Former MSNBC host Keith Olbermann asked former NCAA swimmer Riley Gaines to acknowledge that she was a terrible athlete in a post that is receiving backlash on social media.
“Can you just deal with reality and get over it?” Olbermann wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. “You sucked at swimming. “That’s why you lost.”
Gaines was linked to transgender swimmer Lia Thomas, a biological man and a former member of the University of Pennsylvania women’s swim team.
Olbermann was responding to a post Gaines made in defense of a “Women’s Bill of Rights,” which posits that “men and women possess immutable biological differences.”
Nebraska Governor Jim Pillen is reportedly the second US Governor to have established the “Bill of Rights for Women”, telling his constituents that it is “common sense that men do not belong in the exclusive spaces for women” on Wednesday.
Olbermann, a former MSNBC and ESPN host, was widely criticized for his mockery of Gaines’ athletic ability by former teammates and political commentators. Gaines herself responded to Olbermann for his comments.
“Ah, now it makes sense why you were fired from ESPN,” he wrote.
Former MSNBC host Keith Olbermann told former college swimmer Riley Gaines that she was a bad athlete. Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images
Olbermann’s post was in response to Gaines’ support for a “Women’s Bill of Rights.” AP Photo/Darren Abate
“Your political biases blind you, and dismissive opinions like yours encourage men to change in front of us,” former University of Pennsylvania swimmer Paula Scanlan told Olbermann. “Why not address the reality that women’s spaces are being invaded and many women are harmed by this narrative?”
Scanlan, who was on the same team as Thomas, has become a prominent supporter of women’s sports after saying she was forced to strip in front of Thomas in the locker room at the University of Pennsylvania.
Professor Emeritus Colin Wight shared a link to Gaines’ swimming resume, which included an SEC award for “Scholar-Athlete of the Year,” the 2022 “All America in 200 free” award, and even a “qualifier for the Olympic trials” in 2021.
Gaines tied with transgender swimmer Lia Thoams in the 2022 NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships. Photo by Rich von Biberstein/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
“Reality is in front of you,” Wight told Olbermann. And you are a nasty and ignorant man. “Bad at swimming.”
Washington Examiner contributor Kimberly Ross called Olbermann “sexist” for her attacks on Gaines.
“I’m sorry?” she wrote. “Her statement of hers should be directed to a guy named Lia Thomas. She sucks so much at swimming against biological men that she decided to identify as female just so she could win. How sexist and sad. Both you and ‘Lia’”.
Gaines has spoken about Thomas’ involvement in women’s sports. AP Photo/Josh Reynolds, File
Scanlan recently testified before a House Judiciary subcommittee on how the #MeToo movement, which once “empowered female victims to speak up” about abuse, she said, has fundamentally changed.
Similarly, she argued in an opinion piece for the Telegraph that the #MeToo movement “was absorbed, as has sadly been the case with many other women’s organizations in the United States, by the Democratic Party.”
Scanlan noted that she was forced to “relive” the “trauma of [her] sexual assault by undressing in front of” Thomas, but “women’s organizations” have apparently ignored sexual assault by transgender women.
Fox News’ Ryan Morik contributed to this report.
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Source: vtt.edu.vn