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.’
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‘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.’
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.
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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.’
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.
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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.
* Original Article:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14194217/amp/Riley-Gaines-spelling-bee-alternative-spelling-womyn.html?ito=smartnews
