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news
HSBC UK National Cycling Centre (picture copyright British Cycling)Transgender cyclist Emily Bridges breaks silence to question “alleged ineligibility”
Transgender cyclist Emily Bridges says she ‘just wants to race competitively again’ after being told that she cannot compete in the women’s event at this weekend’s National Omnium Championships under current UCI guidelines.
In a statement released on Friday, Bridges said that she has been in contact with British Cycling and the UCI over the last six months and has provided the two governing bodies with “medical evidence that I meet the eligibility criteria for transgender female cyclists”.
The 21-year-old also criticised the coverage of her case in the British media, which she says has resulted in her being “relentlessly harassed and demonised” in recent weeks.
She said: “I am an athlete, and I just want to race competitively again, within the Regulations set by British Cycling and UCI after careful consideration of the research around transgender athletes.
“No one should have to choose between being who they are, and participating in the sport they love.”
Bridges was set to make her competitive debut as a female cyclist at the National Omnium Championships in Derby this weekend, taking on leading riders such as multiple Olympic champion Dame Laura Kenny.
After revealing her struggles with gender dysphoria in a Coming Out Day article written for Sky Sports in October 2020, Bridges started undergoing hormone therapy last year. Her testosterone levels are now sufficiently low to allow her to compete in women’s events under British Cycling’s Transgender and Non-Binary Participation Policy.
According to the latest version of the policy, transgender athletes are required to have testosterone levels below 5 nanomoles per litre for a year (men generally range between 10 and 30 nanomoles per litre) before being permitted to compete against other women.
However, British Cycling revealed on Wednesday that it had been informed by the UCI that “under their current guidelines Emily is not eligible to participate” at the championships in Derby.
The UCI told the national body that, because international ranking points are allocated at national championships, Bridges could only race once her eligibility to compete as a female in international competitions is confirmed, a process which is still ongoing.
In a statement released on Wednesday, British Cycling said: “We have been in close discussions with the UCI regarding Emily’s participation this weekend and have also engaged closely with Emily and her family regarding her transition and involvement in elite competitions.
“We acknowledge the decision of the UCI with regards to Emily’s participation, however we fully recognise her disappointment with today’s decision.”
Bridges responded to her exclusion on Friday evening, saying that she has been in contact with the UCI and British Cycling to request clarity concerning her ineligibility, and called on the two bodies to reconsider their decision.
Her statement reads:
For the last six months, I have been in contact with British Cycling and the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) over the eligibility criteria I would need to meet as a transgender woman in order to race in the female category at the British National Omnium Championships this Saturday, 2 April 2022.
In that time, I have provided both British Cycling and UCI with medical evidence that I meet the eligibility criteria for transgender female cyclists, including that my testosterone level has been far below the limit prescribed by the Regulations for the last 12 months.
Despite the public announcement, I still have little clarity around their finding of my ineligibility under their regulations.
Bridges also criticised how her case has been handled online and in the British media, including alleged reports that some female competitors had threatened to boycott the event if Emily raced, which she says has led to her receiving “targeted abuse” on social media:
As is no surprise with most of the British media, I’ve been relentlessly harassed and demonised by those who have a specific agenda to push. They attack everything that isn’t the norm and print whatever is most likely to result in the highest engagement for their articles, and bring in advertising.
This is without care for the wellbeing of individuals or marginalised groups, and others are left to pick up the pieces due to their actions. Trans people are the latest of a long list of people to be treated this way, and unfortunately, without change, we won’t be the last.
I’ve had journalists at my front door every day harassing us for comment and story, my privacy has been totally violated over speculation around my eligibility and fairness to compete. I’ve had to deactivate my social media to prevent the targeted abuse I am receiving, and block websites to stop seeing them.
This is despite the fact I have not yet raced in the female category. I have been judged despite a total lack of evidence against me, purely because I am trans.
Ryan joined road.cc in December 2021 and since then has kept the site’s readers and listeners informed and enthralled (well at least occasionally) on news, the live blog, and the road.cc Podcast. After boarding a wrong bus at the world championships and ruining a good pair of jeans at the cyclocross, he now serves as road.cc’s senior news writer. Before his foray into cycling journalism, he wallowed in the equally pitiless world of academia, where he wrote a book about Victorian politics and droned on about cycling and bikes to classes of bored students (while taking every chance he could get to talk about cycling in print or on the radio). He can be found riding his bike very slowly around the narrow, scenic country lanes of Co. Down.
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74 comments
This argument keeps being made, define female.
So I googled what it means simply to be human. I found all sorts of answers. Universal definition is difficult. People can't even agree when a human begins.
