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news
Transgender symbol.PNGUCI reviews policy on transgender cyclists after Canadian athlete wins human rights case
World cycling’s governing body, the UCI, has said it will “review and revise” its policies towards transgender athletes after Canadian cyclist Kristen Worley won a case that she had brought under human rights law.
Worley, who underwent gender reassignment surgery in 2001, won a lawsuit last year that she had brought against the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and World Anti-doping Agency (WADA).
She had claimed that strict rules governing the use by transgender athletes of testosterone, which meant a 10-month wait and a dosage below the amount she needed, violated her human rights.
A tribunal in Ontario agreed, and now Cycling Canada, the Ontario Cycling Association and the UCI have all said that they will review their procedures, reports Inside the Games.
Besides drawing up standards and guidelines relating to XY athletes, they will also be undertaking awareness and educational programmes in relation to transgender athletes.
Worley said: “Today, I am satisfied that the sport of cycling in Canada and internationally have committed to help advocate for issues facing XY female athletes.
“My vision encourages sport and the Olympic Movement to do what it is supposed to do best: harmonising and celebrating through sport the magic and enormity of our human diversity.”
She added that she would campaign for the IOC and WADA to make more changes in favour of transgender athletes.
Last year, American cyclist Jillian Bearden made history as she became the first transgender woman to finish first in her category at a bike race, the 106-mile El Tour de Tucson.
> Transgender cyclist is first female finisher at Arizona race
The highest profile cyclist to have transitioned from male to female is Robert Millar, who in 1984 was the first Briton to win a jersey at the Tour de France after clinching the mountains classification, and who joined ITV4’s commentary team for this year’s race under her new name, Philippa York.
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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26 comments
Surely if there is no surgery or any drugs to modify the natural male physical aapects/biology, then what makes the male a female except in the mind? That's fine in itself, don't care about what/who you identify as but then any male could say they are a women. when you could have the 700th 'best' tennis player beating the likes of Venus Williams at her peak (this was written about during Wimbledon) how is the physical aspect any sort of re-assignment and how could this possibly be fair?
We could easily have a situation that resembles the 60s/70s/80s and even into the 90s in athletics were ladies from certain countries were more like males and hence why their world records have never being broken or why at the time ladies from countries not employing such scurrilous methods to win had next to no chance of winning.
Those born a particular way is wholly different, the disgusting way Caster Semenya was treated I found abhorrent. Yes she has physical advantages over her rivals but that was not her choice, she was brought up as a female and was deemed to be not female enough based on the level of testosterone produced by indescended testes. This was not a failt of hers, and she is a female, yet even then this was frowned upon by fellow athletes and even GB athletes basically saying she was a man!
So I'm not seeing how men with no physical re-assignment (and that includes drugs) should be allowed to compete as a women nor be accepted by female athletes and in my opinion nor should they as it would be totally unfair.
Jusr read this with my female partner and she said "How is that fair? If you were born female, grew up female and have raced as a woman; how are you going to compete against an ex-male who has had some surgery and hormone treatment?"
We need to get the opinion of the ladies as well.
Politically correct nonsense!
In purely athletic terms this is a one way street though. Female to male isn't winning anything vs a professional natural male, even with some extra testosterone.
Perhaps the answer will be to introduce two additional categories in all events. In addition to the conventional male & female classifications there may also be one for men who have become women and another for women who have become men.
The transgender lobby would never have that, as it would imply that there is a difference between a woman born as such, a woman who was formerly a man and has undergone gender reassignment treatment, and a man who chooses to live as a woman (whatever that means) but has not undergone surgery.
But the very fact that you have to define each one individually and each definition is different kinda indicates that they are not the same thing though, doesnt it?
Of course - that's why it won't fly. The totalitarianism that marks the more vocal elements of the trans movement will not accept that a man who becomes a woman is different to a woman who has always been a woman.
If transgender athletes start winning too many female sporting events, an unintened consequence may be the backlash amongst their female-born rivals - which may hinder transgender acceptance more broadly...
