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news
Robert Millar (picture Eric Houdas, Wikimedia Commons)Philippa York, who as Robert Millar was first Briton to win a jersey at Tour de France, joins ITV4 commentary team
ITV4 is providing full coverage of this year’s Tour de France, and will have a new pundit on board for the rest of the race, Philippa York. You may not have heard of her, but she’s won more stages of cycling’s biggest race than you ever will, and is also the first Briton to have won a jersey there, taking the mountains classification in 1984.
She used to go by the name Robert Millar, and won three Tour de France stages in her career as well as stages in the Vuelta a Espana and Giro d’Italia, making her a member of a very exclusive club.
In 1985, York was arguably the strongest rider in the Vuelta and perhaps would have won the overall but for Spanish riders from different teams coming together to ensure a home winner and thwart her efforts.
York is a columnist on Cyclingnews.com, and blogged there today about her role in ITV4’s commentary team, which she described as “a very exciting prospect” and her decision to go public about her transition.
She wrote: “To be asked to be one of their experts for certain key moments is a sign that we have moved on in terms of wishing to really understand the complexities involved in cycling, and I’m keen to share my experience of how endlessly fascinating and demanding professional bike racing can be.
“The mention of progress and moving on brings me to a much more personal subject concerning the journey I, and those around me, embarked upon at the start of this millennium. The outcome of that journey has meant that for a considerable time now I have lived as Philippa.
“As much as I've guarded my privacy over the years there are a few, I believe obvious, reasons to why I haven't had a public ‘image’ since I transitioned.
“Gratifyingly, times have moved on from ten years ago when my family, friends and I were subjected to the archaic views and prejudice that some people and certain sections of the tabloid media held.”
The 58-year-old continued: “Thankfully gender issues are no longer a subject of such ignorance and intolerance, there's a much better acceptance and understanding.
“The steps taken over a prolonged period under the watchful eye of the medical profession to complete the transition from one gender to another can be difficult and are always only taken after much soul searching and anguish.
“And, although the end result is seen as a happier, more stable place, the emotions encountered to get there make for some very vulnerable periods.”
York added: “I really am delighted to have accepted this new challenge with ITV4; I’m looking forward to the racing immensely and in terms of my personal and professional development I think this is the right time to return to a more active role in cycling too – the sport I've always loved.”
We wish her all the best with it, and welcome back.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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63 comments
Good for her.
With the now full day coverage on the TdF, and all of the other cycling ITV4 are now bringing us, there is space for more commentators and views.
This is all super, and I welcome her back onto the screens etc. Trans people in media prominence might help to overturn tired old myths and stereotypes.
It has, however, illuminated a gap in my understanding.
Changing from Robert to Philippa makes complete sense, but I don't understand the change from Millar to York. Is that part of the gender transition, or for another reason, or an adjunct to it - for example, to more completely close the door on a previous identity in order to afford elbow room to the new one?
I did a quick Google search but the hits are flooded with links to headlines, rather than any analysis that mentions this.
Can anyone fill the gap in my knowledge?
Used to love watching Robert on TV when I was a kid, the sport was less exciting for his absence. With hindsight, his shyness now becomes rather obvious. Will be great to hear her insights.
Political correctness overload.
I'd argue, and so would York, that Robert was but a vessel and a facade for which York hid her self with. There was never a robert, it was a mask. York was behind the mask that she needed to put on while society got better at figuring out that some humans don't quite fit the binary of peniled (is that a word? It means 'with penis') and non-peniled classification.
I think the binary categorisation within sport (I think society as a whole is further on in trying to understand it) tries to over-simplify an extraordinarily complex subject.
I remember reading (I think it was on the BBC but I've just searched and can't find it) an article on gender assignment in sport, prompted by the Caster Semenya debacle a few years back.
A biologist was criticising the 'female' test that she was having to undergo, and saying that as far as delineating for sport goes, with all the physical advantages that men possess over women, it makes more sense for there to be an outright 'are you a man' test, which is crucially different. Unless that conclusively proves you're a man, you're in the 'everyone else' camp* - as opposed to failing an 'are you a woman' test. Otherwise you have this awful situation where people aren't in either recognisable category - what a horrible situation to be in.
*I'm not sure how practical this is either: can't see the start of the Olympic 'Everyone Else' 100m Final being without controversy - but it does show how our current categorisation fails. We might well need to go beyond binary - but I have no idea what an acceptable solution would be.
