Since tying with trans woman swimmer Lia Thomas at the 2022 NCAA championships, Riley Gaines has become the preeminent commentator on the subject of transgender participation in women’s sports in America, speaking out extensively online against trans women in organized sports. Gaines found her most prominent opponent last week in legendary gymnast Simone Biles, who criticized Gaines on X for harassing a state champion high school softball pitcher in Minnesota.
Biles called Gaines “truly sick” for her rhetoric toward young trans athletes, teasing Gaines that her advocacy stems solely from being a “sore loser” since the race against Thomas. Since then, Biles has apologized to Gaines, a writer and podcaster at Outkick, for making her comments “personal.”
But on Tuesday, in an episode of her podcast Casuals, former ESPN and FS1 host Katie Nolan went deep on the “insane” arguments made by anti-trans commentators like Gaines, who use the “boogeyman” of alleged sexual abuse by trans women to create a “fantasy scenario” and limit their participation.
“This is one of many narratives, that if you spend any time reading these people’s arguments and what they think are solid points, it comes up a lot,” Nolan explained. “It’s a talking point that is so insane … they think that a transgender athlete being in a locker room would force every other girl on that team to be naked in front of a transgender athlete. It is such a leap of a thing that could happen, as is any argument that anybody passionately makes against trans athletes in sports.”
In her argument with Biles, Gaines referenced Dr. Larry Nassar, the convicted serial abuser of the USA Gymnastics women’s team. Gaines even posted a photo of Nassar to illustrate her point that Biles should know what it’s like to be forced to be around “men” as a young woman in sports.
Nolan noted that while Gaines is not wrong to highlight abuse against women athletes, Biles’ position gets closer to a solution than the “bullying” offered by Gaines. Worse, said Nolan, most online commentary about trans athletes is exactly like Gaines’ original heckling toward the Champlin Park softball team. It is typically directed at young people and is often mean-spirited.
“Simone Biles, shout out to her for taking a stand against something that she sees as bigoted, bullying, harassment. Which it is, and continues to be,” Nolan said.
“Riley Gaines is not the only person doing this. It’s a bunch of media companies who also participate in this, send their followers to attack high school kids. But this group of people who love to claim they are protecting women’s sports, they care about women … you don’t get to say that you’re protecting women’s sports when you tweet a photo of our greatest female athlete’s abuser at her. You just don’t. She’s in women’s sports. She’s successful in women’s sports. And yet she still advocates for a solution. For coming up with some sort of fix with this thing you deem a problem.”
In Biles’ original retort, the seven-time gold medalist suggested a separate category of competition for trans people. This is a popular option among experts. In the meantime, at the youth, college and professional level, athletes are required to maintain hormone levels and undergo frequent testing in order to compete against athletes of the gender to which they have transitioned.
Nolan wishes more commentators would offer constructive takes, outside of the seemingly unsustainable option of a full and total ban. Especially when banning transgender women from women’s sports would not solve the problem of powerful men abusing young women.
“There’s never a nuanced, interesting argument. There’s never a solution being offered,” Nolan said.
“Trans women are not men. That’s where the disconnect is happening. Men go into women’s sports and do evil things all the time. We don’t have to come up with some fantasy scenario where this might happen. It’s happening. And you know that, because you’re tweeting it at the woman it happened to. I just am sick of people acting like keeping people out of sports is some revolutionary position to take, when actually, if you look through the history of sports, it’s kind of the establishment. Sports loves to keep people out. And fighting for inclusion in sports is actually the radical position to take. And I love that Simone Biles has taken that position.”
Since launching Casuals, Nolan has pitched it as a place for everyone to enjoy sports. An online video host turned talking head with brief stints hosting late-night TV and calling MLB games, Nolan understands those who are put off by the exclusionary nature of American sports culture.
So she aligns with trans athletes, arguing that there is “no evidence” of the “boogeyman” trans athlete who abuses cisgender women in the locker room. Still, Nolan expressed a desire for experts to create a fair system for trans athletes to gain the benefits of competing in sports, especially at a young age, while also balancing the science and psychology of all competitors.
“Sports should figure out what to do with this category of human that we are now more familiar with. That we are now aware of. That’s sports’s job,” Nolan said.
“To come up with the rules, from sports experts, medical experts, human rights experts, the people who have previously been involved with making these rules. They should make the rules on how this works. But you don’t just get to say, ‘I don’t want them here. They can’t come here, they’re gonna rape.’ It’s not logic.
“These are children. High school children. Sports are community. Sports are social acceptance. Sports are how you learn and grow as a person. The trans community is already at huge risk of suicide, of isolation, of being ostracized. And it’s that important to you that you also don’t let them play sports? You are attacking a very vulnerable community very maliciously … I don’t know how you go to sleep at night, talking the way that you do about children.”
For the most part, when this issue has risen to the mainstream, it has been owned by voices who want to keep trans athletes out of organized sports. A recent NBC News poll saw 75 percent of respondents state that transgender women should not be able to compete in “female sports.”
More broadly, conservative politicians have made anti-trans rhetoric a key part of their platform. In February, President Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed at banning transgender women from competitive sports, removing Title IX protections from transgender women at federally funded schools and tasking the Department of Education with investigating violations.
After Biles’ constructive comments and public push-back against Gaines, the conversation has changed tone toward more intermediate solutions. Katie Nolan, at least, is ready to follow Biles’ lead.
“You’re not protecting women’s sports,” she said. “Simone Biles is.”
