Riley Gaines has lashed out at a fellow athlete who mentioned it will be a “crime” to ban organic males from ladies’s sports activities.

The US collegiate swimming champion spoke up after Olympic basketball gold medallist Brittney Griner mentioned she would battle plans to make the observe unlawful.

House Republicans just lately stepped up their assault on male athletes who determine as feminine competing in ladies’s occasions with the announcement of the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act.

Calling the coverage an try to “protect basic fairness”, the invoice would prohibit transgender ladies from competing on ladies’s sports activities groups in faculties and universities that obtain public funding.

Griner, who got here out as a lesbian in 2013, was requested throughout a gathering with journalists for her response to invoice.

“That ranks high on the list of things I’ll be fighting for and speaking up against,” she mentioned.

“Everyone deserves the right to play. Everyone deserves the right to come here, sit in these seats, and feel safe. And not feel like there’s the threat, or they can’t be who they are, or like it’s just all eyes on them.

“I feel it is a crime to separate somebody for any cause. So I might be talking up towards that laws and people legal guidelines which are attempting to be handed, for certain.”

Gaines, who is well-known for her outspoken position on trans athletes competing in women’s sports, responded to Griner’s comments on Twitter.

“Which NBA crew would have @brittneygriner since apparently the overwhelming, apparent variations between women and men ought to merely be neglected?”, she wrote. “Heartbreaking to see athletically profitable ladies take this demeaning stance.

“And if we’re going to talk about crimes, Brittney…”

Griner was jailed for 9 years in Russia in 2022 after being arrested at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport when officers discovered hash oil in her baggage. She was launched in December as a part of a US-Russia prisoner trade deal.

Speaking to Fox News, Gaines mentioned: “Hearing Griner advocate for male inclusion in women’s sports, in women’s spaces, is just disingenuous.

“To me, realizing these ladies are completed enjoying, or are on the verge of being completed enjoying, they don’t have anything to lose.

“They would rather be kind and inclusive and virtue-signal, but in reality it’s not inclusive to allow men into our sports. It’s exclusive.

“I consider myself a modern-day feminist which means I acknowledge women deserve respect, equal opportunities and to have our rights upheld.

“Sex-protective rights are crucial. They should not be taken away by someone who simply hopes to be happy and claim the identity of a woman which you cannot just claim.”