Gotta wonder if that’s not a good thing for inclusion, a trans woman coming mid pack at crits is exactly the same as me coming mid pack to the point of being not news worthy. It’ll only be reported (positively or negatively depending on the journalist opinion) when they’re winning.
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People who really want fairness in sport will question the process early and often, people who wait to cry foul when a trans athlete wins are opportunists
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There is no “prevalence”. There are an extreme minority of cases that are receiving disproportionate coverage due to the developing nature of the issue.
*edit for typo…i am starting to really hate autocorrect on Apple products. 
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99.5% of us don’t actually care about the “point of interest” beyond watching a youtube vid. 99.5% of us will continue to support organised sport.
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Is it fair that I didn’t win the genetic lottery to have the capacity to be an elite-level pro? No, that’s not fair. Is it fair that one year I win a non-classed race because the competition is lesser, but the next year a Cat 1 shows up and now I have no chance of winning. No, that’s not fair. Things will never be “fair.” Winning is nice, but I think competing against ones best self is more rewarding for more people because everyone has a chance to win that. In that mindset, inclusion seems like a welcome priority.
It’s certainly easy for me to say. I’m a man and even if you considered the mens field to be an open field, inclusion will likely not have that much of an impact on me, but if you look at Keegan’s girlfriend Sophia beating almost all of a Cat 3 men’s racing field, you can see the value of the opportunity she had to race what she wanted to race. It’s a bit more complicated when discussing women’s fields because of the perceived and real advantages, but even so, I would say, you can’t control who shows up. You may not be the best in the field, but you can define goals for yourself that are rewarding regardless. Maybe I’m just not as competitive as I used to be in my younger days. My 4 year old son is ridiculously competitive so I see where I came from. But being 41 and kind of have seen that ship sail, I don’t see winning everything as the most important thing. It’s a fairly self-centered pursuit. I train every day so I can improve. And yes, I like comparing myself to others like most people, but it’s not my purpose.
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Old Podcast that I’d recommend if you’d like other thoughts on this topic:
Rachel McKinnon is the trans track cyclist mentioned at the opening (I believe she goes by a different name - sorry). Not only is she a part of the debate, she is highly educated on the matter.
Yeah, your first points are definitely something I think a bit about. Is a trans woman competing with cis gendered women the equivalent of say, someone with 5w/kg competing against <4 w/kg folks? I think people would argue that genetics is random whereas gender transitions are ‘choices’ but for trans folks I don’t think transitions are choices, and I think part of the issue is that people view gender transitions as decisions people take lightly but in reality are complex navigation of so many factors.
And going on a tangent on participation in sports, a local crit last weekend had only 7 participants in the women’s 4/5 field, and one masters +55, whereas mens 4/5 had 53 and the masters 55 field had 31 participants. As an outsider, I would love to see greater participation in those fields, and trans participation can only help in that regard, I would like to believe. I think, yes, we’ll see examples like above where a transwoman might excel at lower cats but may level out eventually. The example of McKinnon is mentioned above, here are her road results, she definitely started off excelling against lower cats and became less dominating at the higher level Rachel Mckinnon's Race History at road-results.com
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No, transitions certainly aren’t “choices” for people who make that decision. They need to do it for their mental, emotional and even physical health…but to play devil’s advocate for a minute, participation in a sport is definitely a choice.
And that is where the grey area starts to creep in, IMO…everyone should be allowed to make their own life choices and live as they wish. But when those choices start to impact the lives of others who have no say in the matter, it gets real messy, real quick.
Just to reiterate, I prefer to err on the side of inclusion, but am completely sympathetic to the legitimate concerns of those negatively impacted by inclusion.
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That was my point earlier with the trans competitor I know of. She toiled mid-pack for a long time in many races with zero attention, no complaints at all until the first race she podium’d and all of a sudden it was an unfair advantage and shouldn’t be allowed to race etc etc. She still doesn’t podium every race and isn’t blowing away the field every time or even most of the time. She’s a good racer but hardly dominant.
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He won a gold medal as a man.
She now says transitioning and competing in the opposite gender is not fair.
This is very similar to my inner monologue this morning during my run:
Me: Let not include transgender in sport.
Also Me: But what about them. They are also humans that want to feel included in society as they see themselves.
Me: But what about all the other people the decision of participating at a high level competition will affect. Are we making them feel included?
Also Me: But, they are not many that can compete at this level. let them do it.
Me: And let the few ones that do compete hurt other people?
Both: I have no idea… let just focus on running and watching for cars… how about that?
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As a side note…
And related to this topic and the possibility of a transgender girl on my daughter team
I talked to her about what a transgender means.
