transgender

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

Some Companies Back Away From LGBT Pride – Parents Should Still Be Watchful

Corporations are providing less support for LGBT pride month this year, leading some activist groups to scale down their celebrations of sexual sin and brokenness.

But parents should still be mindful; it’s very easy for families to stumble across LGBT parades, events and merchandise. Parents will want to plan ahead to protect their children as much as possible from exposure to sexually confusing, inappropriate subjects.

One study, from Gravity Research’s “Pride Pulse Poll,” surveyed leaders across Fortune 500 and Global 1000 companies about their anticipated corporate involvement in pride month. The survey found:

  • Scaled-Back Visibility: 39% of companies plan to reduce Pride-related engagement in 2025. Notably, no respondents reported plans to increase engagement.
  • Quiet Internal Continuity: Despite pullbacks in external-facing efforts like event sponsorships and social media branding, internal initiatives – such as workplace activities or partnerships with employee resource groups – remain largely intact.
  • Backlash Planning in Progress: 65% of respondents say they are actively preparing for backlash, crafting reactive communication strategies and training HR teams to manage internal sentiment.

The Advocate, an LGBT activist magazine, noted one of the reasons for this reduced support was that companies were abandoning “diversity, equity and inclusion” programs. As this occurred, “Many also axed their commitments to LGBTQ+ Pride Month.”

The news outlet listed 14 corporations that “have stopped or scaled back sponsorship” of pride parades and activities, including Anheuser-Busch, Citi, Comcast, Garnier, Lowes, Mastercard, Nissan, PepsiCo, Target and Walmart.

Anheuser-Busch, for example, stopped sponsoring pride events in St. Louis, San Francisco and Columbus, while in New York City, “Hair care company Garnier was one of the four ‘Platinum’ donors that has withdrawn its support in 2025,” The Advocate reported.

Over at the conservative news and opinion outlet Red State, Senior Reporter Brandon Morse wrote:

“Major businesses that once plastered their logos with the Pride flag the moment June 1 rolled around have kept their logos virtue-signal-free.”

Morse listed Microsoft, IBM, Xbox, Target and Starbucks as companies no longer including LGBT symbols in their logos.

Despite this pullback by some companies, parents should be aware that pride events are still happening across the U.S. throughout June – and not only this month, as the LGBT calendar and events now stretch from January to December. In addition, many stores carry LGBT merchandise year-round.

It’s no longer a question of “if” children will encounter homosexuality and transgenderism in the culture – it’s “when” will they do so. So here are a few ideas, along with some resource suggestions, to help parents keep their children grounded in truth and protect them from sexually confusing ideology.

1. Teach your children God’s good design for humanity and marriage, before they encounter damaging and false ideas. In age appropriate ways, help children understand the basics: God created humans male and female; He designed marriage to be between a husband and wife; and a married mom and dad provide the best, safest place for raising children.

Simple conversations about these issues should take place earlier than you might think, as children can be exposed to these issues at very young ages. Remember, too, that this should be an ongoing conversation as they grow and mature.

2. Plan ahead as you travel and visit different cities. It’s easy to check online and avoid areas where LGBT parades and celebrations are taking place.

3. When your children encounter harmful teaching and images about sexuality, stay calm and cool, and discuss what happened. Listen to what they say, ask questions and assure them that they did nothing wrong – but the people who exposed them to these things were wrong to do so.

If you’re angry, acknowledge this to them, but offer assurance that you’re not upset with them, you love and care about them, but you are unhappy about what happened to them.

If they’ve seen destructive sexual behaviors or images, pray over them, asking God to cleanse their minds and protect them.

4. Make sure you’ve also taught your children about God’s plan for salvation. Talk with them about God’s good creation, how people disobeyed Him and sinned, and about His plan of salvation for all of us. Remind your kids that God loves everyone – even those who get caught in sinful behaviors – and He helps people get freedom from sin.

How you manage these subjects will depend upon their age, of course, but your children need to know it’s always safe to talk with you about difficult issues.

Focus on the Family and the Daily Citizen have resources to help parents (and grandparents and other concerned adults) understand LGBT issues and respond to questions from children in healthy, non-reactive ways. We also have resources for those navigating these issues with a family member or friend.

Related Articles and Resources

Counseling Consultations and Referrals

Five Things for Christians to Remember During ‘LGBT Pride Month’

Focus on the Family: Parenting

Focus on the Family Resources: Sex Education

How to Talk to Your Children About Homosexuality: A guide for parents

How to Teach Your Children About Marriage: Creative and practical ideas

Navigating ‘LGBT Pride Month’ – How Should Parents Respond?

