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news
British Cycling logo"Why alienate 50 per cent of their audience?": Daley Thompson slams British Cycling for transgender athlete policy
Olympic medallists from Games past Daley Thompson and Sharron Davies have criticised British Cycling's transgender athlete policy during an empassioned debate sparked by the governing body sharing its "zero-tolerance" to hate message on social media.
Thompson, who won decathlon gold in 1980 and 1984, was responding to British Cycling tweeting an updated version of its transgender policy, in which it stated: "We take a zero-tolerance approach to instances of hate being targeted at individuals because of their views of gender identity."
> British Cycling launch consultation on transgender policy
British Cycling's policy states that members should "accept all participants in the gender they present" and that anyone breaching the guidelines, which includes "stigmatisation or discrimination" against a competitor, will face "appropriate action".
The two-time Olympic gold medallist asked why the policy was "prepared to alienate at least 50 per cent of their audience?"
"More importantly why would they do it so easily. Whose interests are they really looking after?" Thompson tweeted.
Davies, who won silver in swimming at the 1980 Moscow Olympics, went further, accusing the governing body of not looking after its female athletes.
"It's your job to look after female athletes as well as male ones," she said. "The very least you could do is listen and work with the actual science. I will remind and remind you of your position in years to come."
We take a zero-tolerance approach to instances of hate being targeted at individuals because of their views or gender identity. This thread will be moderated, and if you're aware of inappropriate or offensive behaviour by our members please email compliance [at] britishcycling.org.uk.
— British Cycling (@BritishCycling) January 27, 2022
In May, British Cycling announced it would be conducting a five-week consultation into its transgender and non-binary policy.
The policy was first published in October 2020 and received backing from former professional cyclist Philippa York.
Dan is the road.cc news editor and joined in 2020 having previously written about nearly every other sport under the sun for the Express, and the weird and wonderful world of non-league football for The Non-League Paper. Dan has been at road.cc for four years and mainly writes news and tech articles as well as the occasional feature. He has hopefully kept you entertained on the live blog too.
Never fast enough to take things on the bike too seriously, when he's not working you'll find him exploring the south of England by two wheels at a leisurely weekend pace, or enjoying his favourite Scottish roads when visiting family. Sometimes he'll even load up the bags and ride up the whole way, he's a bit strange like that.
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140 comments
They are one or the other, anyone who was capable of doing the tests to gather the information you have presented would be expert enough in their speciality to understand and advise. Not something I can do.
The experts I work with firmly believe that such individuals do not fit in to either a male or female category.
So will you now admit you are wrong?
Which expert told you this?
If you are unable to identify male/female/other, how can you with certainty say that "other" doesn't exist?
And this is why science isn't left to randoms on the net. Stay in school y'all.
I understand people think 'it must be complicated' but in this case it actually isn't. There are no sex categories beyond the two existing ones. All sorts of urban myth and well-meaning confusion abound.
Honey, you could really set the world on fire with this. Though you might want to a platform more suitable for groundbreaking scientific discoveries than a comments forum on a small uk cycling site.
It's important to clarify reality. We don't accept it when people say that they pay 'Road Tax' because it was abolished in the 1930s etc. Same principle.
That's rude! We're in the shadow of the UK's premier cycling website I'll have you know.
Can you provide your definitions for each sex category such that every single one of the 7+billion people that inhabit this earth fall neatly and exclusively into either?
Just realised I broke my earnest pledge in keeping shtum on this one....
Interesting. Just earlier you mentioned a 3rd - "weird"....
Just because you state that here doesn't alter the fact that it's wrong. Some people live their lives as neither sex. Unfortunately this isn't recognised in UK law and they have to choose one or the other in certain circumstances.
I wouldn't endorse the phrasing because there isn't 'anything else' alongside the two sex categories. It's completely accurate to say that every human is either female (the slight majority) or male.
What's your view on general birth defects such as someone having a different number of fingers? Should they be rounded up and exterminated as per the Nazis or should we accept that human anatomy is surprisingly complex and doesn't always conform to a narrow-minded view?
Played a Godwin early. Might save us from a return to the last thread.
PS I am not comfortable with the comment you were replying to either.
Are we the baddies (again)?
Dunno about anyone else., but I'm saying nowt!
That'll be a first !
And also inaccurate...
sigh...
Fungi are weird, indeed [more detail] - but humans are weird if you're a fungus.
