Former USA gymnast Dee Foster-Whirley has publicly criticized USA Gymnastics for what she describes as a lack of principles in their approach to transgender athlete policies, calling the organization “pressure-driven and externally focus-driven versus being principle-driven.”
Speaking as a member of the ICONS Independent Council on Women’s Sports, Foster-Whirley shared her candid assessment after USA Gymnastics recently deleted its rules allowing males to compete in women’s categories and announced it would be reassessing its transgender policy.
“You can’t depend on any organization that does not stand on anything and doesn’t have actual values that they refuse to bend on,” Foster-Whirley stated during a recent interview.
The controversy comes amid a larger national debate about transgender athletes in women’s sports, recently highlighted by a social media exchange between Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles and former NCAA swimmer Riley Gaines.
When asked about this public disagreement, Foster-Whirley suggested Biles’ response wasn’t genuine: “I don’t think it was actually Simone Biles who gave the non-apology. I think it was her hand. It was one of the handlers who wrote an approved statement.”
She criticized the statement for using “buzzwords” like “inclusion” and “competitive equity,” adding, “It doesn’t really make any sense there.”
USA Gymnastics previously had a November 2020 announcement on its website stating the organization “would no longer require trans athletes to undergo sex reassignment, legal gender recognition and hormone therapy in order to compete in the gender category of their choosing.” This page, along with resources for transgender athletes, has since been deleted.
Foster-Whirley expressed concern about policies based on gender identity, saying, “The operative words here, I think, are gender identity of their choosing. That’s the furthest thing that needs to be included in any kind of conversation about sports and people having fair competition and meritocracy.”
She also criticized USA Gymnastics’ explanation that they are adjusting rules based on “the current legal landscape,” calling it “lazy code” for complying with Title IX as currently enforced under President Trump’s executive order.
“But as soon as there’s another president in office, we may change it back again and go back to just robbing athletes, robbing female gymnasts of reaping the harvest from the seeds they’ve sown with hard work, blood, sweat and tears,” Foster-Whirley concluded.
This debate occurs as multiple-time ADCC world champion Gordon Ryan also recently voiced support for Riley Gaines, writing on social media: “Wanna be gay? Be gay. Wanna be trans? Be trans. But if you’re gonna have males competing with women, let’s just abolish women’s sports rn. It’s just not fair.”