I ask her if she knew if that girl was a boy or girl… She said she taught she was a boy, but she doesn’t sound like a boy. I told her it doesnt matter how she sounds, but that I think she may be a born boy that it actually a girl. I had to explain how some people are born some way, but in reality they dont feel like they belong and then rather be something else. In any case I told her I was not sure, but I haven’t seen a girl approach the game the way she does, but I have seen MANY boys behave the same way. That on it self is not proof tho. in any case, I told her to not threat her differently and to threat her as the girl she is.
Please, I may agree with you, but dont bring politics into the topic…
You know what could happen.
Agreed, no politics, And that’s the counter argument to her opinion from other transgender humans who are NOT Olympic level athletes. You CAN NOT deny the fact that she WAS an Olympic level athlete and she is saying from her successful perspective from both an Olympian and a successful transitioner that it is an unfair advantage.
And that is the argument of other transgender humans about her as well, that she is just pandering for votes. Lets try and keep the politics out of it, Because how many GOP votes is she really going to get when she already committed a huge no go from a GOP perspective by transitioning in the first place.
She was a male Olympic athlete, and from her perspective she is believing its an unfair advantage.
It doesn’t mean she HATES other transgender or transgender athletes like some of the tweets in that article I posted suggest.
Im just saying she is one perspective you have to at least listen to pertaining to this subject.
As transgender evolves and becomes even more popular, it could become to have its own class of competition. What to do until then?? Maybe thats the path for the initial few that are breaking down the barriers now and raising their voices to compete. It sparks this debate and since we don’t know as a society what is fair just yet, their voice allows others who feel a desire to Transend and compete to do so and before long there will be a new class of gender to compete in. And it may even become more popular than womens competing classes, that’ll piss some people off.
Here’s one thing to consider. I think some of us have alluded to it, but potentially there are two separate issues for trans women: participation in amateur sports, and participation in elite sports.
Imagine that trans women have an average advantage over cis and non-intersex women, such that their average performance is somewhere between the average for cis men and for cis non-intersex women. (NB: I’m not sure what the cis women is the counterpart term is for intersex women and trans women, or if it’s for trans women alone, so I may say non-intersex at times.) At the center of the bell curve where us mortals are playing, we may be able to ignore the difference. I’m not slow, but I bet the top age group women could out time trial me. The distributions between trans women and cis non-intersex women may overlap enough that we can ignore the distinction there.
In elite sport, where you’re dealing with the very ends of the bell curve, I don’t know if the difference is necessarily ignorable. I’ve listened to Ross Tucker, a sports scientist, some, and I believe he thinks it is not. Personally, I don’t like his stance, and this is an emotionally charged issue so I’ve stopped listening to him, but he has some interesting thoughts on this even if you disagree. Now, I’m not sure how he distinguishes between trans and intersex women here (or at least those intersex women whose bodies produce excess testosterone). I know his stance is that we have established sex categories for good reason - if we didn’t have them, we know that at the top of the sport, women would basically never beat men.* Thus, we need to defend the sex category. And in this case, he does believe that because trans women and some intersex women have durable advantages over cis non-intersex women, they should be excluded.
Right now, I agree that intersex and trans women are likely to have advantages over cis non-intersex women. I would argue that nonetheless, they should participate in both amateur and elite women’s sport. There can be limitations, and on the elite side the limitations may have to be more stringent. For example, max testosterone limits for trans women, take testosterone suppressors for applicable intersex women on the elite side, stick to a simple washout period after you transition on the amateur side. (But note what I said earlier, the earlier someone transitions, whatever advantage they retain over cis women could be lessened.) This isn’t a perfect solution, but I think on balance it’s better than exclusion. I am very wary of exclusion right now, and for that I blame the authoritarians. Because face it, a lot of the legislative efforts right now are centered on bullying trans folks.
And just to be clear, I am cis male, so I realize I’m recommending something for not my own category.
- Some of you who follow ultra distance cycling may be thinking of Fiona Kohlbinger, who won the overall at the 2019 Transcontinental Race. Yeah, she may be a counterexample, but I would expect this to be a rare occurrence. Also, ultra distance anything is a niche, and cycling is a niche sport, so talent discovery for that discipline is probably poor - meaning that there may be men who could beat Kohlbinger who just haven’t been recruited to the sport yet because who on earth wants to cycle that far, there’s not much money in it, etc.
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I’m not trying to bring politics into it…I am questioning her motivations and the convictions of her opinions.
We don’t have an issue with hosting challenging topics on the TrainerRoad Forum and facilitating a constructive dialogue, but when the end result is a non-productive argument (and a volume of flags that is unproductive for our moderators to spend their time handling), it means a post has run its course, and we reserve the right to close it down.
Feel free to DM me if you have any questions.
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