Transgender cyclist Emily Bridges insists she has no advantage over her rivals in women’s races – and says she has the data to back that up. She also says that transgender athletes have become “the current punching bag” in the “culture war.”
The 21-year-old had been due to make her debut in a women’s event at the National Omnium Championships in Derby in March, where she would have lined up alongside the likes of former world and Olympic champion in the discipline, Dame Laura Kenny.
While her testosterone levels had dropped sufficiently to allow her to comply with British Cycling’s Transgender and Non-Binary Participation Policy, allowing her to compete in women’s events, the UCI blocked her participation at the last minute.
British Cycling has also subsequently suspended its policy for a year, and a letter signed by more than 70 people involved in women’s cycling, including
The head of Great Britain’s Olympic and Paralympic programme, called on the UCI to tighten its rules on allowing transgender cyclists to compete in women’s events.
> GB Olympic cycling chief joins calls on UCI to tighten transgender rules
In an interview in the forthcoming issue of DIVA, the magazine for LGBTQI women and non-binary people, published to coincide with June’s Pride Month, Bridges responded to those who maintain that transgender women have an unfair advantage over biological females.
#DIVAEXCLUSIVE ?️??️⚧️ In our #Pride issue DIVA publisher @LindaRiley8 interviews our inspiring cover ⭐️, cyclist Emily Bridges, about trans inclusion in sport, her coming out journey and being banned from the British National Omnium Championships
Pre-order: https://t.co/nWZf3vewrB pic.twitter.com/NcqmYyOirl— DIVA Magazine (@DIVAmagazine) May 20, 2022
“I understand how you’d come to this conclusion because a lot of people still view trans women as men with male anatomies and physiologies,” she said.
“But hormone replacement therapy has such a massive effect. The aerobic performance difference is gone after about four months.
“There are studies going on for trans women in sport. I’m doing one and the performance drop-off that I’ve seen is massive. I don’t have any advantage over my competitors and I’ve got data to back that up.”
Speaking about wider issues transgender people face, she said: “We’re the current punching bag populist movements like to go for. We are, at the moment, who the culture war is against.
“There needs to be more positive voices and more education. People are constructing opinions off not the whole story.
“The more studies that are done, the more concrete evidence there will be.
“Sport acts as a microcosm to the rest of society, so with the patriarchal structure that exists in the rest of society, that’s intensified in sport.”
Bridges, selected to participate in British Cycling’s senior academy in 2019, is a former junior men’s record holder in the 25 mile time trial and in February won her final race in a male event at the BUCS track championships.
Speaking about her participation in men’s races before she qualified to ride women’s events under British Cycling’s policy in force at the time, she said: “I could have just not ridden, which probably would have been somewhat better for my mental health and for affirming my identity. “
I don’t know if it’s the right decision or not, but that’s what I did.”
Speaking of her exclusion from the National Omnium Championships, she said: “Everything was kicking off saying, ‘Oh, she’s gonna race and she’s gonna beat Laura Kenny’.
“I don’t know why they’re thinking that. I wasn’t doing that well.
“It’s like they automatically think I’m gonna beat a multiple Olympic champion, just because I’m trans.
“We knew it would create more uproar in the media and it blew everything up even more.”
She also revealed that she had deleted her social media accounts for two weeks, telling DIVA: “It’s been a struggle. I’ve been trying to take each day by day, get through the day and get to the other side, because there’s been some pretty dark times.
“There’s so much hate and criticism that I just don’t look at it. I know it is happening and I try to have that drive me, but that’s easier said than done.”
“I want to make the world a better place,” added Bridges, who came out as transgender in 2020.
“I want to inspire people and help people through their journey to be who they are, and try to act as a bit of a role model.”
63 thoughts on “Transgender cyclist Emily Bridges insists she has no advantage over rivals”
Regardless of where you stand
Regardless of where you stand on the debate it’s hard not to conclude the way it’s been handled has been damaging for this poor woman.
Your statement is at odds
Your statement is at odds with itself.
Why is it at odds with itself
Why is it at odds with itself?
Because in its opening it
Because in its opening it appeals to all sides of the debate but in its close it requires agreement with one side. It is not logical to assume all sides of a debate will agree with just one side of a debate, for then there would be no debate.
Sriracha wrote:
I did debate whether to end without a pronoun at all or with a gender neutral one but decided common courtesy required use of the one she prefers.
If you dont agree with that you may or may not be anti-trans but you certainly lack manners and courtesy.
What would have been wrong
What would have been wrong with referring to Bridges as a cyclist? The common ground you are inviting agreement with is that the situation has been poorly handled to the detriment of those involved, not that Bridges is a woman.
If we’re going to get hung up
If we’re going to get hung up about the simple and courteous use of a pronoun then there’s no chance we’re going to have reasoned debabate about whether a transgender athlete should be allowed to compete with other women.