Im assuming that since Captain Cookson is at the helm on this one, the answer will be some sort of framework, or jig, that a competitor will be fitted into, showing the UCI pattern for approved body parts / shape of said parts and the relative positions between them.
Much like the jig used for testing TT bikes for compliance.
Im also guessing that commisairres won't use this one either...
Yeah this is horribly complicated.
But don't worry, guys: better minds than we can comprehend are on the case. Right now, Captain Dynamic probably has, on a list somewhere, to think about putting on his best banker outfit and finding a UCI plaque to leer down from. A 'policy' might have the shit 'reviewed' out of it. Rest easy.
Brian Cookson in Paris by UCI plaque (source Brian Cookson Images, Flickr).jpg
Potentially, but the way these things often go, a 50th in the World male may suddenly want to be the best female. With the right lawyers and a bit of lippy what's to stop him/her?
people need to realise that going on HRT, it'll change bone density, change fat and muscle distribution, as well as cause them to gain more fat than muscle and make it harder to gain and keep hold of muscle mass and will give transgender women almost no advantage with the exception of the ability to have a higher VO2 max due to having larger lungs.
It definitely isn' that simple. There is almost no advantage for female>>male, but male>> female has an enormous advantage of growth and development as a male. Muscle mass, twitch speed, the muscle memory and firing patterns developed as a male, efficiency etc remains a massive advantage. For sure a Male>>female will lose much absolute performance, but a very very average male athelete will become an exceptional female athlete (as seen in Caster Semenya, not implying she was a male, but she retains the benefits of male pattern development)
Men are better than women at everything........including being women now!
(joke)
There are two places where this ends:
- Professional women's sport is dominated by athletes who were born men.
- The categories "men" and "women" go away and are replaced with "XX" and "XY" categories.
Out of the two, I find the latter far more preferable in sporting terms.
Unfortunately it's not quite that simple.
There are other chromosome combinations for starters.
Then there are those with XY chromosomes who don't have any male characteristics.
I don't think there's a easy answer to this.
There difinitely isn't an easy answer to this. You can get someone XX so genetically female, emotionally and socially female but hormonally essentially male, and physically in many aspects male due to imbalanced responses to hormones in development. It's not a binary equation, it's actually about 3 different sliding scales.
Growing up without the benefit of the male sex hormones has an indelible effect on someone's physical development. I'm a washed up 50 year old occasional club cyclist (but still nationally competitive), but last year I was beating a current 30 yr old female olympian road cyclist. That is the level of male vs female. The best female road cyclist would probably not make a continental level domestique in the men's peloton. However Phillippa York could probaby train for 6 months and go race as a continental domestique. That is the lasting effect of being born and raised with male hormones.
'xactly
I also DESPISE the transgender people trying to abuse this to get easier victories. This is not "human rights" this is being a shit human being.
Do you have an example of this happening? I've never heard of one.
I've a friend who is transitioning m to f. This is a multi-year process with so many tests and opinions, difficulties and challenges. It takes an immense amount of courage and determination to get through. I don't believe for a second anyone is thinking of sporting advantage when they're going through this, if there even is an advantage - and I think any transgender people reading this would rightly be pretty insulted. Perspective as well - we're talking about a really really small proportion of people who are both transgender and heavily into sport.
On a different note - i think as acceptance and understanding increases, people today are coming forward and being diagnosed much younger than Philippa was. If this is before puberty, they can be given a drugs to delay puberty until theyre old enough to make an informed decision. They can then start hormone therapy and go through puberty in their new gender, meaning that there is far less difference between their bodies and their peers. If we do see more transgender professional athletes, I think they're far more likely to be people like this who transition early. If transitioning later, it would be massively difficult to maintain the focus and single-mindedness - and income - needed to make it as a pro.
Lifting the lid on Pandora's box.... and inside is..... A can of worms!
You say that like it's a bad thing.
well, the worms are hermaphroditic!
Relevance?
Well we need to know which pronons to use, for a start.
I think it's "xe" ("xe came into the room") and "xir" ("xir hair was brown and xir eyes were blue")