Stephen A's Take: Stephen A responds to Simone Biles standing up for Trans Athletes!

Stephen A. Smith is a New York Times Bestselling Author, Executive Producer, host of ESPN's First Take, and co-host of NBA Countdown. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Now I want to get to a story that caught
my attention this past weekend, and that's the class between
olympian Simone Biles and Raleigh Gaines over the inclusion of
transgender athletes in women's sports. Gaines is a former NCAA
swimmer turned conservative pundit who joined a lawsuit against the
NCAA in March of twenty twenty four. The suit for

(00:24):
more than a dozen athletes accused the NCAA of violating
their Title nine rights while allowing transgender swimmer Leah Thomas
to compete at the national championships in twenty twenty two,
Gaines and Thomas tied for fifth, but only Thomas was
awarded the fifth place trophy for the two hundred yard freestyle.
Fast forward to last week, where Gaines spoke out against
another transgender athlete. Gaines targeted a Minnesota state high school

(00:49):
league for not allowing comments on their post about the
Chaplain Park girls team celebrating the state championships. Chaplin Park's
team includes a trans athlete, that prompted Simon Biles to
post this about Gains quote, You're truly sick all of
this campaigning because you lost the race, straight up sore loser.
You should be uplifting the trans community and perhaps finding

(01:11):
a way to make sports inclusive, or creating a new
avenue where trans people feel safe in sports. Instead you
bully them. One thing's for sure is no one in
sports is safe with you around end quote. Gains responded
to Biles in follow up posts, saying the seven time
gold medalist stance on transgender athletes was disappointing and labeled

(01:33):
her a quote male apologist at the expense of young
girl's dreams end quote. Then she went here, bringing in
Larry Nasser, a former national team doctor who sexually abused
a multiple US gymnasts, including Biles, under the guise of
medical treatment. She wrote, quote all the horrific sexual abuse

(01:55):
Simon Biles witnessed and spoke out against caused by one
man believes women should be forced to strip naked in
front of men to validate the man's feelings. You know
how many gold medals you'd have if your inclusive dream
came true? Zero? End quote, respectfully, Gains, I was with

(02:15):
you until that last quote. Respectfully, that's going a bit
too far. Talking about transgender women competing in sports is
one issue. Using a guy like Larry Nasser, one of
the most despicable human beings we've ever witnessed on this earth,

(02:40):
who molested and abused numerous women, numerous gymnasts, including Biles,
And to go that low gains you lost all credibility.
You could have made your argument without going that far.
No matter what Simone Biles said to you, how she

(03:01):
may disagree with you on your position, did not warrant
you to go that far. Certainly you're not suggesting that
it was okay for her to be molested. Certainly you're
not suggesting it was okay for her to be abused.
So why would you say something like that that's just cruel.
Just because she says something that hurt your feelings didn't

(03:22):
mean that you had to double down on it by
being a gazillion times worse, which Riley gains is what
you are at this particular moment of time. I'm speaking
specifically about you going that far. Having said that, the
points that you made to some Biles outside of the

(03:44):
Larry Nasa comment that shit gives us all cause to pause.
The reality is is that it is a disservice to
women in a lot of people's eyes that men transitioning
to women get to compete in women's sports. Leah Thomas

(04:06):
was a perfect example. Her highest ranking at the time,
her highest ranking as a male participant was like five
hundred and fifty fourth in the world. He transitioned into
being a woman and it was top ten. That speaks

(04:28):
for itself. You're born, you got an x Y chromosome.
It is what it is. It's different, and the reality
is is that there are an abundance of women out
there who have a right to feel the way that
Raleigh Gains feels Simone Biles. Now, whether it's right for
me or somebody else to say, it's a different argument.

(04:51):
But in the age that we're living in with Title
nine in existence, with us being protective of fairness and
equal rights and equal opportunity to women, to then piggyback
off of that and follow up on that years later
by allowing transgender athletes transitioning from male to female to

(05:12):
compete against women doesn't appear to be fair. And when
we lean on this argument about fear, fear fear, wait
a minute, somebody's not talking about your civil liberties. Somebody's
not talking about equality, somebody's not talking about those things. Living,
you allowing you to live and let live. They're talking
about competition in sports, and if you allow somebody to

(05:34):
compete in swimen, it's not gonna stop you from allowing
them to compete in boxing. It's not gonna allow you
to dis allot of competing in other sports. I remember
years ago when Ronda Ralsei joked about how she when
she was undefeated before a man, the newness put it
on her. No disrespect to Ronda Ralsey, but she was
talking about how she could beat Floyd Money Mayweather. Now

(05:58):
come on, now we now know what would have happened
to her. We knew it before, but we certainly knew
after what we saw on a Manda Nuna's do to
her and Holly Holmes, by the way, before that, we
saw that. We know that in most instances, even though

(06:18):
there are women that could beat some men out there,
buy and large, the elite women don't deserve to be
competing against the elite men. And by deserve, I mean
I'm not talking about warranted based on their credentials. I'm
talking about based on their gender. You shouldn't be competing
against men. I don't want to see a claricians shields
in the boxing ring against the Terrence Crawford or Tamorrow

(06:39):
Charlow or Canilo Alvarez. I don't want to see one
of these ladies in UFC going up against morob I
don't want to see them going up against I don't

(07:00):
want to see somebody going up against John Jones that's
a female. So when we're talking about it from that premise,
it's one thing for ladies to look at somebody like
me or somebody say who are you? It's another thing
entirely for ladies to be looking at ladies acting like
ladies don't have a right to feel like there's a

(07:20):
disadvantage for them if they're going up against a male
transitioning to female. We can't have it all, ladies and gentlemen.
We can't handle. We can't have it all. In my
if you ask me my preference, I hope a whole
bunch of men transitioning to women come out of the woodwork,

(07:46):
so we can have men going up against men, women
going up against women, and transgenders going up against transgenders.
That's fair. But what Riley Gaines is talking about does
seem a bit unfair, and she has a right to

(08:08):
express those thoughts without Simon Biles coming at her that
way just because she lost. She's talking about an unfair advantage,
and there's no one that can really dispute that if
you are male transitioning to female, that there is an

(08:30):
unfair advantage. I don't see women transitioning into men trying
to compete in men's sports. If it's happened, and I've
missed it, I've apologized, but I've missed it. I haven't
seen that. I haven't seen that. Sage still my former
colleague at ESPN, a conservative pundit, she had her own

(08:53):
thoughts on this matter, and let's read what she had
to say here. Easy to say this, Simon Bob, when
you only had to compete against fellow women, every one
of your Olympic medals came competing against fellow women. Raleigh
Gaines was not only forced to compete against a man,
but forced to share a locker room with a man.
That is sick, shocked, and disappointed that you'd attack another

(09:16):
woman who has done nothing but uplift other women. If
you think it makes sense to create a league for
trans people, go for it, use that huge platform of yours,
But to attack Raleigh for what she has done for
little girls who want to be the next Simone Biles
is sick. Maybe I would have used the other word

(09:38):
other than sick or whatever. But it's not like Sage
Steel is wrong. Based on what she described and the
facts that we know, Raley Gaines is perfectly within our
right to have the opinion that she had, as she's
an American citizen who's using the courts to make her argument,
which is what we do in our democratics. Whether you

(10:02):
like it or not, some mobiles, that's just the truth.
I respect where you're coming from. I respect your passion
the lookout for those you feel are being victimized by
a large segment of our population. I understand that. But
there are a lot of young ladies out there who
were born women that feel this is a flagrantly unfair advantage.

(10:30):
What about their feelings? What about theirs?