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The main sponser for the Women’s CiCLE Classic race which has banned trans cyclist Emily Bridges, has pulled out due to the ban.
Peter Stanton has sponsored the race since its 2016 inception but withdrew his support on Tuesday after he said British Cycling made the "totally unacceptable" decision to suspend its transgender policy last week.
"Whilst fully supportive of women's sport, I also have many friends and colleagues within the transgender community whom I feel that I would be letting down if I did not make a stand to show my support for their rights.
"This is not the first case of a transgender rider competing under UCI rules, or even as part of an official UCI team, and to arbitrarily change that position based on one individual case, I find totally unacceptable.
"I am desperately saddened by the Emily Bridges case and the actions that it has prompted me to take. I sincerely hope that a satisfactory resolution to her case and that of similar cases in the future can be quickly found in the interests of all parties involved, and sport in general."
Following Stanton's funding withdrawal, British Cycling has pledged additional support to the Women's CiCLE Classic, which Clews says is just under £10,000, but a £15,000 shortfall remains.
However, he said he had reservations of accepting offers from campaign groups for fear of "politicising" the race.
( This was from TURFy groups I believe)
Perhap J. K. Rowling can help, she's been having a go at trans right in Scotland recently.
Rowling tweeted on March 5, “Multiple women’s groups have presented well-sourced evidence to @NicolaSturgeon’s government about the likely negative consequences of this legislation for women and girls, especially the most vulnerable. All has been ignored. If the legislation is passed and those consequences ensue as a result, the @SNP govt can’t pretend it wasn’t warned.”
Rowling also retweeted the 2018 conviction of a trans woman who allegedly attempted to rape a 10-year-old girl. Rowling called it a “parody.”
Rowling clapped back at International Women’s Day itself, “Apparently, under a Labour government, today will become We Who Must Not Be Named Day.”
First Minister Sturgeon said she “fundamentally disagreed” with Rowling’s criticisms while on The World At One on BBC Radio 4.
“She’s clearly free to express her opinion, as am I, as is everybody. But that’s not what this debate is about,” Sturgeon said. “The legislation was introduced to parliament last week and it will now go through a full legislative process with all the normal parliamentary scrutiny.”
Sturgeon continued, “This is about a process, an existing process, by which people can legally change their gender, and it’s about making that process less traumatic and inhumane for trans people, one of the most stigmatized minorities in our society. It doesn’t give trans people any more rights, doesn’t give trans people one single additional right that they don’t have right now. Nor does it take away from women any of the current existing rights that women have under the Equalities Act.”
Comments
JK is a Bully, and nothing more.
That's her problem right there, it lessens, not increases trauma inflicted on trans individuals while neither stripping trans individuals of any rights nor empowering her. If nothing else, that statement right there completely explains how much of a BULLY JK really is.
I really don't know what her
I really don't know what her problem is. All I can think is she thinks that men will just identify as female randomly to go into women's toilets. Why? there is usually a queue. Athough they don't normally smell as bad as the mens.
Leeanna
I wonder what JK Rowling's ...
... attitude to butch lesbian's is. One of the criticisms of transwomen (particularly pre-op) is that they are a threat to women in single sex spaces (eg toilets and changing rooms), I would have thought lesbians are just as much of a threat - actually, I suspect, very little. It is wrong to cite outliers (like the alleged rape of a 10 year old by a transwoman) as evidence to support a ban. It's almost like blaming all car drivers because of the dangerous driving of a few.
However, the issue of trans athletes is more difficult to resolve.
As a male Junior, Emily Bridges did a 47 minute 25 - that's 8 minutes quicker than I ever managed even on a tandem being pushed along by a very fast stoker. After male puberty has taken place, size, bone and muscle structure can give trans women advantages even when testosterone has been reduced. Obviously everyone's different but examining all trans-women before allowing them to compete in women's races would be difficult. Despite a lot of effort, I never succeeded greatly at any of the sports I competed in because I lacked the strength, hand/eye coordination, or balance of the other guys. All I had was endurance. However, there's always going to conflicts when an activity is designed to be exclusive to one gender.