“Woman” isn’t a pronoun. I’m
“Woman” isn’t a pronoun. I’m perfectly happy to call her “her” as a matter of courtesy, but if the question is “is Emily a woman?” then it should not be offensive to answer the factual question with “no”.
IanMK wrote:
That’s a seductive argument; who can disagree that debate should be reasoned, and bounded by courtesy?
To refer to an adult as “she” is to recognise them as woman. But that is the issue at the heart of the debate. That is asking one party to concede as a pre-condition of the debate.
This is not some dry procedural matter. Language colours thinking; only allowing expression of thought in language that leans towards one view exerts a powerful influence on the debate. Where none is given, crying offence as a means to invoke the bounds of courtesy is a time worn ploy. As a tactic it may well carry the day, but it will leave the issue unresolved.
The comment that started all
The comment that started all this wasn’t even trying to have a debate. It was explicitly trying to step outside of the debate and just express some feelings for a person. It seems like the whole subsequent argument is rather besides the point
The original comment was
The original comment was “Regardless of where you stand on the debate …”
Exactly – it was putting the
Exactly – it was putting the debate on one side.
I don’t really want to go
I don’t really want to go round in circles, since I already replied to that opening comment, and so I’ll leave it there.
Secret_squirrel wrote:
I can’t help thinking that the way she handled it herself was quite damaging, continuing to race (and win) as a man up to February and then wanting to race as a woman in March might have some justification but to those not fully conversant with the intricacies of the arguments (i.e. most of us) it wasn’t the best visual. If the problem is, as she states, “a lot of people still view trans women as men with male anatomies and physiologies”, going from winning as a man at a reasonably high standard and then wanting to compete as a woman against women less than a month later wasn’t going to do a lot to dispel that perception, I feel.
I tend to agree that the
I tend to agree that the optics are shite. But look at it from her point of view – the UCI/BC rules are like a switch one day you’re male the next your are female, regardless of the fact you have been transitioning for a year. If you were targeting a hugely competitive event against the best in the world would you want plenty of actual race fitness? Moreover if as a woman you had better opportunities to race with men to enhance your edge – wouldn’t you take it?
Yes indeed, and she did
Yes indeed, and she did nothing wrong under the rules as they stood/stand. However, if she is trying to convince people that the hormone treatment means that she is carrying over no inherent advantage into women’s racing, winning a national male student championship less than a month before she was due to make the changeover and when she was many months into the treatment is not that helpful to her case.
Which leave Bridges in a
Which leaves Bridges in a catch-22 position, since there are advantages to not winning.
So she can’t compete at all?
So she can’t compete at all? Or competes but throws it at the last, to not win?
You then get trolls claiming she throws a race just to “prove” that she has no advantages…
nosferatu1001 wrote:
I would’ve thought that a good option, yes, although obviously I know that would be hard for her as an athlete with a natural desire for competition; once she made the decision that she identifies as a woman and wishes to transition, I would say that was a sensible time to stop racing as a man. Just to be clear, I don’t think she did anything wrong and she had every right to race as a man, but winning at quite a high level as a man and at the same time claiming that the hormones have reduced her capacities to such an extent that she is now on a level playing field with other women does seem to confuse the issue somewhat, in my opinion.
It is an option, but for her
It is an option, but for her personally I don’t see it as “good”. She’s in the prime for competing. Being told she shouldn’t compete in the only competitions she’s allowed to compete in, because of optics, might be “good” (and I’m not too convinced on that either!) for trans athletes as a whole, but I don’t see how it is good for her.
she’s navigating an incredibly complex arena, while transitioning, all at the age of 21.
I see your point, but surely
I see your point, but surely if she is saying that the hormone treatment has removed all her advantages of being born male whilst at the same time winning a fairly important male-only race just weeks before claiming the right to race as a female rather undermines her argument? As an honestly disinterested (as in having no skin in the game rather than uninterested) observer I find I hard to reconcile those two things.
Rendel Harris wrote:
I’d applaud Bridges for doing so. The only thing I see resolving the question of whether transwomen competing against women is fair will be data. But only if that data is generated in good faith best-effort competition, without regard to the “optics”.
Rendel Harris wrote:
I wouldn’t disagree – but apart from this being allowed by the rules at the time, Bridges is still a very young adult trying to navigate a very tricky situation. Plenty others of us would get the ‘optics’ wrong under those sorts of circumstances (and, of course, different folk will have different ideas of what ‘good optics’ are in each case).
Sport acts as a microcosm to
“Sport acts as a microcosm to the rest of society, so with the patriarchal structure that exists in the rest of society, that’s intensified in sport.”
The use of the word ‘patriarchal’ is at odds to what is actually occurring as it isn’t men who are expressing their objections with how transgender participation in sport is affecting competition.