Oddly science of sport.com covers this in depth.
Over the last 10 years I've come to view Male/Female not as binary, but as a continuum. There are XX females, there are XY Males who have a complete lack of testosterone and present largely as females, there are XX females who dont' respond to female hormones and present androgenously. There are XY males who are physically almost completely female and vice versa. There are some born with the organs of both sexes, and some born with effectively none. And there is almost every shade of this in between. There are those that are emotionally female, but hormonally male, there are those that are emotionally male, but hormonally female. And so on.
There is an enormous difficulty for sport though.
The best female tennis player would rank about 300 out of the men. The world's best 100m female sprinter would rank 500th in the world. Just 6 years ago as a competent masters 3 cyclist I beat the female cyclist who had just come 4th at the world Pro TT champs in a 90km TT. I was 10 min behind the young schoolboy who won. Caster Semenya considered herself a female. Hormonally she was a male, genetically she was female, physically she was largely male. It is clearly unfair for her to compete as a female while she is hormonally male, because in strength, endurance and co-ordination sports this gives hormonally male people an extraordinarily unfair advantage. How to deal with this in an enlightened age that would like all athletes to compete on their own merits is a real conundrum.
And Behind the Bikesheds
As someone asked you already. Did Lizzie Deignan win a the world champs last year or not? It's worth considering.
Sure, and the earth is flat.
You might want to check on the meaning of anachronism.
It wouldn't surprise me in the least if you believed that.
Do you have any medical or scientific evidence to support your conclusion?
How do you account for Caster Semenya if Male / Female is binary. Mostly Female gynecologically (mostly), Mostly male hormonally, physically largely male (but with definite female characteristics) and has grown up as a female and is genetically a female (XX). Just so you know BTW, XX the XX chromosome is not a binary choice either. The Y chromosome is a truncated / mutated tail of the second X chromosome and appears in different lengths, which affect to some degree the male / female characteristics carried by the owner.
I don't believe one can fit reality (the reality of billions of people down the ages) into politically correct pseudoscientific definitions and analyses. In fact, one can do so but at the risk of being delusional. That said, it is a difficult issue to be sure - and whatever you say may be and in fact will be used against you.
You might want to check on the meaning of anachronism.
It wouldn't surprise me in the least if you believed that.
Do you have any medical or scientific evidence to support your conclusion?
How do you account for Caster Semenya if Male / Female is binary. Mostly Female gynecologically (mostly), Mostly male hormonally, physically largely male (but with definite female characteristics) and has grown up as a female and is genetically a female (XX). Just so you know BTW, XX the XX chromosome is not a binary choice either. The Y chromosome is a truncated / mutated tail of the second X chromosome and appears in different lengths, which affect to some degree the male / female characteristics carried by the owner.
[/quote]
I don't believe one can fit reality (the reality of billions of people down the ages) into politically correct pseudoscientific definitions and analyses. In fact, one can do so but at the risk of being delusional. That said, it is a difficult issue to be sure - and whatever you say may be and in fact will be used against you.
[/quote]
"and whatever you say may be and in fact will be used against you."... That is the nature of the internet
I think the words you're grasping for are 'be-todgered' and conversely 'un-wanged'
The person I now know as my sister, I knew as my brother for first 30 odd years of her life. I'm fine accepting her as my sister now (though it did take a bit of getting my head around), but I do find reconciling this identity to my preceeding memories of her difficult because the person in those memories as I remember them was my brother. The same goes for the less personal memories I have of Philippa York. It does not necessarily sit easily with the way we see the World, but that just means we need to revise that interpretation to allow it to fit the more complex realities that we are discovering.
I think society starting to open up to the diversity of humanity ultimately helps us all. To allow these apparent contradictionso to make sense, we need to move away from thinking in terms of 'men are x' and 'women are y' and more in terms of 'people are people' and judge them by the kind of person they are not by the traits we associate with the labels we attach to them. That opens doors for all of us to be more true to whoever we are. Thank you to Philippa for having the courage to put herself in the spotlight and thus help us all in this way. I really hope that it also helps to bring a spotlight back onto her incredible achievements when she rode under the name of Robert Millar.
well said.
Errrrr?? What about Tommy Simpson's yellow jersey. I have held the original and am pretty damn sure this came before, assuming time is linear.
'Won' not 'worn'. Simpson didn't 'win' the yellow, did he?
Errrrr?? What about Tommy Simpson's yellow jersey. I have held the original and am pretty damn sure this came before, assuming time is linear.
