Former Kentucky swimmer and vocal anti-trans activist Riley Gaines has torn into the Scripps National Spelling Bee for what she sees as a surrender to ‘fabricated issues’ in gender politics.
Gaines expressed outrage after it was revealed that the competition’s study list for third graders included the word ‘womyn’ as an alternative spelling for the word ‘women.’
The word ‘womyn,’ a spelling that originated in feminist movements as an effort to distance the term from its perceived association with the word ‘man.’
Gaines blasted the decision by the spelling bee organizers appearing on Fox News, framing the decision as a symptom of broader cultural decline.
‘How lucky are we to live in the United States of America, where the spelling of women, never mind the definition, has become a national debate,’ she said sounding exasperated.
‘These are fabricated issues created by people who believe they’re marginalized or oppressed — who I believe, quite frankly, want to be oppressed, when, in reality, [they] live in the greatest nation in the entire world. So totally manufactured outrage.’
Scripps’ claims the ‘womyn’ variant of the word is from the Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary which the competition uses for its official lexicon.
Indeed, the dictionary lists ‘womyn’ as a spelling ‘used in some feminist contexts.’
Former Kentucky swimmer and vocal anti-trans activist Riley Gaines has torn into the Scripps National Spelling Bee for what she sees as a surrender to ‘fabricated issues’ in gender politics.
The Scripps National Spelling Bee included the word ‘womyn’ as an allowed alternative spelling for the word ‘women’
Scripps has defended its choice to include the word while emphasizing that any spelling not marked as archaic or obsolete in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary is allowed to be used in the competition.
‘In building our study lists, we aim to include alternate spellings for any words that have them listed in Merriam-Webster,’ a Scripps spokesperson stated.
The Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary is the final authority and sole source for the spelling of all words offered in competition.’
But Gaines, who gained national attention for her vocal opposition to trans swimmer Lia Thomas, sees the inclusion of ‘womyn’ as part of a deeper cultural issue.
Drawing parallels to other high-profile cultural controversies, she also referenced the backlash over Budweiser’s collaboration with trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney in 2023, dismissing it as another example of corporate pandering.
Gaines mockingly described Mulvaney as ‘a man who they dressed as Audrey Hepburn.’
Gaines’ advocacy for biological women in sports has made her into a conservative political star
Riley Gaines, a former NCAA swimmer, campaigns against allowing trans athletes to compete in women’s sport. She is pictured in May of this year
Gaines mockingly described Mulvaney as ‘a man who they dressed as Audrey Hepburn’
Riley Gaines tied with trans woman Lia Thomas in the 200 Freestyle finals in the 2022 NCAA championships. Gaines gained national attention for her vocal opposition to Thomas
The alternative spelling also sparked a hypothetical scenario from Gaines, who questioned how a child in the competition would respond to being asked to define ‘women.’
‘Imagine a kid getting the word ‘women’ and asking for the definition,’ she quipped.
‘It would be this beautiful full-circle moment because those with little-to-no common sense have not been able to answer that question for years now.’
While Gaines’ believe the inclusion of the word is part of a broader cultural debate, Scripps reiterated that the inclusion of ‘womyn’ is neither a political statement nor an attempt to wade into any contentious discussion on gender discourse.