R
No Clear
I'm obviously supportive of anyone who is transitioning, and very against all of these stupid hate laws places like Texas and Florida are pushing. That being said, there probably should be more of a discussion and a set of guidelines on when a transition happens. Personally I think if you're talking someone who is on blockers in adolescence, on estrogen, and never has a male puberty - they probably have very minimal advantages if any. If you're talking about someone who has already underwent a male puberty, and is now on estrogen, those same stupid characteristics we all develop and hate, are also quite possibly an advantage in competition. I think I remember someone mentioning a protocol of so long on Estrogen before being allowed... That might be a solution, but I doubt it's a total one honestly as it's not going to suddenly transform your body into the dream girls we wish we were born.
Of course Texas is taking out the possibility of treatment that might make that a levelish playing field. I don't see the supreme court striking down these laws when they make it to them either.
Unfortunately these issues are more of a red herring than anything to wave the flag of idiots everywhere. Ten years ago I had hope that being trans would be gaining acceptance on a normal basis. Now I fear even more that I could be outed at some point.
well
i can admit to doing a number of forty something 25's on a tandem way back before all this aero malarkey and into the lower fifties solo at a similar period - that would sometimes get me top ten but not always!. Given the advances in that side of the sport in the intervening 30 years my performances would stack up quite well to those of Emily pre transition but i don't think i could hold a candle to any of the top women riders even so.
The BCF decision was clearly quite knee jerk, as i said before and the headline of this thread supports, it has split the UK sport. There have been no reports of any of the elite women riders complaning about or for that matter supporting Emily so we don't know how those potentially displaced by an over performing trans athlete feel about the situation.
Madeline Anafrid Bell
I think they should race with
I think they should race with the women, but perhaps create a trans athlete category until there are enough trans athletes to race against perhaps?
JK draging up that case is like me objecting to women being nurses because Beverly Allit murdered 4 children when she was a nurse. Since when does it happened once mean that it will always happen?
Leeanna
Not cycling, but under
Not cycling, but under current rules Paula Radcliffe's marathon record doesn't count because she was racing against men (possible because they were pacing her ?)
I don't think we are going to solve this until we agree why we have separate competitions for men and women.
I recently read an article which suggested that in many sports (eg sailing and shooting) men and women did compete; but when there was a chance that the top men would be beaten, then a separate women's competition started.
If we could calculate the advantage testosterone (and every other relevant factor) gave, we could have a handicapping system* which allowed men, women and the trans to compete equally.
Such a handicapping sysem might also penalize those who were more naturally atheletic. Whether that is a problem depends whether sport is just about having a winner or demonstrating human abilities matters (I'm thinking of dance, especially ballet, which is athletic but often not competitive).
*This might be complicated, but perhaps no more so than the decathalon and heptathalon tables which allow us to combine performance in say running and javelin throwing.
When we were sailing ...
... there were no gender/age categories in the dinghies we raced. It's only in the Olympics that there are male and female categories as well as at least one where they are mixed crews. In the mixed classes the women often helms and the (usually) taller stronger man is the crew - either could call the tactics. We've raced in fleets of 80 to 100 boats with all male, all female as well as mixed crews with no differentiation. In fact, the only 'special' award was for boats where the age of the crews exceeded 80 (we were well above that!)
This whole problem
Is one of everyone knowing what is right, for them at any rate, without constructive discussion between all parties. An answer is not insurmountable but emotions rather than reason are being aired by attention seekers. We need less opinion and more discussion.
A few years ago when I was cycling regularly, I was still left for dead by some women cyclists who were older than me and that was just on a club run. Okay, so I'd been tasking oestrogen since 1979 and lost my main source of androgens since 1991, but it's individual and some of us are fitter than others, but it's really irritating when old ladies whiz past me when walking up steep hills, as happens on geology field trips, but then these days I spend more time on a computer than moving around meaning I get increasingly rotund.
Angharad
A Hill to Die On
I'm all for acceptance, tolerance, and fairness. In an ideal world a TG woman would just be considered a woman without any qualifiers...
...but this is not an ideal world. It's a world that is inherently unfair, and that's never going to change. Things will always be unfair to somebody. It's the nature of the beast so long as we are flawed human beings. To say otherwise is to ignore all of human history.