Millar tested positive for testosterone after a stage of the Vuelta a España, in 1992. He was fined £1,100, lost his third place on the stage, incurred a 10-minute time penalty and was given a three-month suspended ban.
He was a doper. It's all I need to know.
And your comment is sadly enough to form an opinion about you and your blinkered prejudices.
Oh do fuck off you narrow minded fool.
Only just seen this. Wonderful!
Will Fotheringham today wrote what I think is a terrific paragraph on why riders who doped should be remembered as human beings and not simply labelled simply as "dopers":
From https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2017/jul/09/tour-de-france-tom-si...
Always a bit odd and an outsider i thought. Probably why i was drawn to her as a cyclist - doing something against the grain back then e g as a veggie.
I will find it hard to transition from Robert to Philippa but i think she seems to recognise that but being in the media will help. I will still see the original person in that state.
Look forward to her punditry tho. Very brave but hopefully a more satisfying life ahead
Thank the flying spaghetti monster that the comments didn't have to deal with something really complex such as chain lubrication or tubeless tyres or disc brakes or socks or white shorts or glasses under/over straps or japanese or italian or..... helmets
after all this, she better not be shit on telly! Boulting tells some great stories about a certain well-known sprinter who is unlikely to be making that particular transition to regular presenting, no matter how many times they crash out early and have some spare time on their hands ...
About ten years ago, maybe more, there was a TV doco and book claiming to have traced Robert Millar, who had become reclusive – or simply shunned the limelight – after retirement, and that he was living as a woman. It was widely rubbished at the time and IIRC Millar even appeared on TV as Robert to deny it. And now it seems it was right after all! Obviously, a lot can change in ten years both socially and personally, making it easier to "come out" or "pass" in many ways now than then.
Whatever the name or gender or physical sex, Millar/York in polka dots was a huge sight for me and a great memory. Ace rider.
Like dinosaur, I think BTBS raises a point about the way we record things as opposed to any choice made by Philippa. I wonder what the actual rules would be if Philippa was 24 (for example) now and wanted to compete in a mens race, but she was competing in a mens race at the time.
On the issue of trans gender, I think it's interesting, along with the comparisons to racism, that certain demographics will struggle with this probably until they die off. I imagine Jim Davidson would still call her 'he' and make 'jokes' and try firm handshakes and back slaps. I think younger people and the more intelligent amongst the population just carry on and respect her wishes.
Anyway, to the point, it's great that we will have her insights!
I think a lot of offence is sometimes taken when the speaker is well-meaning but the phrasing chosen simply clumsy or outdated, or confused. I hate to see people railing against this, as it creates fear of speaking and learning about the issues for those who need it.
It's not about age - my gran used descriptor-type 'racist' words all the time, but she wasn't racist and certainly didn't treat anyone with non-pink skin differently. My mother became afraid of even discussing race/gender as she wasn't sure what words to use to avoid offending anyone. ('Why can't I say, "coloured" anymore? Black? Her skin isn't black, it's hardly darker than mine!')
And I've come across worse racism in practice from younger people than either examples above. Racism and bigotism isn't going to die out - it's just going to transmute into different disguises. We've seen this with cycling - irrational hatred or fear of a minority becoming as acceptable as racism used to be.
Some people just need to have something to hate, to blame, and to denigrate.
It's not always about words either. In my opinion, it's about acceptance and attitude. Sometimes, it's worth panning out and looking at the bigger picture.
FWIW, I'm looking forward to hearing Ms York's views and I wish her the best in the future.
Good for her.
the relatively few 'yes, but' comments I find quite heartening - the vast majority of the opinions, from the headlines down, show how far we've come in dealing with this subject. My turning point came when I was looking through my linkedin contacts, and thought "eh, I don't remember working with those people, where did I meet them?", then realising they had transitioned
one wasn't a surprise really, the other one was a big surprise
there's going to be some people who have a problem, and as usual they'll present it as anything other than their own prejudice, but their mercifully small numbers show that we really are getting better at accepting people for who they are now. I heard transphobia described as the "new racism", and future generations will look back on it as we do on the "black and white minstrel show"
it's great that Phillipa can crack on making a living and being open in an a sport she mastered in the past, and can keep contributing to. Dogs bark, caravan still rolls
If she has any doubts about how cycling fans might react to her new and improved gender status, then I hope she comes to this website to read the comments.
I'm proud to be a road.cc reader today.
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