Riley Gaines announces pregnancy, reflects on Simone Biles

All-American swimmer Riley Gaines proudly held up ultrasound photos and revealed her baby bump during a Turning Point USA event after she jokingly referenced her recent spat with Simone Biles.

In a Sunday post on her Instagram page, Gaines revealed that she is 26 weeks pregnant and expecting a baby girl, adding that “God is SO good all the time.”

Gaines, who married Louis Barker in 2022, spoke during TPUSA’s Young Women’s Leadership Summit in Texas on Saturday, where she reflected on the future she aspires to create for her daughter.

The advocate has fiercely opposed allowing men who identify as female to compete in women’s sports, which resulted in a public debate on X with Olympic gymnast Simone Biles earlier this month.

At the beginning of her TPUSA speech, Gaines recalled feeling excitement at first when she learned that the Olympic gymnast had tagged her in a social media post, hopeful that it meant Biles was “answering the call” to defend women’s sports. 

“Imagine my face when this is what I read after clicking on this notification: ‘You’re truly sick, all of this campaigning because you lost a race. Straight up sore loser,'” Gaines said, reading from the gymnast’s X post on June 6. 

The gold medalist also accused Gaines of bullying trans-identifying athletes, adding, “One thing [is] for sure is no one in sports is safe with you around!!!!!” In a separate X post, Biles also told Gaines to “[B]ully someone your own size, which would ironically be a male.”

Biles made the remarks after Gaines highlighted the Champlin Park Rebels on her X page, noting that the Minnesota State High School League removed the ability for people to comment on the announcement that the team had won a state championship. The women’s sports advocate suggested that the reason is that one of the players on the girls’ softball team is a male who identifies as female. 

While the Olympic gymnast has since apologized for making things personal with Gaines, who accepted the apology, Gaines said during her TPUSA speech that the “Pick on someone your own size” tweet from Biles had made her laugh.

“Number one, I don’t know if she realized that this is what she was doing; she was admitting that men and women are physically, biologically, and categorically different by that statement,” the women’s sports advocate said. 

The former collegiate swimmer also noted that she found it ironic if Biles, a woman who has faced “severe scrutiny” due to her body and muscular stature, was implying Gaines resembled a man due to her muscles. Gaines wondered if Biles meant to imply she resembled a man due to her height, with Gaines sharing that she’s 5’5, an average height for a woman.

“But I think the funniest thing about this to me and her saying, ‘Bully someone your own size, which would ironically be a man.'” Gaines paused for a moment as she withdrew a set of ultrasound photos from a white envelope on the podium. 

“How many men do you know that have this?” she asked, holding up the photos as she stepped out from behind the podium, revealing her baby bump to the audience. 

While she has always held pro-life beliefs, Gaines said that carrying a child has filled her with an “immovable obligation to defend the right to life.” Gaines called on lawmakers to defund the nation’s largest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood. 

She said the corporation normalizes “violence against the most vulnerable” and provides gender dysphoric minors with synthetic hormones. Gaines added that over the years, she realized there is a connection between her advocacy work and what she described as the abortion epidemic.

“Number one, it highlights the war on women and number two, it highlights the war on children,” Gaines explained.

“There is nothing more vulnerable than a child in the womb,” the new mom stressed. “This isn’t a fight about hate; it’s a fight about truth. It’s not about exclusion, it’s about protection. It’s not about politics; it’s about the type of world that we’re creating for my daughter.”

“So I’m going to keep fighting, not just, of course, as a mother or as an athlete or an activist, but now as a mother for life,” she said. “For women and for my daughter.”