Constructive comments based on facts and reality are welcome but hate is not. I despair of the word 'woke' as it seems to mean what ever I dis-agree with but cannot win an argument using strength of logic or meaning. If a person born as a man identifies as a women then they need to recognise without undertaking gender reassignment treatment that they have a biological advantage over people born as female. This needs to be reflected however sensitively in any prizes or recording of positions. Is anybody aware of how this is being translated within the sport at whatever level ? At the elite level transwomen having undergone reassignment are not winning everything or even coming close to the top female born athletes. At the lower level many trans atheles are just wishing to take part, compete and be accepted. They in general they do not wish to alienate anybody but equally do not wish for others to impose there viewpoints or judgements where it is intended to cause harm or discrimination, we seem to have enough division in this world without the need for more.
Phillipa York has an informed, first-hand take on this. Basically gender reassignment led to immediate loss of muscle mass and strength, accompanied by a gain in body fat. Could explain your observation.
It all depends how British Cycling class transgender athletes.
In Scotland, the wonderful woke government are pushing for self-ID laws, i.e. a man can say he is a woman and then use female only spaces. Women's rights are being destroyed and due to Hate Crime bill that the government is trying to implement then a woman can be jailed for refusing to call her rapist she if said rapist chooses to self-id as female.
In the UK, there are male rapists who say they are female and are housed in female only prisons and have committed sexual attacks on female inmates.
Can't say I have an issue with the BC Twitter statements referenced in the article. It is wrong that any individual should receive 'hate' due to chosen gender or viewpoints.
However, I am led to understand that behind this fairly benign, and totally reasonable comment, BC supported athletes have also been instructed that they are not to comment negatively about trans sport in any instance.
If that is indeed the case, then that is not cool at all.
Those paying/supporting you to do something will often have standards of public comment they require you to maintain as part of your contract/agreement, and that is not unreasonable in itself.
My contract of employment specifically sets out the consequences of me publicly criticising my school's policies on social media or elsewhere.
I can choose to still do it, and I know the consequences of making that choice. Likewise, if BC supported athletes feel strongly enough about BC's stance to want to speak out they are free to do so, knowing that the consequence will likely be withdrawal of their funding/support.
That is not to say that I, personally, support BC's policy on this ... I am on the fence simply because there is so much debate on the science behind it, and most public comment turns into a slanging match between the two extremes of opinion.
I appreciate everything you say, however the crux for me is in your last paragraph.
As there is still so much uncertainty (rightly or wrongly) surounding this subject, I don't think its reasonable that athletes potentially directly affected by trans sport are unable to express their concerns / opinions publically.
As a paying customer of BC, I'm not impressed by its forced silencing of arguably understandable concerns.
Having said that, personally, unless we start seeing world class podiums being dominated by trans athletes, I am not sure how big an 'issue'' there really is. But, crucially, who I'd say needs reassuring / their position considering is not middle aged men like me, its young women coming into the sport. Alas it seems as though they've simply been told to shut up and suck it up. Is that progressive / inclusive?
But all those competing at local level do not have legitmate concerns being beaten by someone who was a man 2 years ago, as long as world class podiums are not dominated.
I hear ya, and highlight...
"But, crucially, who I'd say needs reassuring / their position considering is not middle aged men like me, its young women coming into the sport."
Whilst ensuring that trans athletes are able to enjoy the same freedoms as everyone else - namely the joy of playing sport - we do also need to monitor;
- how trans athlete participation influences top end sport - for instance should the percentage of trans athletes reaching the top end of their chosen sport be grossly imbalanced to the total number of trans athletes participating, measures that ensure fair play may need revisiting.
- the perceptions of those entering women's sport - or not - around trans athlete participation, and if these perceptions are influencing the likelihood of someone starting or continuing a sport. If participation in women's sport declines and trans athletes are causing this decline, then some horribly awkward conversations will need to take place.
This appears to have been picked up from the Daily Mail (searched google/news for Daley Thompson; this was the top link, Daily Mail the fifth, all the other recent search results relate to alleged legal shenanigans from the extremely non-athletic Chicago politician Patrick Daley Thompson).
Thompson's, and in particular, Davies' common stance on the TS issue is well-known and long-standing.
The DM's stance appears to be "anti-woke" (or as some might put it, anti-tolerance), and anti-cycling at the same time. So just general poop-stirring. No need for us to stick our arms into a whirring cement mixer of poop started by the DM. There is also reference to this on, er, David Icke's website.
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