Girls Sports

USA Gymnastics Deletes Radical Trans Participation Policy Amid Biles Debacle

USA Gymnastics (USAG) scrubbed its radical “transgender” and “nonbinary” participation policies from its website, journalists discovered amid the dust-up between Simone Biles and Riley Gaines.

Biles, widely regarded as the greatest female gymnast of all time, and Gaines, a decorated collegiate swimmer and women’s rights advocate, traded barbs on X last weekend over boys participating in girls sports.

Biles accused Gaines of “bullying” Marissa Rothenberger, a boy who won Minnesota’s girls high school softball championship on June 6, and mocked the former swimmer’s muscular physique.

Though the Olympian has since apologized, her bizarre comments prompted renewed scrutiny of USAG’s participation policies. Researchers found rules allowing men to compete in women’s events had been deleted from the organization’s website.

USAG denies Biles’ actions prompted the erasure, telling Fox’s Jackson Thompson it removed its “transgender eligibility policy” from the website in May to “assess compliance with the current legal landscape.”

The Daily Citizen cannot independently verify when the contested policies were taken down.

Until now, USAG has upheld one of the most radical participation policies in sports. In a now-deleted policy revision from 2020, the organization announced men could compete in women’s events without undergoing transgender hormone or surgical interventions, legally changing their birth sex or even submitting an application.

In another deleted document, USAG instructed staff and coaches not to “disclose any information about a transgender or non-binary person’s sex assigned at birth or gender identity without their explicit consent.”

These rules not only clear the way for any male to compete in women’s gymnastics, but for men to hide their sex from teammates who may not want to share a locker room with them.

It’s unclear whether USAG no longer abides by these policies or has simply removed them pending revision — but it’s not the first sports governing group to walk radical participation policies back this year.

In March, USA Track and Field adopted World Athletic participation rules requiring athletes compete in categories consistent with their biological sex.

In April, USA Fencing (USAF) announced it would create sex-segregated competition categories “if one or more governing bodies require these updates.” The announcement followed a firestorm of criticism over USAF’s treatment of Stephanie Turner, who was disqualified from a meet and put on a year’s probation after refusing to fence against a man.  

World Boxing instituted mandatory, pre-competition sex testing in May, effectively preventing Imane Khelif, a male boxer with a rare disorder of sexual development, from competing against women.

The Daily Citizen supports any policy change protecting women’s sports and private spaces. But Dee Foster Worley, a highly decorated female gymnast and former member of USAG’s board, doesn’t believe the group will make meaningful revisions.

“I predict that they will amend the language, leaving lots of loopholes and flexibility, [so it’s] just nebulous enough for them to be able to change their minds if and when the time comes,” Worley told Fox frankly.

“I think [USAG is] very pressure driven … rather than principles driven,” she explains.

“You can’t depend on an organization that doesn’t stand on anything and doesn’t have values they refuse to bend on.”

Additional Articles and Resources

Cringe: Simone Biles Erupts at Riley Gaines for ‘Bullying’ Boys in Girls Sports

Male Boxer Khelif Barred from Female Category After Rule Change

USA Fencing Explicitly Prioritizes Men’s Feelings Over Women’s Safety and Athletic Achievement

Olympic Track and Field Protects Women. Why Won’t Other Sports Do the Same?

Yes, Girls Care When Boys Take Their Trophies

Yes, Girls Care When Boys Take Their Trophies

“What if I told you that athletes don’t seem too worried about trans people?”

That’s the argument USA Today columnist Sara Pequeño made last week in a piece critiquing backlash to AB Hernandez, a boy who won two state titles at the California girls track and field championship on May 31.

Pequeño claims there are too few boys competing in girls sports to justify getting worked up about it. And even if there were, she suggests, female athletes wouldn’t care.

“While adults are up in arms about a single teenage girl, the athletes competing against her don’t seem to mind,” the columnist writes. “There isn’t even a huge number of athletes complaining about having to compete against their transgender counterparts.”

Um, what?

I’ve read my fair share of bizarre takes on sex and gender, but Pequeño is just … wrong. An absurd number of boys are participating in girls sports — and girls absolutely care about it.