And definition comes with its own problems. We all know what a square is. Yet if you measure to sufficient accuracy you find no square exists, since the sides will never be equal.
I'm reasonably confident also that you do not have to be able to define something to the n'th degree to know it exists. For example, even if we can not define male and female to the satisfaction of all, we know these things exist because sexual reproduction exists, and that requires male and female.
People keep throwing around the terms and basing logical arguments on "biological females", so it seems reasonable to have a working definition. Realistically, it's not going to cover all edge cases, so let's have the definition that people using the term are referring to - it's a perfectly reasonable request.
You can easily define a square and put in a "to within the limits that we can measure using a ruler and unassisted vision" - you're not being pragmatic here.
Indeed, the limits of measurement, and there's the problem. Whatever definition of female is given, it is open to others to challenge, basically by zooming in to a finer scale of measurement.
So if a chromosomal definition is given, some will argue about chromosomal variations. If a "common sense" definition is used, some will present alternative common sense, and so on.
And yet it remains true that biological female and male objectively exist.
As far as I know, a working definition of female did exist, until it was challenged. So now there needs to be a new working definition.
That is utterly meaningless without definitions. How can they objectively exist if there is not the means to measure and determine?
As I previously posted, the existence of something does not require its definition. We can see that biological male and female exist - even if any definition is disputed - because we see that sexual reproduction exists, which requires biological male and female.
Well, that sounds to me like you're basing the definitions on reproductive fitness which would imply that infertile individuals are neither biologically male or female.
Surely he's meaning reproduction in humans can only be done when one party is male and the other female? I think you know that too. Just because a party can't or doesn't reproduce doesn't mean they are any less a member of that sex.
You may believe that, but reality disagrees:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20452130/
Exceptions do not a point prove. There will always be outliers. Link all the studies and findings of non-binary Vikings and chimeras you want but in 99.999999999999999999% percent of human reproductive processes I'll bet the parties involved are biological male and female.
Given that there's only been an estimated ~120 billion humans ever, it would be pretty remarkable to have come across even one case of something that's a one in a hundred quintillion occurrence, never mind 'all you want' of them...
Fascinating - didn't quite live up to the headline but it doesn't need to if the following checks out:
I had read of this in older reportage but that would be a noteworthy confirmation that things are indeed broader than our heuristics. (I still loved finding out about fungi increasing their reproductive odds with extra "sexes" and various animals transitioning including maintaining fertility).
No, it does not. It merely shows that biological male and female must exist. It does not depend on all of them reproducing.
The difficulty lies with the edge cases.
Eg
XY = biological male
XX = biological female
Will satisfactorily classify 99+% of the population.
Almost any binary division of the human race will have edge cases so, much like the pragmatic approach to squares mentioned above, it seems reasonable to accept an imperfect solution here so long as it produces fewer edge cases than the current gender based division.
The problem is more to do with people confusing the map with the territory. XX/XY is a simple rule of thumb and works most of the time, but it would be wrong to then force someone into the wrong category on that basis when they may be an edge case.
We just need to recognise that a binary classification has limits and be flexible when someone believes that they are one of the edge cases. (Personally, I think that there may be far more edge cases than we realise as most people haven't been tested to determine their chromosomes/genes etc.)
Where can I find a jean wrangler? Could that lead to a change of pants?
I wasn't really advocating for XX/XY division just pointing out that the existence of cases outside the binary classification doesn't necessarily invalidate said classification.
I think the least bad option would be division into those who had been exposed to high level testosterone at any point and those who had not.
The presence of male secondary sexual characteristics would be taken as proof of exposure as would direct measurement of testosterone levels.
If you could prove that you were not susceptible to the effects of testosterone you would be allowed to compete in the non exposed group.
I think that would likely produce the fewest number of edge cases and the fairest competition at the elite level.
Testosterone levels/exposure does seem like a reasonable way forwards as ultimately the issue is with any advantages from the effects of testosterone.
I don't think that edge cases invalidate binary classifications, but it does highlight their shortcomings and can provoke a discussion into what we actually mean by different sexes and whether we should be trying to put everyone into either one or the other.
As an aside, I wonder if there's any famous sportsmen that have 47,XYY syndrome and benefitted from the extra height? (Possibly basketball) (Edit: after some random internet searches, came across the suspicion that Michael Phelps might have had Marfan syndrome that could have produced his very long arms)
I think the thread is going to split into the following tribes:
Tribe 1: no tail innit/women are for breeding
Tribe 2: ok, I recognise scientifically there is a spectrum but there are not enough people in the margins for me to give a shit about.
