“Fairness” and Transgender Athletes in Sports.
A transgender Amateur cyclist expands on the “fairness” arguments around transgender athletes in sports by Roxy Bombardier with input by Mary-Catherine Graziano.
A recent opinion piece by Andie Taylor in the New York times has me thinking, well in reality it irritated me, but it did make me think. I’ll leave the topic of running to Andie since that is her expertise. I’d sure hate to see her views applied by a poorly informed public across the spectrum of other sports. As in the case of what Andie had to say, you may not like what I have to say. Andie’s suggestion that we use science to better understand the performance of transgender athletes is laudable, and some science has been done. Sadly I don’t anticipate much work being done on this, because it does not center around developing the next Viagra, pharma gold mine, or Covid stopgap.
Regardless of the results of such studies, they will only fuel the pundits who will twist the data to their liking. I tend to think that Andie’s improved performance improvements are a combination of years of expertise and 1000 other factors combining along with her increased happiness and self-actualization in transition, but I can’t say, I don’t know her. I do resent the fact that her words will be used against transgender athletes in other sports.
I can talk to you about Gravel Cycling, Mountain Biking, Fat Bikes, and a little bit about cyclocross. I can firmly call out transphobia as it relates to my disciplines. I am a Transgender Cyclist who has enjoyed very little controversy, simply because I’m not good enough to be controversial. Some will just say that I “just suck at cycling”. Granted, I hope to change that and always do, and I’m always working on it and will continue to do so.
After coming out as transgender, I have received absolutely wonderful support and encouragement from the Vermont cycling community. I have been welcomed and embraced by women cyclists in my area. For this I will be eternally grateful.
I first started bike racing almost 30 years ago, I’m in my early 50s now. I took a decade off for Military Service (because I couldn’t find a job in the late 90s), and did a tour in Iraq. My trips to the podium can be counted on one hand, one of these trips was to the men’s podium. Presently, I work full-time as a technology professional at a university and race bikes in my spare time.
Recently, I lined up at the start line of a local mountain bike race. The people at the start are all friends or acquaintances of mine. One of these people is a former olympian mountain biker, two others are former pro-tour bike racers with a dozen or so Tour De France starts between them. I have the great privilege to have the ability to name some pro, former pro, and elite amateur cyclists as friends but I won’t be doing so here because I want to focus on the topic of transgender athletes, not who my friend are.
It is a privilege, and an honor to spend time with these elite performers and to say nothing of sharing a racecourse with them. They’re all very hard-working, down-to-earth, amazing people and I love them dearly. We, humans, love to compare ourselves to one another and we love watching elite performers and wonder how we stack up, I’m no different in this regard in spite of being transgender and logically knowing the hard cold truth about my abilities.
I also firmly believe that they (elite athletes) have usually been gifted a few extras from mother nature and “lady luck” as it were. Athletic ability and a combination of circumstances that, often, allow them to capitalize on their very hard work. Genetic differences, muscle density, bone health, VO2 Max capacity, geography, and 1000 other factors combine. Often you will find that they were able to practice their sport (or similar sport) through their developmental ages. I first read this in studies in the early 1990s and I’m betting there is even more data for this presently.
Add to this access to very expensive bicycles, components that allow them to shave pounds off the weight of their bicycles. For some, factors include access to professional level coaching, dietitians, massage, and/or special discount pricing on all of the above. I don’t begrudge them this, I just want to make the point that whatever the gender, they are often a “breed apart” from the majority of us. They often reside inside of supporting communities and families. I’m happy for them when they achieve this.
As my friend Mary-Catherine says: “Anti-trans athletics arguments are generally rooted in ableism, racism, classism, and other “isms”. Guess what, folks? The playing field (or cycling trail) was NEVER level. It was NEVER a place where everyone got an equal chance to participate and succeed and it is even LESS so now. (Most especially in modern bicycle racing as I’ve known it for the last 30 years.) Pretending it was ever fair sport ignores the experience of an overwhelming majority of people who could never participate meaningfully in competitive athletics because of disabilities minor or major, economics, free time, the list goes on.