Pequeño cites only two pieces of evidence proving “there are very few trans women and girls actually playing sports.” The first is a statement from NCAA president Charlie Baker claiming fewer than 10 athletes out of 500,000 “publicly identify” as transgender.

But transgender-identified men don’t always identify themselves, do they? Blaire Fleming played two full seasons on San Jose State University’s (SJSU) women’s volleyball team before his teammates, some of whom he had shared rooms with, learned his sex.

Fleming’s presence impacted not only SJSU volleyball players, but women across the NCAA’s Division I Mountain West conference. Five teams forfeited important games against SJSU to protest Fleming’s participation. Boise State forfeited twice.

For grade school sports, Pequeño points to outdated data from Save Women’s Sports, which she calls an “anti-trans advocacy group.”

“Save Women’s Sports … could only identify five trans students competing on girls teams from kindergarten through grade 12 in 2023,” the columnist crows.

That survey is no longer applicable. Between five and 10 transgender-identified boys are competing on girls K-12 teams in Washington state alone, the state superintendent of schools told a local news outlet earlier this year.

Pequeño would argue the numbers don’t matter, because girls don’t seem to care when boys compete in their sports. After all, California track and field athletes smiled on the podium with Hernandez, she argues. Brooke White, the female athlete who placed second in California for long jump, even posed for a picture with the male athlete.

Of course she did! Girls and women who call out male competitors often face severe social, athletic and even physical consequences.

When Stephanie Turner took a knee in April rather than compete against a man, USA Fencing officials disqualified her from the meet and sentenced her to a year probation.

When five middle schoolers refused to compete against a male track and field athlete last year, West Virginia school officials banned them from a future competition. The same boy took third in discus and eighth in shotput at this year’s West Virginia high school track and field championships.

When Alexa Anderson and Reece Eckard refused to share the podium with a boy at the Oregon track and field championships last month, officials excluded them from pictures. Anderson later received hate mail.

Slusser of SJSU received death threats for opposing Fleming’s presence on the team, according to a lawsuit against the NCAA. Slusser also alleges Fleming physically targeted her during games. A troubling incident caught on camera appears to show Fleming set the ball to a player on the opposing team, who spiked it at Slusser.

After the play, the opponent blew a kiss at Fleming and mouthed, “Thank you.”

Female athletes forced to change in front of male competitors face even stronger disincentives to publicly support sex-segregated sports.

Pequeño not only omits women’s concerns about sharing private spaces with men but takes pains to avoid legitimizing them.

In 2022, Lia Thomas, a male formerly known as Will, began swimming for the University of Pennsylvania’s women’s team. The NCAA’s clear favoritism for Thomas inspired Riley Gaines, a decorated NCAA swimmer who competed against him, to publicly oppose men in women’s sports.

To discredit Gaines, and to support her contention that women don’t care about men’s participation in women’s sports, Pequeño points to Olympian and Stanford swimmer Brooke Forde, who publicly stated she did not mind competing against Thomas in 2022.

“You might remember how Riley Gaines, one of the women who competed against Thomas, made an entire career out of complaining about her fellow competitor, even though the two women tied for fifth place at the 2022 NCAA Division I Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships,” Pequeño snipes.

“I think Forde’s opinion on the matter deserved, and failed to receive, equal attention.”

I think Pequeño failed to pay equal attention to more recent testimony from Paula Scanlon and other UPenn swimmers.

Scanlon and her teammates shared a locker room with Thomas every day. When she, a survivor of sexual assault, and others expressed discomfort changing in front of him, the University offered them therapy to “become more comfortable sharing previously sex-segregated spaces with members of the opposite sex.”

Either way, Thomas’ presence was non-negotiable. The University intimated Scanlon would regret going to the media.

Scanlon told Independent Women’s Forum:

In a lot of ways, my experience of being assaulted helped me see very quickly what was so wrong about having to undress in front of and be teammates with a male. It opened me up to seeing this situation on my swim team for what it was — I understood going through something that was unjust, I understood the feeling of your voice being drowned out by a million people.

Dozens of women, including Gaines, have voiced stories like Scanlon’s. Last week, high school swimmer Lilian Hammond described unknowingly changing in front of a male.