The latest example of where participants are not content with the result of a sporting event was earlier this week:
https://road.cc/offroad/content/news/british-cycling-to-investigate-transgender-riders-win-at-fort-william-10099
‘Patriarchal’ here doesn’t
‘Patriarchal’ here doesn’t just refer to men directly oppressing or undermining women/other genders in the present, but to the systems put in place by centuries of patriarchal government and leadership that cause discrimination by gender in the first place.
For instance, the gender binary (i.e., male and female) is widely recognised to be a product of modern patriarchal Western society too, wherein in pre-modern times gender fluidity was the norm:
https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1745691620902442
Yep, it’s overwhelmingly a
Yep, it’s overwhelmingly a white Christian export to the colonies as well. Awful stuff.
“in pre-modern times gender
“in pre-modern times gender fluidity was the norm”
That is absolute bollocks (or ovaries). The roles played in societies by men and women have varied according to circumstance, but everywhere and at all times it has been the (on average) larger and stronger class of humans that has supplied the sperm to fertilise the eggs produced by (some) members of the (on average) smaller and weaker class.
That is what is relevant in a sporting context: what one chooses to dress like, be called, or even what you really really feel like has nothing to do with it. We have a separate sphere of competition for members of that (on average) weaker class. If that boundary is removed, it will mean very few if any members of that class can win. I don’t think that’s fair: others may disagree, but they need to accept that is the likely outcome.
You’ve quoted but not
You’ve quoted but not understood.
a less strict binary approach eas common in many societies, the easiest spot being among native Americans.
asditonally, the reason for the split in sport along gender lines is as a result of the patriarchy. Have a research sometime. You’d be surprised.
I think that, aside from all
I think that, aside from all of the troubles and challenges Emily has faced in the past few years, the most remarkable thing is that she is facing it as a 21-YEAR OLD.
For someone relatively young to handle this all with grace and poise and to have accomplished so much even as a junior is nothing short of commendable.
vthejk wrote:
and in the face of vile hatred simply for being who she is.
the level of bigotry out there from TERFs and similar is incredible. She’s done amazingly well.
When you call NHS 111 they
When you call NHS 111 they will ask you for the gender that is on your birth certificate before proceeding with triage on pathways. They will still use your preferrred gender preference for communication. Why the difference? You may identify as a woman or man, but you cannot change the nature of your DNA, our species has two genders, they are fundamentally different in terms of Physiology. In order to treat anyone who is unwell this difference can be critically important to determine the correct course of treatment. This is a simple scientific fact.
In order to keep competition fair it’s got to be XX vs XX and XY vs XY.
For anyone who wants to compete, compete, but reconcile to yourself that hormone treatments alone will not level the playing field… it’s more complicated than that, you’re more complicated than that. It may feel unfair… but competing against athletes who do not share your biological gender.. it also unfair.
That is absolutley incorrect.
That is absolutley incorrect. Our species has more than two sexes (what you miscategorise as gender) and your gcse level biology is inadequate.
Thank you for your comment
Thank you for your comment “That is absolutley incorrect. Our species has more than two sexes” and on this basis… for competition to be fair we need more categories.
“Our species has more than
“Our species has more than two sexes”. It doesn’t. It has two, and a very small number of people who don’t fit neatly into them. Just like pretty much every other mammalian species.
Even if there were more than two sexes, this would be irrelevant to this case in which Emily is a member of the male sex who wants (and I don’t doubt her sincerity) to compete against members of the female sex.
The “multiple-sex” theory seems to me to hinder the trans-rights argument, as the overwhelming majority of trans people don’t have biological markers at odds with their presumed sex: they would just prefer to be treated as if they were in another of the main two categories.
No, our species has more than
No, our species has more than two sexes. Sorry, your pre 1960s understanding of biology isn’t compatible with the actual state of human knowledge.
sex and gender are not synonymous terms any longer. Not in the scientific world. And Emily is a woman,,not a man.
Up to and beyond 98.2% of the
Up to and beyond 98.2% of the global population conform to one of two scientifically defined ‘reproductive sexes’. Some studies suggest less than 0.2% of the poulation deviate from that. So I think Aspeers is mostly correct and for you to assert “That is absolutley incorrect” shows a tremendous bias on your part.
I’m afraid that since you did
I’m afraid that since you did O level biology the world has moved on. The term gender is no longer considered a synonym for “biological sex” in academic circles.
Thanks IanMK, prehaps,
Thanks IanMK, prehaps, instead of telling me what I got wrong, you could provide the correct information. Enlighten me! what is the presiding wisdom in current academic circles.
Where do intersex people fall
Where do intersex people fall in your worldview?