The question isn't whether or not it's right or wrong to bar trans-athletes from competing in gendered sports... the question is rather, "Is getting this worth the cost?" Let's say we get our way and TGs are allowed to compete as their correct gender. The first time a TG woman beats all the other women at any sport and gets any sort of award, trophy, medal, scholarship, or really anything of value... even just 15 minutes of fame... the outcry of "unfair advantage" and "male privilege" will drown out any logical discourse and their 'victory' will carry an asterisk... never being counted as the same as one that was 'fairly earned'... if it's allowed to stand at all.
Worse yet, the backlash won't just be against trans-athletes... it'll be against all of us.
We have to ask if this fight is worth being our hill to die on... if the benefits will outweigh the highly likely loss of general acceptance by a wider audience; the 97% of the population that we have to share this world with... because even if there are millions on our side and millions against us, there are billions that could go either way.
Is it worth it? Is it worth risking 50 years of growing acceptance for a fraction of our already tiny fraction of the populous to push that acceptance further than it's ever gone before? Is now the right time to push this fight?
I'm not saying if it is or isn't... but it's a question that needs to be asked and answered before we rush headlong into a fight we might only not be able to win, but lose so badly we end up worse off than we started.
We are a very tiny minority... and one that only very recently has even gained the barest of recognition. It was not all that long ago that we were all considered mentally ill... and some people would like nothing better than to throw us back in that box. Yes, we deserve to be treated as equals, but prudence dictates that we not throw away our gains by pushing too quickly for all that we deserve. Maybe we should give society a chance to catch up to the rest of us and not let our impatience ruin our chances at even keeping what we've got...
...the right to exist at all.
Food for thought,
Roberta
I wrote more or less the
I wrote more or less the same thing Roberta. The more it's forced, the more it risks upsetting even trans-friendly women.
The whole thing will deteriorate into a farce. The whole McEnroe thing a few years back when he said Serena Williams would not stand a chance against a male tennis player , she would be ranked about 700th.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucRGB2fERus(link is external)
There are many times Serena Williams lost to men who were ranked lower than 150 in the men's game. She even said herself the male game was faster and way more powerful. OK, she didn't lose to trans women. With so much money involved someone, if self identification is allowed, will see a chance to make money.
Real trans women probably not, but it will only take one masculine looking guy training hard to maintain his strength while taking blockers and hormones. Self identifying as a trans woman winning a major tournament.
I am sympathetic, but forcing this will impact the majority of trans women 99%? that have no interest in taking part in competitive sport.
It could even lead to a DNA requirement XX compete here, XY you compete there.
People are very competitive and bad losers. This will give them the excuse to stir up anti-trans bullshit.
The right wing press harp on about trans "self identification" in the UK. Suff about a big guy with a beard saying "I identify as female" and using female toilets and changing rooms.
However wrong, this is, it's how it will be seen. They will think that any average male athlete can say "I'm a trans women" and take first place in women's sport. TERF's would have a field day and get more support.
As it's been said, it's a problem if they win, not if they come middle or bottom. Do you remember all they hype about the trans weightlifter , before the competition it was all over the news. She didn't win a medal, then nothing more was said.
Leeanna
This is the point I was trying to make a few weeks ago.
My point then was it's about the perception of having an unfair advantage - whether or not it's true, and it sometimes _is_ true... This could be a case of winning the battle and losing the war which is crazy when we have currently got so much support from so many. This is particularly true when you, at last partly, agree with the opposition. It's take so long to get as much as we have and we have so much to lose (goodwill, acceptance...) and very little to gain, and we can't even make a good case for deserving to win this battle. Well, I can't anyway and I'm one of those excluded from my sport, and I think that it is fair that I am excluded. It's all part of the price we need to be prepared to pay.
the latest
on this story is that 2 Terf 'charities' have offered to step in to cover the shortfall in the race costs. The promoter isn't happy about this but unless other funding is found may take the money just to keep the event running.
We still haven't heard from any women riders where they stand on this, AFAIK Emily wouldn't have been competing anyway, it not being her chosen discipline. BC really seem to have shot themselves in the foot with this whole affair.
Madeline Anafrid Bell