A survey of cycling’s top competitors will, most often, reveal an athletic heritage in the family and parents who cultivated it, often parents who performed at an elite level. Often there were financial and timing factors as well, most especially in the hyper-expensive sport of cycling. Excluding Transfolx based on “fairness” is ridiculous on its face, and blatantly ignores the history of athletics as a whole concerning disabled and economically disadvantaged people. Watch an entire pro field react to Mathieu van der Poel during a spring classic. If you wonder about the origins of ancient legends around heroes and demi-gods look to people thus equipped. A look at Mathieu’s family tree is also instructive.
We literally have bike races in this sport where a Mercedes or Volvo will show up and bring you a new bike if your bike breaks. Should you need one of these bikes, you will be lauded for “overcoming adversity” in the process. This is not me saying that being an elite/pro bike racer is easy, but don’t even pretend it is “fair”. “Fairness” has never, ever been a priority. I know two professional riders who have had to pivot their entire lives (and careers) due to head injuries received by crashes in the pro peloton, they’ve faced great risks to life and limb. Not to mention living like monks (or nuns if you prefer) for years at a time away from friends and family to compete at that level. I recognize their very great sacrifice to get where they are (or have been). But also, if you were successful in sports, then you had access to success in athletics due to a large number of factors including economic privilege.
I typically race off-road or on gravel roads, rarely on pavement, but I raced a borrowed 25-year-old road bicycle in the Maine/Vermont senior games race in 2019 and sprinted against a man who was on a Colnago road bicycle with electronic shifting that retails for close to $10,000. I beat him and it took everything I had left to do so. I was 8 months into my transition but was asked to remain in the men’s category for the first year of my transition to pattern IOC rules. While I could not afford that Colnago, I consider myself incredibly privileged to have a friend like Francis who loaned me his road bike. Plenty of “would be” bike racers don’t even have that type of connection.
Trans folx having access to sports didn’t suddenly make it unfair to have a physical advantage. It was ALWAYS unfair. Someone ALWAYS had a physical advantage, just put my photo next to those of Alison Tetrick or Chris Froome at any age. They clearly have design advantages not related to their genitals. John Q Public just ignores those of us who didn’t have those advantages and pretended that our lack of access wasn’t important. The moment a trans person wins a medal or championship, suddenly John Q is interested and excited especially with talking heads like Joe Rogan spreading hate. Even Donald Trump Jr, with no previous interest in cycling, chimed in about imagined unfairness.
Consider the case of Dr. Veronica Ivy, a track cyclist, who lost the vast majority of her races to her rivals, the moment she won a small minority of races including a key championship race controversy exploded because, you guessed it, she is a transgender woman having transitioned medically years before entering cycling competition. Due to hateful anti-transgender actors and trolls, she was forced to change her name, move her residence and job. She continues to face rampant discrimination and upheaval in her life. No one seems concerned about the unfairness of the trauma inflicted on Dr. Ivy; where are the fairness arguments now?
At present one of the cyclists, Dr. Ivy defeated, is making a minor career as a transphobe, because the controversy sells. The opponents of transgender athletes competing as their true gender also ignore the decades-long struggles faced by transgender people especially those of us raised in a crueler age, I can tell you stories about living with lifelong mental health struggles. Transgender people, especially transwomen, struggle for acceptance. What is given immediately and freely to transwomen is the governance over women’s bodies that male dominated organizations extend. A transgender woman athlete who dares perform at an elite level will be under the microscope in ways few can imagine, both by the governance organizations of a given sport and the public at large.
Those against would imagine us casually receiving years of Hormone replacement therapy and surgeries simply to stand on a podium or claim small prize purses. The number of professional cyclists making an enviable wage is a small number on this planet. Their premise is outrageous and simply not feasible.
Even with relative privilege, I could not afford to throw my leg over a “decent” $400 dollar Mountain bike until I was 26 years old and I STILL consider myself very blessed to now be able to afford a range of bikes that allow me to even ride in most seasons. My parents told me early on that I “did not have the body” for cycling. I don’t consider that fair either, many elite racers and those in the pro-peloton have had encouragement since they were on a strider bike and have known an era with High School Mountain Bike teams. Plenty of us have lived in times and areas when cycling to or on school property was banned, this remains in some areas. Cycling remains under the cross hairs of totalitarian governments, oppressive regimes foreign and domestic; as well as those who resent the simple freedoms offered by the bike, but this is another subject.
