Sum­mer Olympic Games on July 30, 2024, in Paris, France (Tim Clayton/Corbis via Get­ty Images

Simone Biles deletes X account after explo­sive Riley Gaines feud

On Sun­day, June 22, X users began post­ing screen­shots show­ing an error mes­sage when try­ing to access Simone Biles’ account, spark­ing spec­u­la­tion that she may have delet­ed it.

Many think the back­lash from her feud with Gaines may have prompt­ed the 28-year-old gym­nast, wide­ly regard­ed as one of the great­est ath­letes of all time, to remove her account from the plat­form.

Despite this, Biles con­tin­ues to main­tain active pro­files on Threads, where she has 2.1 mil­lion fol­low­ers, and Insta­gram, where she has 12.4 mil­lion fol­low­ers.

Riley Gaines takes a final jab at Simone Biles after she deletes X account

Mean­while, Riley Gaines took the oppor­tu­ni­ty to deliv­er a final jab at Simone on Mon­day, despite express­ing inter­est just the day before in poten­tial­ly form­ing an alliance with her.

Gaines accused Biles of hold­ing “an incred­i­bly unpop­u­lar and moral­ly inde­fen­si­ble” view­point, adding that the Olympic gold medal­ist right­ful­ly faced ridicule, issued a “grov­el­ing pub­lic apol­o­gy,” and then delet­ed her account in an attempt to erase the con­tro­ver­sy.

The for­mer com­pet­i­tive swim­mer, who has built her career advo­cat­ing against trans­gen­der par­tic­i­pa­tion in sports, par­tic­u­lar­ly after fin­ish­ing tied for fifth place in a swim meet along­side a trans­gen­der com­peti­tor, added, “Sad to see such a phe­nom go down like this.”

Riley Gaines and Simone Biles’ feud explained

Ear­li­er this month, Riley Gaines pub­licly crit­i­cized a Min­neso­ta high school on social media for allow­ing a trans­gen­der ath­lete to com­pete on its soft­ball team. This fol­lowed her pre­vi­ous cam­paign against a trans­gen­der girl par­tic­i­pat­ing in track events in Cal­i­for­nia,

In response, Biles fired back, denounc­ing Gaines’ views as “tru­ly sick” and mak­ing a per­son­al remark, telling Gaines to “bul­ly some­one your own size, which would iron­i­cal­ly be male.”

A few days lat­er, Biles issued an apol­o­gy to Gaines for the per­son­al attack. She acknowl­edged the com­plex­i­ty of the issue, stat­ing, “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.” 

Biles clar­i­fied that she was not sup­port­ing poli­cies that under­mine fair­ness in women’s sports. Rather, she object­ed to chil­dren being sin­gled out for pub­lic crit­i­cism in ways that feel per­son­al and harm­ful

Although Gaines accept­ed the apol­o­gy at the time, she con­tin­ued to chal­lenge Biles’ stance, ref­er­enc­ing the abuse the gym­nast endured at the hands of Lar­ry Nas­sar to defend her own posi­tion

Inter­net reacts to Simone Biles delet­ing X account after Riley Gaines feud

Simone Biles’ deci­sion to leave X dis­ap­point­ed her mil­lions of fol­low­ers, but it also trig­gered a wave of reac­tions and memes across the plat­form

One post­ed a meme of an ani­mat­ed char­ac­ter slow­ly back­ing into a bush, cap­tioned, “Simone Biles quit­ting like.”

Anoth­er spec­u­lat­ed, “Simone biles deletes her twit­ter account for peace of mind. riley gaines can final­ly feel like she won some­thing, which i antic­i­pate is new for her, the most annoy­ing bitch to ever get 5th place and make a career out of being a los­er.”