Raising Children Who Honor Marriage: What you should know 

The Talk: Healthy Sexuality Education – Basic Goals and Guidance from Focus on the Family

Transgender Resources

Understanding Homosexuality

When Transgender Issues Enter Your World: How Christians can respond with compassion, courage and truth

Image from Shutterstock.

Man Pretending to Be Woman Invades Women’s Privacy at Disney World

A man pretending to be a woman could face legal action in Florida for violating women’s privacy.

Social media influencer Lilly Tino, a male formerly known as Nicholas Contino, visited Disney World in May, where he filmed some of his favorite kinds of content — humiliating food service workers for calling him “sir” and using food to demonstrate graphic transgender surgeries.

He also posted selfies of himself in ten different women’s bathrooms. Four pictures clearly include other women in the background.

The pictures are part of several pieces of content Tino produced to determine if Disney World had “inclusive” restrooms. In each selfie, he rates the facility based on how women react to him in their private space.

“Animal kingdom entry: 3/10,” the caption on one picture reads. “Someone gave me a weird look when I walked in which felt icky.”

Women caught in the background of Tino’s pictures also felt “icky.” Reduxx reports at least one is exploring her legal options, because she does not know what other footage Tino may have taken.

The victim’s social media account has since been made private.

Florida law protects citizens from being filmed or pictured while “dressing, undressing or privately exposing the body” in places where people have “a reasonable expectation to privacy” — including bathrooms.

Tino doesn’t believe he broke the law.

“Literally every celebrity you’ve ever enjoyed on screen has at one point taken a bathroom selfie,” Tino argued in a TikTok addressing the controversy, pulling up pictures of female celebrities in bathrooms. Notably, none contained other women.

“It’s not just celebrities,” Tino continued, erroneously contending, “Any woman you ever meet has likely taken a photo in a public bathroom … because we look cute and we want to document it.”

He concludes people have singled him out because he looks like a man.

He doesn’t just look like a man — he is one. And he’s right, women discriminate against men who use their bathrooms because men aren’t supposed to be there. Tino is not exempt from deeply ingrained social and anthropological expectations of privacy because he is a “woman” in his own mind.

Women are perhaps even more suspicious of Tino, however, because of his creepy behavior on and off the internet.

He is notorious for graphic videos discussing his genitalia and bathroom habits, interspersed with TikToks addressing children. In one infamous case, Tino dressed as a popular children’s personality, Ms. Rachel, to “teach” children about pronouns.

Perhaps most troublingly, Tino visibly enjoys inspiring and observing discomfort in women. After his most recent escapade, a TikToker described encountering him in a Disney World bathroom “several years ago.”

“After [Tino] washed his hands…I [noticed he] did a lot of idle standing.” she recalls.

“At that point in time, there was no rhyme or reason for [him] to be there. It was almost as if [he was] in there to make a statement, or, in a way, hoping someone would say something.”

He probably was. Tino makes money off social media videos of himself confronting anyone who looks at him funny or calls him sir. He freely admits to violating women’s boundaries to “normalize” men invading their private spaces.

Regardless of his intentions, the TikToker concludes Tino’s conduct was “extremely inappropriate” and that he has “no business in Disney World as a whole.”

As of Wednesday afternoon, neither Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier nor Governor Ron DeSantis have addressed Tino’s behavior or indicated legal action may be taken. Netizens, however, have started petitions to ban him from Disney and TikTok.

“We call upon TikTok to carefully evaluate Lilly Tino’s presence on their platform, considering the broad consensus that [his] actions may not align with community guidelines,” the petition to kick Tino off TikTok reads, citing concerns about his behavior at Disney and content he creates for minors.

The petition to keep Tino out of Disney parks argues Tino damages the “morale and spirit of both the staff and visitors” by “engaging in [inappropriate] behavior in and around Disney Parks, [including] discussing topics like [his] genitals in areas populated by children and families.”

“Deliberate attempts to film and speak negatively about Disney and their employees further damage the morale and spirit of both the staff and visitors,” it concludes.

At the time of publishing, nearly 373,000 and 9,400 people, respectively, had signed the petitions.

Lilly Tino’s bathroom crusade isn’t about inclusivity — it’s about controlling and humiliating women in spaces meant to make them feel safe. He must not be allowed to use his sexual identity confusion, real or alleged, to justify his unacceptable behavior.

Additional Articles and Resources

NSA Sex Chats Reveal Nature of Gender Ideology

‘Transgender Means Many Different Things’ — And Nothing

Dylan Mulvaney’s New Song Puts Sexist Tropes to a Bubblegum Pop Tune

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