“It wasn’t until the last meet that I realized, ‘Oh, that is a trans person,’ and by that point it was too late,” Hammond told Fox. She continued:

I felt betrayed by the adults and the coaches on the other team that let it happen without my consent and my knowledge. I felt very violated knowing that a man could have seen me changing.

At the last two school board meetings in California’s Lucia Mar Unified School District, athletes have complained about sharing locker rooms with men. One woman now changes in her car. The other recounted:

I went into the women’s locker room to change for track practice where I saw, at the end of my row, a biological male watching not only myself, but the other young women undress. This experience was beyond traumatizing.

Women and girls have been reduced to begging for sex-segregated locker rooms. When they do, hundreds of hecklers like Pequeño call them “transphobic.” It doesn’t take a wizard to figure out why women might choose to hug AB Hernandez rather than make him, or his rabid supporters, mad.

Pequeño’s omissions, errors and outdated data suggest one of two things — either she didn’t do her research, or she’s not interested in hearing objections to boys’ participation in girls sports.

In either case, the columnist is entirely unqualified, and arguably negligent, to conclude women and girls “don’t seem too worried” about competing against men.

Additional Articles and Resources

Girls Shouldn’t Apologize for Protesting Boys in Girls Sports

Female Athletes Challenge Minnesota Policy Forcing Them to Compete Against Males

Education Department Finds UPenn Violated Title IX & Women’s Rights

Minnesota Lawsuit Advances Shockingly Poor Attack on Title IX

Attorney General Pam Bondi Sues Maine for Title IX Violations

USA Fencing Explicitly Prioritizes Men’s Feelings over Women’s Safety and Athletic Achievement

ADF Files Civil Rights Complaints to protect Female Athletes, Parents

Olympic Track and Field protects Women. Why Won’t Other Sports Do the Same?

Girls Sports Coaches are Incentivize to Recruit Men — Parents Shouldn’t Let Them

Maine Schools Violated Title IX, Must Apologize, Feds Say

Olympic Women’s Boxing Champ is Officially a Man

Shoving Girls of the Podium: More Male Athletes Participating in Girls Sports

Four Women’s Volleyball Teams Forfeit—Won’t Play Team with a Man

Cringe: Simone Biles Erupts at Riley Gaines for ‘Bullying’ Boys in Girls Sports

Olympic gymnast Simone Biles erupted at Riley Gaines on social media Friday, accusing the former NCAA swimmer of bullying transgender-identified boys in girls sports and shaming her for being too masculine.

You read that right.

The contentious exchange kicked off after Marissa Rothenberger, a boy, led the Champlin Park Rebels to a 6-0 shutout victory in the Minnesota girls high school softball championship on June 6.

Gaines, who had been sounding the alarm on Rothenberger’s participation in a girls league for weeks, immediately criticized the Rebels’ win.

“To be expected when your star player is a boy,” she wrote in one tweet, reposting a picture of the team holding the trophy.

Apparently, Biles had had enough.

Biles’ rant references Gaines’ race against Lia, formerly Will, Thomas — a man — in the 2022 NCAA championships. The two tied for fifth place in the 200-meter freestyle.

After castigating Gaines for bullying, Biles concluded:

Gaines, no stranger to attacks like Biles’, posted a blistering rebuttal Saturday, which you can watch here.

Biles’ comments deserve the strictest scrutiny. If she supports stripping female athletes of sex segregated sports, which she has excelled in, she should offer a darn good reason why.

If she has one, Biles’ posts do not articulate it.  

Exhibit A — her concluding line.

“Bully someone your own size, which would ironically be a male.”

Strong arguments don’t lean on insults, so not an ideal finish. It’s also just … a bad insult.

So, Gaines looks like a dude — why? Because she’s muscular, like Biles? For a post ostensibly “uplifting” people who believe sex doesn’t matter, or even exist, Biles chose a remarkably sex-centric conclusion —one that acknowledges men are built differently than women and, ironically, insults her own physique.

Ill-advised insults aside, Biles contends Gaines uses her platform to improperly “bully” transgender-identified athletes. As Biles sees it, Gaines should be “uplifting” transgender-identified athletes or find a way to include them in sports.