Emily needs to accept that a
Emily needs to accept that a lot of her competitors have an issue competing against her because she’s a biological male and thus has many advantages over her biological female competitors.
The onus should be on Emily to prove that being a biological male doesn’t give her any advantages over her competitors and that she can live and compete on the same hormone levels as them.
You and your bollox about
You and your bollox about “biological female” again.
you’re unable to give a definiton of it that is accepted by actual science. The last few times you’ve then decided that the capacity to bear children is what matters.
Haha! Get the links to
Haha! Get the links to transgender vikings and 2 spirit pharaohs at the ready Nos. That’ll prove science and biology wrong.
Only 0.0018 of people are born DSD and of those there are 14 differentiations within the DSD spectrum. What het-hating misogynistic radicals like yourself rely on is operating in the shallow end of the information and evidence spectrum.
Emily cannot prove that being
Emily cannot prove that being a biological male doesn’t give her any advantages… It does. It is a simple biological truth.
As a society we can fully embrace emily’s descision to be a woman, that is not the same thing as fair competition.
My point exactly. Being born
My point exactly. Being born a biological male stops her from competing against biological females.
I say this ALL the time, but
I say this ALL the time, but sport is practically built on the precedent that people have a biological advantage over others. I, a relatively athletic and physically able person, could train for decades but may still never have the altitude adaptations of Nairo Quintana, the long torso of Michael Phelps, the natural physical strength and fitness of Serena Williams or the resistance to fatigue of Lael Wilcox.
It strikes me as strange that the most vocal critics of biological advantages only come forward when trans athletes participate in sport (and not even when they win in sport), not for any of the above mentioned athletes or anyone else perceived as being biologically superior to others.
The only possible conclusion to this is that these critics are, by definition, transphobic.
vthejk wrote:
it’s precisely that. They’ll then cry about how it’s unfair to be called transphobic when they post transphobic things.
For “transphobic things” see
For “transphobic things” see anything that points out the obvious backed by evidence, science, biology etc.
sparrowlegs wrote:
Source?
It’s a complex issue, with
It’s a complex issue, with valid points made on both sides. I don’t have a side in this, I usually side with the oppressed or marginalised, and in this situation that seems to apply to both “sides”. But I would say that name-calling does nothing to help your argument. It’s possible to be supportive of trans-rights and yet aware of the complexity of the issue.
Just have new sports
Just have new sports categories for transgients – with a handicap system based on all the multitude of testosterone/hormone/tits/ass/balls/penis/fanny variables.
Then women who feel that they don’t need/want to transidentify as another gender self identification, but have just “always been women” don’t have to put up with all this bollox…
Totally seperate point – how many woman transition to male gender and how do they fare in these competitive sporting scenarios where they compete in male categories?
Ah so seperate but equal?
Ah so seperate but equal? Good to know
No one is really equal and
No one is really equal and life is not fair. How have you not understood these concepts into adulthood?
Also I should imagine most biological females from birth feel it is pretty damn unfair when they have to compete with individuals who are physically different when born and when through puberty have significantly different body structures/attributes before re-gendering… but you know maybe you carry on ignoring their rights and feelings of inequality nosferatu1001. I would not call you a misogynist though. I will leave you to brand others with names.
I’m not ignoring their rights
I’m not ignoring their rights or feelings, but thanks for the snidery. Really helps.
you’re JUST about understanding, so close but so far!
the gender split in sport is a crude “ability” split, in part from the patriarchal shitshow of a society we’ve inherited.
why not have a real ability split? As you say, life isn’t fair, but we split eg boxing up into categories based on physicality, why not in all sports?
Boxing is based on weights
Boxing is based on weights AFTER it first being based on biological sex.
Equal but different.
Equal but different.
sparrowlegs wrote:
so that woman over there isn’t a true woman, so can’t compete?
poster meet fallacy….
Does the woman have or ever
Does the woman have or ever had a penis?
Ideology meet biology
Ideology meet biology
I’m just gonna throw this out
I’m just gonna throw this out there… Imagine a world…
Paris 2024 – All althletes will be required to take hormones to ensure gender equality, althletes will then compete an an event by event basis. No seperate events will exist based on this outmoded concept of gender at birth.
Now imagine watching this fiction play out and the press reaction! It’d be terrible, but at least it’d end this nonsense debate that hormones alone can make up for a fundamental difference in biology.
https://fairplayforwomen.com/biological-sex-differences/
This story was better when
This story was better when comments were not allowed.
hirsute wrote:
This. This whole thread was more interesting, enlightening, and well-informed when it didn’t exist.
I learnt a lot from not
I learnt a lot from not reading it, but even more from not reading the whole article.
In fact – road.cc could do better business just rolling out headlines and letting the mosh pit have at it.
Ban competitive sport and
Ban competitive sport and give everyone a medal for “doing their best”.