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news
Rachel McKinnon.PNG"Trans inclusion is fairness" says Rachel McKinnon ahead of Masters Track Cycling World Championships defence
Dr Rachel McKinnon has defended her right to race ahead of the UCI Masters Track World Championships in Manchester this weekend. McKinnon became the first transgender athlete to win a world title in any sport when she took the 200 metres world title in the 35-44 women’s sprint category last October.
McKinnon took silver in the 500m time trial earlier this week and set a new world best time in qualifying in the sprint earlier today.
However, she has frequently faced arguments that she should not compete in female competitions.
Earlier this year, she responded to comments made by Sharron Davies by tweeting a photo of the former swimmer, suggesting that if it were posted alongside the question "Do you think it's fair for this trans women to compete in women's sport?" a lot of people would be calling Davies a man.
"There's a stereotype that men are always stronger than women, so people think there is an unfair advantage,” McKinnon told Sky News. “By preventing trans women from competing or requiring them to take medication, you're denying their human rights."
A recent study by Sweden's Karolinska Institute suggests the impact of hormone treatment on the leg strength of women who have transitioned from being male is almost negligible.
Asked if she accepted it was possible that transgender women retained a physical advantage, McKinnon replied: "Is it possible? Yes it is possible. But there are elite track cyclists who are bigger than me.
"There is a range of body sizes and strength. You can be successful with massively different body shapes. To take a British example, look at Victoria Pendleton, an Olympic champion with teeny tiny legs.
"In many Olympic disciplines the gap in performance is bigger between first and eighth in a single sex event than it is between the first man and the first woman."
McKinnon says that sport is central to society, “so if you want to say, ‘Well, I believe you’re a woman for all of society except this massive central part that is sport,’ then that’s not fair. So fairness is the inclusion of trans women.”
Asked whether trans inclusion was more important than retaining a category for women in sport, McKinnon replied: "I think what you’re asking me is, 'Is it more important that trans people are included, than it is to retain fairness in sport?'
"My point is that trans inclusion is fairness: it is unfair to exclude trans women. This is much bigger than sport in that it's the proxy for all of trans inclusion in society. Talk of bathrooms has shifted into sport by people who don't care about sport, so I think it’s clear that this issue is bigger than sport."
Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn't especially like cake.
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44 comments
Speak for yourself. You're either misreading what I said, or you're twisting my words for your own benefit. Either exposes some personal prejudices.
What I did say was "I'm sure there are more than a handful of female riders who could hold their own in the mens' peloton". Hope you can see where and why you're mistaken.
There aren't. Not one. In the shit 3/4 cat races I do, women compete with men. They get left for dead when it gets fast - and that's first cat women. Stick an elite female rider in a 2/3/4 Road race with some hills in it and they'd get round and be in the mix at the end. Stick an elite or pro female rider in even a domestic E/1/2 and they wouldn't have a prayer of a result. They wouldn't even last the pace of the first real attack on the flat.
This is not unfairly saying that women can't compete with men because they're being oppressed. It's a simple, brutal fact.
Ok, so you're not going to answer on the 100m question. Fine. Let's try another, something more relevant. Why do men hold all the KoMs on strava? A lot of those will be set when people aren't even racing anyone else there and then. All you have is a time to compete against. So why don't the women ever top the leaderboards?
Women can't even get close to the average speeds of the males even when riding on shorter courses with less altitude gain nor even with the advantage of superior weather conditions. The WC proved that in spades. Put AvV in the mens race and she'd be absolutely massacred, there's no presumptions at all, I know for a fact that elite women will not be able to "hold their own" in the men's peleton, the evidence proves this to us already.
Why don't you go poll some elite riders and ex pros and see what their responses are as to how they would do riding a season with the men!!
Chloe Dygert would've come in 12th in the U23 men's ITT at WC, ahead of a lot of guys going world tour next year.
Different day, different conditions and not Elite- you understand what Elite means right?
The shorter the distance the smaller the gap, we know this in athletics and swimming at the very least. Trying to make the case that elite women could compete at male elite level in pro races by using the time of the winner of the senior ladies TT to a very windy/adverse coondition day of u23s is just ludicrous.
Why do you think over a Marathon course the gap is over 14 minutes between men and women, even a women running with men pacing her?
There has been only one women to beat men on a level playing field in cycling that I know of, but even the greatest female cyclist, maybe the GOAT of all time male/female, and a freak of nature in her own way, would not be able to compete in the pro ranks of the time. Burton was likely to be the closest to being able to hold her own but she often got undone in the ladies sprints, that would have been her undoing in male races, accelerating hard out of corners and going uphill, there's a gulf and there always will be.