Biles’ argument smacks of hypocrisy. She bullies Gaines in the name of stopping Gaines’ bullying. And, in her myopic focus on trashing the former swimmer, Biles gets some crucial facts wrong.

Biles calls Gaines a sore loser, implying she began “bullying” boys in girls sports because she tied with Thomas in 2022. But, in interview after interview, Gaines has cited her interaction with NCAA officials after the race, when Thomas received the only trophy “for photo purposes,” as the moment that galvanized her opposition to men in women’s sports.

In a 2022 interview with the Daily Wire, Gaines even claimed she had no problem with Thomas himself, only the NCAA’s automatic prioritization of gender confused athletes.

Gaines’ experience illustrates the ways men’s participation in women’s sports diminishes the athletic accolades and accomplishments of women. Biles sidesteps this facet of the argument entirely.

In addition to her initial mischaracterization of Gaines, Biles relies on two implicit assumptions to prosecute her case: that advocating for sex-segregated sports is bullying and that allowing boys to play in girls sports is uplifting.

Both are wrong.

Advocating for sex-segregated sports is not bullying — it’s an acknowledgement of biological reality. Congress recognized the same reality in 1972 with the establishment of Title IX. Sex-segregated sports were necessary, legislators understood, because women could not compete with the physicality of their male peers.

In a world without male and female leagues, women would warm the bench, if they were lucky.

Biles herself seemed to acknowledge as much in 2017, tweeting:

Allowing boys to compete in girls sports cannot be called “uplifting” to gender confused boys, in part, because their victory is at the expense of girls’ athletic opportunities and accomplishments — not to mention their privacy and safety.

Biles conspicuously fails to address women’s concerns about sharing private spaces with intact males, as NCAA swimmers were forced to do with Thomas. Her failure to empathize with athletes like Paula Scanlon, Lilian Hammond, Gaines and others affected by changing in front of a male is particularly disappointing given Biles own experience with sexual assault.

Biles competes in one of the few sports in which a man may not have an automatic competitive advantage, at least in some events. Perhaps that’s why she feels comfortable airing her thoughts on social media.

But, as one of the most successful and recognizable female athletes in the world, Biles should endeavor to think before she tweets. Attacking one of the foremost protectors of girls sports without explaining why future athletes should be deprived of the sex-segregated sports Biles succeeded in is tone deaf — at best.

Additional Articles and Resources

Girls Shouldn’t Apologize for Protesting Boys in Girls Sports

Female Athletes Challenge Minnesota Policy Forcing Them to Compete Against Males

Education Department Finds UPenn Violated Title IX & Women’s Rights

Minnesota Lawsuit Advances Shockingly Poor Attack on Title IX

Attorney General Pam Bondi Sues Maine for Title IX Violations

USA Fencing Explicitly Prioritizes Men’s Feelings over Women’s Safety and Athletic Achievement

ADF Files Civil Rights Complaints to protect Female Athletes, Parents

Olympic Track and Field protects Women. Why Won’t Other Sports Do the Same?

Girls Sports Coaches are Incentivize to Recruit Men — Parents Shouldn’t Let Them

Maine Schools Violated Title IX, Must Apologize, Feds Say

Olympic Women’s Boxing Champ is Officially a Man

Shoving Girls of the Podium: More Male Athletes Participating in Girls Sports

Four Women’s Volleyball Teams Forfeit—Won’t Play Team with a Man

Nebraska Becomes 26th State to Protect Girls and Women’s Sports

Nebraska became the 26th state to protect girls and women’s K-12 and collegiate sports after Governor Jim Pillen signed “The Stand for Women Act” earlier this week.

The bill allows for all male, all female and coed teams in school sports.

Although many transgender and media activists call such legislation “transgender bans,” these commonsense laws don’t even mention transgenderism. They are grounded in science, defining male and female based on reproductive capacity, not spurious gender ideology.

Alliance Defending Freedom Legal Counsel Erica O’Connell commended the legislature and governor for “passing this critical bill,” adding:

Letting men intrude on women and girls sports teams is an invasion of privacy, a threat to their safety, and a denial of the real biological differences between the sexes.