Tribe 3: for the love of god won't someone think of the bathrooms
Tribe 4: it's complicated
Tribe 5: utter rage at one or more other tribes
Tribe 6: basic trolling
Tribe 7: Some of us work in the criminal justice system, including with wome's' refuges, and see some real challenges about deciding when a trans women should be allowed into women (as in sex) only spaces, such as women's refuges and women's prisons.
Tribe 7: advanced trolling by throwing in some pertinent questions and then disappearing from the thread
Tribe 8: bad puns, inter-thread callbacks, and [largely squirrel-based] memes.
What I mean by biologically female, is being born with XX chromosomes, otherwise, you could be XY chromosomes and biologically be male. There are some obviously outliers to this, such as being "intersex". Those being the scientific classifications are undeniable. You're born (biological) sex.
Then there are the gender classifications/identity, which hold the legal statuses, girls/boys, men/women, trans...etc etc etc
There is also gender expression, which is very much a social construct of how you feel about yourself/others and where you fit in this world.
You should never confuse the three because every person may have a different feeling about their identity and everyone has the right to that, but you cannot deny your biological sex as it is proven in science. No matter how much it is manipulated with chemicals.
That's a reasonable definition and one that a lot of people would subscribe to.
However, due to the SRy gene jumping around (it's typically on the Y chromosome and largely produces male characteristics), you can have XY individuals without male traits and also XX individuals that do have male traits. This means that using just XX/XY can lead to unexpected results and indeed many people may not be at all aware that their physical traits and gender doesn't match their chromosomes.
Personally, I think a definition of "biologically female" should include the SRy gene, but I certainly don't have the expertise to come up with a good definition.
I think we need more graph axes! (FWIW here's an article looking at just two and suggesting significant contribution from "nature" [eg. as opposed to "choice"]). As to "biological sex" the effects are a matter for consideration but even elementary reading suggests that a blanket statement of "men will beat women" is a simplification (taking whatever "traditional" definition people want). And don't forget that many sports (from boxing to chess, to presumably boxing chess) have long had different categories within an existing "same sex" categorisation due to certain differences making it "not a fair contest". Also completely ignoring the fact that even with a decade of training, experimental surgery and 80s levels of doping I'm unlikely to challenge the pro peleton.
Maybe changing this to different questions is useful? Can people compete "fairly" (now define "fair" and in whose opinion - may differ for competitors and their viewers)? Can people feel safe in sports training facilities / with those coaching and organising sport (already problematic as we're finding out)? How are people treated in sport - can they "be themselves" in that environment (and is that important for society in general)? At higher levels how are they supported to navigate the pressures of the sporting world / the public eye?
Can you find an example of a top class female athlete beating her equivalent male counterpart?
Or maybe even a trans male athlete that's winning anything?
People keep the conversation to the outliers, the 0.00003% and using that to try and prove the rule, to erase the majority.
I'd ask anyone to take a look at the videos by 'More plates more dates' if you think there's not a significant performance benefit, across the board, between trans women and non-trans women.
Add to that, google 'Mack Beggs' and see what taking testosterone bestows on trans male athletes.
Like Fiona Kolbinger in the last TCR ? If you want to more regular achievements, ultra-distance events would probably be the place to look as mentioned a fair bit already e.g. the female contestants in ultra-distance swimming surpass the male by a significant margin.
Fantastic example. I'd forgotten about Fiona and I even follow her on Strava! Good shout.
do these sports attract many transwomen, and if so how does their performance compare with the rest of the field?
Another couple on the "endurance" list:
First winner of this one: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/56720358
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/scots-based-supermum-beats-men-13872681
There was an interesting study looking at maximum metabolic rate as time increases which suggested (a) this is probably digestion-limited and (b) in pregnancy women approach this limit - which may point towards women being advantaged for ultra-endurance. Link to research within BBC's summary:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-48527798
Well, a couple from cycling:
https://road.cc/content/news/cyclist-becomes-first-woman-ever-win-race-across-america-284445
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cycling/49248126
Not a "contest" exactly but a top class female athlete doing things some years before any man was able to (just as an example of something aside from "endurance") - Lynn Hill's first free ascent of the Nose on El Capitain.
*Pedant mode on* "Prove" in "x proves the rule" means "tests" of course - and much of sport seems to be about setting up rules and then testing / challenging them. Also elite sport would be about outliers and unusual people anyway, no? That was my point about me not troubling the pro peleton.
My suspicion is always aroused by talk of the majority being beaten down / "erased" (bit like "war on the motorist" / "cylists are running the show now" protests). However my point was just that - albeit in a minor way - things are not as cut-and-dried as one commonly held view. Just here to try to understand things better myself, not being female, trans, an elite athlete etc.
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