What I see in the photo is a man with a woman on either side. Are we going to see this at Wimbledon? What about womens football and rugby? In my view the whole thing is an absurdity and damages women's sport and the opportunity for real women to achieve.
I saw a woman in the middle who could transition to a man an give a few of the chaps a good kicking.
It's not remotely a level playing field for a biologically born female competing against someone who was born male and developed into adulthood as a male.
In social terms I couldn't care less, but in competition terms it matters. It's simply not fair to those biological women who have dedicated their lives to the sports. Fiddling with hormone levels doesn't do the trick. It's like me taking a 1000cc race bike into the 600 class and then saying well I'm running on lower octane fuel and messed around with the ignition. It'll be right.
There are an awful lot of issues between people that can be resolved with tolerance and understanding. Who you love, who you pray to, how you want to dress, which loos you would rather use, basically how you would wish to be respected as a person going about your everyday pursuit of happiness. I would hope that any civilised society actively embraces and celebrates difference.
Unfortunately biology doesn't play by the same rules. Some people get born with attributes which simply give them an advantage at certain things. Some people get looks, some brains, some get physical attributes that allow them to develop talent at elite levels of sport. Some lucky bastards seem to get everything. It's not fair, but don't blame Darwin he didn't invent evolutionary genetics. Want to run a top hedge fund? - shouldn't really matter what sex you are, were, will be or currently identify as, same with being a surgeon, or a cub scout leader, bus driver or whatever but sport is pretty much unique in that how you are physically put together very much affects your ability to compete and win. I'm really struggling to see how someone who starts as male, gets all the characteristics of testosterone fuelled body development at an early age and then takes some hormones later on to identify as female is not at a fundamental advantage over those who developed throughout their lives under a female hormone regime. In terms of base body muscle mass if nothing else.
Some sports are sort of isolated from 'unfair' competition by means of weight categories, a small number are or could be gender neutral, but these are hardly practical distinctions for all sports. Maybe a classification system of Male / Female / Other, but then you are denying someone the right to identify as the person they are. Outright banning transgender athletes is simply not fair or ethical. Would it really matter if most of the competitors in elite women's sports events are females who used to male? Would it be fair that if you are born female in a female body you may as well give up any hope of competing at elite womens sport in events dominated by women who previously existed in male bodies?
For now, If anyone actually asked for my opinion, I think I'd have to come down on the side of womens sport being exempt from political correctness in this instance, that the needs of the many do actually outweight the needs of the few at this point in time. Personally I don't see this as any kind of thin end of the wedge argument about not accepting Trans people in pretty much any other (I really cannot think of any other circumstance outside womens elite sport) walk of life.
I think McKinnon has been quite open to all media and interviews on this subject, of which you'd have to agree she knows more than most laypeople. Aggressive is perhaps an unfortunate word to use, she's 'named' a few manly looking women in her defence previously which may be to what you're referring to, regardless if you give her the benefit of the doubt, you may have been defensive also if you'd taken similar abuse.
The sad fact of this 'issue/argument' is that when you boil it down to the bare facts, science, social complicity and sport cannot agree that fairness is possible.
She's also tweeted that people who disagree with her should burn in grease fires... So there's that
The good Dr doesn't understand fairness, nor understand basic biology/physiology, or is being deliberately ignorant of those basics, so as a lay person I would say I, and indeed many other lay-perons have somewhat more of an understanding of the matter.
Yes sport by definition is 'unfair' some people have a NATURAL advantage, their gentic makeup that they are born with, some just train very hard, are more dedicated, have the right guts and mental will to succeed over others who do have a superior genetic makeup.
However one cannot ignore the facts at hand, being born a male, have gone through at the very least puberty as a male will and does give you a genetic/phsyiological advantage that only a ridiculously small number of people who were deemed to be females may have anywhere close to, Caster Semenya for instance who is intersex. However she was born that way, she had absolutely no say in the way she was born or deciding what 'sex' she was nor, yes I will say it, gaining an UNFAIR advantage over others.
I like to consider myself fairly liberal and certainly don't have issue with trans but until a female who has transitioned to male starts beating males I'm not entirely convinced on this argument of it all being fair.
McKinnon is also extremely agressive to anyone who doesn't whole heartedly support her doesn't exactly help her case.
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