Nebraska is right to ensure that female athletes of all ages have a fair and level playing field and protect the safety and dignity of women and girls.

Legislative Bill 89 originally included provisions restriction school restrooms and locker rooms based on sex, but those were removed to assure the bill’s passage.

The Nebraska Examiner reported that state Sen. Merv Riepe, who objected to sex-segregated facilities being mandated by the legislature, said, “I did not run for office to become part of the ‘Nebraska State Potty Patrol.’”

The act’s sponsor, Senator Katheen Kauth, said she’ll try again to protect the privacy, dignity and safety of all students by introducing a bill in 2026 that mandate’s separate facilities in schools. The Examiner quoted her saying, “The work is not done. We’re going to continue.”

LB 89 is based on the reality of innate differences between the two sexes, as the legislation explains:

Males and females possess unique and immutable differences that manifest prior to birth and increase as they age and experience puberty.

Differences between the sexes are enduring and may, in some circumstances, warrant the creation of separate social, educational, athletic, or other spaces in order to ensure safety and to allow members of each sex to succeed and thrive.

The act lists some of the physical advantages for males, noting they have “on average, a larger body size with more skeletal muscle mass, a lower percentage of body fat, and a greater maximal delivery of anaerobic and aerobic energy.”

Noting the “significant sports performance gap between the sexes,” LB 89 further states:  

Even at young ages, males typically score higher than females on cardiovascular endurance, muscular strength, muscular endurance, and speed and agility. These differences become more pronounced during and after puberty as males produce higher levels of testosterone. On average, male athletes are bigger, faster, stronger, and more physically powerful than their female counterparts.

The new law explains that these natural advantages are not erased when males suppress testosterone and take female hormones.

It’s unfair and even dangerous to allow males to compete in girls and women’s sports. We at the Daily Citizen are grateful that more and more states, as well as the federal government, are moving to protect their athletic achievements, along with their health, dignity and privacy.

Related Resources and Articles:

Don’t Let the Media Deceive You About Trump’s Order Protecting Female Athletes

Feds Pressure California After Boy Wins in Girls Track and Field Championship

House Passes Bill Protecting Women and Girls in Sports

NYT Poll Finds Almost 80% of Americans Oppose Men in Women’s Sports

Payton McNabb, Injured Volleyball Player, Wins Title IX Victory

Senate Democrats Block Bill to Save Women’s Sports Trump Signs Executive Order Protecting Women’s Sports and Spaces

Image from Gov. Jim Pillan

Feds Pressure California After Boy Wins in Girls Track and Field Championship

California played a high stakes game of chicken with the federal government over Title IX enforcement last week, culminating in a boy winning two girls state track and field titles on Saturday.

Now, California officials’ commitment to “inclusivity” could cost the state billions in federal funding.

California planted itself on the Department of Education’s (DOE) radar in February after the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) publicly vowed to defy “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” — an executive order prohibiting boys from playing girls sports in programs that receive federal funding.

President Trump signed the order on February 6. One day later, CIF told Fox it would follow California Education Code Section 221.5(f), which reads:

A pupil shall be permitted to participate in sex-segregated school programs and activities, including athletic teams and competitions, and use facilities consistent with his or her gender identity, irrespective of the gender listed on the pupil’s records.

The Department of Education launched an investigation into CIF in February for its statements. After months with no news, the conflict drifted out of public focus.

It exploded back into the media in mid-May, when AB Hernandez, a boy, began dominating girls high school track and field events in California ahead of the state championship.

As of May 13, Hernandez led the state in girls triple and long jump. In regional championships, he won the triple jump by “nearly seven feet,” according to Sports Illustrated, the long jump by more than three feet and the high jump by a foot.

Not surprisingly, Hernandez won state titles in the women’s high jump and triple jump at the championship on May 31, 2025. He took second place in the long jump.

Sophia Lorey is the outreach director at California Family Council, a Focus on the Family-allied family policy council. CIF officials escorted Lorey out of the state championships for passing out “Save Girls Sports” wristbands to fans.

“What I witnessed at the California State Track and Field Championships was not progress, it was the erasure of girls sports,” Lorey told the Daily Citizen of her experience.

