Oh no, he risks getting called a cheater
The Outside article with the subhead “Banning trans women from competitive cycling is an insult to all women” is written by…wait for it…a man who claims to be a woman. Well he would say that wouldn’t he – anything to fool or cheat or bully women into obedience.
My career as an athlete is a little complicated, though. As a trans woman, bike racing has always felt like a lose-lose proposition for me. If I do well, I risk getting called a cheater, or even worse, becoming a Fox News headline.
That’s because you are a cheater, bro.
Even before transitioning in 2020, seeing the hate directed at trans women athletes made me feel like competitive sports was a dead end for me.
Put that aside for a moment. Imagine how women feel.
I decided to risk life and limb in the high-risk sport of freeride mountain biking, where instead of competing against each other, we test our skills riding the biggest and hardest things we can find.
And having a male body remains a massive advantage.
On July 8, I finally lined up for my first race, the Sturdy Dirty, an all-women’s enduro hosted annually in North Bend, Washington. I went because the event organizers and a number of pro cyclists encouraged me to compete. Lining up for that race was the scariest thing I’ve done on a bike. I was venturing into the very place I swore to avoid for my own mental health and safety.
Diddums. Now think about how women feel.
They never do though, do they. They can’t. If they did, they would be forced to notice – if only internally and in silence – the unfairness of it.
Take on all the individual tests of skill you like, we only start caring when you compete against the female sex.
Where explosive power and a socialised upbringing to approach risk and danger they way males do is absolutely an advantage over female competitors.
Thereby earning points, which allows ranking against other riders, which creates winners and losers, aka competition.
Rob@2:
Seriously! In what weird world is that NOT competing against the other riders? What, just because they’re not all on the course/track at the same time? These dudes and their bizarre notions. I suppose if you can tell yourself that you’re actually a dragon born in a human body, or a female in a male body, then pretty much no fantastical notion is out of your reach.
Actually, he’s even more wrong than he thinks: he’s cheating just by entering, not by “doing well”. Just the same as I’d be cheating if I tried the three year old’s hundred yard dash, even if I fell over on the start line and wheezed for several minutes, coming last or failing to finish. It’s wrong from the beginning.