Stop it with the “fairness” arguments. If it was not important to find ways for disabled and poor people to succeed, then it’s not important now that able-bodied Transgender people are trying to participate in sports. Few sports are more guilty than elite cycling in any of the disciplines of Road, Mountain, and Gravel. (BMX has certainly been more accessible to the urban poor). But, It has been demonstrably clear that no one really cares about fairness in elite sports like cycling. They just want to find a reason to exclude YET ANOTHER marginalized group from an activity, Transgender in this case.
Road cycling, in particular, is literally about exclusion with its various categories and clubs, usually justified in the name of rider safety, and this is not wrong; just watch a criterium some day. In the words of Mary-Catherine Graziano: “Sport can provide financial, social, and health benefits to the participants. In addition, you know–if we had found a way to celebrate the athleticism of every *body* in a meaningful way–decades ago, then this entire argument would have been moot. However, we did not.”
Those who are so into the claimed advantages that people get by their birth or sex biology should ask about the following; what would be the reaction to the suggestion to ban a variety of players from the NBA due to their height advantage? This is after all a biological and/or genetic advantage from birth? We don’t hear of suggestions that marathon running should ban folx with heritage in East Africa, after all, they appear to have advantages from birth and genetics? Not to mention how long-distance running is celebrated and encouraged in that culture and environment. A modern American example of such a culture might be the mountain biking champion raised in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains by former Olympian parents.
This type of elite performance can go very deep, even in the more simple example of running which most humans can, in theory, do on some level. Sports fans celebrate those physical and genetic advantages held by the swimming great Michael Phelps, but the runner Caster Semenya is penalized for hers. Lately, some cis-gender black women with “higher” than ordinary testosterone levels have been penalized in sports because of rules targeting transgender athletes. The dynamic of race in these questions makes them even more tricky, are you uncomfortable yet?
I know married couples where both partners are elite cyclists, they’ve had children; children who very likely will have a very strong option of being elite themselves should they choose. They’ll do so via encouragement at a very young age, access to world-class coaching, and training passed on by mom & dad well before the first significant money is put toward that racing bike.
Meanwhile, the kid down the road won’t even be able to play soccer after school for one socio-economic reason or another. Eventually, that kid might work hard in school, get a good job, then be able to afford a good bike by the time they’re 25..or not. If the kid who can race bikes wants to race bicycles, by all means, they should, but stop claiming it is “fair” because they might (or might not) have similar genitals at birth to the other kid.
We hear a lot from self-styled gender critics and arm-chair biologists about testosterone. I had plenty of testosterone (and hard training) in my system when a very pregnant elite woman cyclist beat me by 35 minutes during one of my longer races a couple of years back. She required a riser stem on her bicycle to allow her to ride comfortably with her larger belly. She also beat a lot of other competitors that day of all gender, sexes, and abilities. She is literally one of the best cyclists in the region.
I probably have about $3500 dollars (or so) invested in the gravel bike I race at many events, similar numbers in my mountain bike, monster cross bike, and Fat bike. I know plenty of people who would think what I’ve spent is outrageous. I also ride with folx who’ve spent up to 10,000 on individual bicycles, especially once you add in repair costs and upgrades. Pro and elite athletes very often enjoy sponsorship bicycles and deep discounts that can go as high as 60% off parts and accessories if they’re representing brands and larger bike shops. Avoid thinking of this as some secret cabal; after all the equipment tested in the pro and elite ranks eventually makes it into the hands of ordinary athletes like us through their rigorous testing, this benefits the ordinary cyclist, later on, market forces and all.
The elite pregnant woman mentioned earlier continues to beat me in all events by a very comfortable margin postpartum; and probably will continue to do so. It is literally her job to ride a bike so she will continue to be better. For the record, I no longer have testosterone of any significant amount. But due to the marvels of modern pharma, I have plenty of estrogen, will travel, and I will race bikes for food if need be.
-Roxy Bombardier
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