“Watching two girls share one of the biggest moments of their athletic careers with a male competitor was a painful reminder of how far we’ve strayed from truth and fairness.”

But CIF didn’t just wreck female competitors’ athletic ambitions by allowing Hernandez to compete — it played fast and loose with the state’s federal education funding.

On May 27, just days before the competition, President Donald Trump weighed in on social media.

“California … continues to illegally allow men to play in women’s sports,” he wrote, citing Hernandez’s qualification for state finals.

The president continued:

This is not fair and totally demeaning to women and girls. Please be hereby advised that large scale funding will be held back, maybe permanently, if the executive order on this subject matter is not adhered to.

“This is a totally ridiculous situation!!!” he emphatically concluded.

CIF clearly thought the President meant some kind of business. It expeditiously issued a rule change bumping girls who competed against Hernandez to the place, or medal, they would have received in a race without boys. CIF also invited girls that had been bumped out of contention by Hernandez to participate in the championship.

But Hernandez still competed. He still beat his female peers. Rightful winners shared the podium with him at award ceremonies.

On May 28, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced it would be joining DOE’s investigation against CIF for violating Title IX.

“My office has found reasonable cause to believe that CIF… is engaging in a pattern or practice of discrimination against female athletes,” Harmeet K. Dhillon, assistant attorney general for the DOJ’s Department of Civil Rights Investigations, wrote in a letter to the organization.

Dhillon cites CIF Bylaw 300.D, which reads:

All students should have the opportunity to participate in CIF activities in a manner that is consistent with their gender identity, irrespective of the gender listed on a student’s records.

“As a result of CIF’s policy,” she continues, “California’s top-ranked girls triple jumper, and second-ranked girls long jumper [AB Hernandez] is a boy.”

CIF wasn’t the only group Dhillon implicated. In the same letter, she announced her office would also investigate whether CIF, the California Department of Education, Jurupa Union School District (Hernandez’ district) and “any applicable state laws” had violated girls’ constitutional right to equal protection under the law

The Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads, in part:

No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States … nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of laws.

A press release from Dhillon’s office helps contextualize the DOJ’s Fourteenth Amendment investigation. In August 2013, then-Governor Jerry Brown signed Assembly Bill 1266, which created the California Education Code allowing students to participate in sports according to their “gender identity,” rather than their sex.

Dhillon’s probe indicates the DOJ is exploring whether to challenge AB 1266, and all its resulting codes and bylaws, in court as unconstitutional.

But that’s later down the line. Right now, California and the feds seem preoccupied with the state’s apparent violations of “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports.”

If guilty, the state’s federal education funding, which totaled $10 billion in FY 2024, could be on the line.

President Trump certainly seems to think so. On Monday, he promised “large-scale fines would be imposed [on California]” via Truth Social.

California State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Tony Thurmond, seems equally convinced financial consequences aren’t imminent.

“Let’s be clear: sending a letter does not change the law,” Thurmond told ABC7 News on Tuesday. “The DOJ’s letter to school districts does not announce any new federal law, and the state law on this issue has remained unchanged since 2013.”

In the meantime, advocates like Lorey and California Family Council will continue whipping up support for women and girls.

“This isn’t just about sports,” Lorey emphasized. “It’s about truth, safety and the future of female opportunity.”

“If we don’t stand up now, we risk losing what generations of women fought to earn.”

Additional Articles and Resources

Girls Shouldn’t Apologize for Protesting Boys in Girls Sports

Supreme Court Protects Maine Rep’s Right to Vote, Defend Girls Sports

Education Department Finds UPenn Violated Title IX & Women’s Rights

Minnesota Lawsuit Advances Shocking Poor Attacks on Title IX

Attorney General Pam Bondi Sues Maine for Title IX Violations

Department of Education Launches Multiple Investigations Into Title IX Violations

Department of Justice Launches Title IX Task Force to Protect Women’s Sports

Maine Schools Violated Title IX, Must Apologize, Feds Say

On 50th Anniversary of Title IX, Groups Fight to Protect Women’s Sports

Poll Finds Majority of Americans Want Transgender Athletes to Play on Team of Birth Sex

Trump Signs Executive Order Protecting Women’s Sports and Spaces