47-year-old mtf transitioner wins women's cycling competition in NYC

[EdgeOfACoin]

Tiffany Thomas won the cycling competition at the weekend at the age of 47.

Thomas's next oldest competitor was 32.

https://news.yahoo.com/male-athlete-wins-women-cycling-151630094.html

However, I do find Yahoo's headline very interesting. It is very explicit.

Seems to be getting out of hand in cycling. Couple of pieces from the Daily Mail - one focussing on Thomas, and one on Hannah Arensmen's retirement.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11892441/Transgender-athlete-46-wins-female-NYC-cycling-event-says-feels-like-superhero.html

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11895323/Heartbreaking-words-female-cyclist-quit-sport-constant-beatings-trans-competitors.html

On a related note (though not directly connected to this race), cyclist Hannah Arensman has quit competitive cycling given the number of male-bodied cyclists now dominating the competition:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.foxnews.com/sports/us-cyclocross-champion-reveals-she-retired-sport-emergence-transgender-athletes-womens-sports.amp

Cross post, @NecessaryScene !

Great headline. Sorry state of affairs. All should be reported exactly like that.

Yes, what is the point of hours of training just to be beaten by a man.

It’s what they want though - women erased from competitions or there just to make men look good.

Yet according to many of my acquaintances, trans women have no advantages. In fact, says one, a lady from California who used to be a competitive swimmer, it's just like the women over 6 ft she used to swim against, or the advantage Michael Phelps has in his physiology against other men. The support of the handmaidens for these men is astounding. Women's sport is dying.

Yes, factually accurate and balanced reporting.

It's changing though Seb Coes statement yesterday was heartening.

Tide is turning on all aspects of this recent trans madness. Look what happened to sturgeon! Kier beware

The USA will catch up as women start to sue the governing bodies.

I'm sure the cyclepath is celebrating this win.

There are also handmates who can see nothing wrong on men beating women, it’s just one more competitor. Why are women complaining that there are better women than them? That’s what competition is about.

I hope other news broadcasters follow suit and call a spade a spade when reporting.

Only started competing at 40 and now winning everything, my these women cyclists really don't try hard enough, when a beginner can beat them ali.

The male competitors want to be careful. If all the women and girls follow Hannah's example it'll only be males left in the female competitions and that won't be very 'validating'

When Austin Killips and Jennifer Lingwood were both in the top five in a women's cyclocross event last year, a bit of searching around took me to an interview where Austin Killips is going on to a male interviewer about the immense difficulty of managing her hormones around a race and how emotional she gets [giggle]... I couldn't listen any more. The fucking insult did my head in.

When Ned Boulting put up the trans flag in his twitter bio after Brianna Ghey was murdered and said 'don't @ me about sport' I thought, ok no absolutely i won't. I never tweet about this anyway. But what do you think Ned? Do you really think teenagers being horrifically bullied and knife crime has anything to do with women's sport getting played? Who do you think should be showing solidarity with who?

Only applies to world points ranking events, so nothing to stop a TW competing in, lets say Devon League in May, which my DD will be competing in.

She would expect to do well but if beaten by a man, whats the point?

^UK Athletics says it wants to reserve its women’s category for female-born competitors, with transgender women being moved into a new “open” category*

However, UKA said it could not prevent trans women from competing in the women’s category unless the government changes the law

So lets see if they do, amateur athletics season starts very soon.

On a related note (though not directly connected to this race), cyclist Hannah Arensman has quit competitive cycling given the number of male-bodied cyclists now dominating the competition:

This is one of the male competitors did to Hannah in the race that made her decide to quit:

https://twitter.com/TomHPearman/status/1602134082976096256?s=20

Cheating not just limited to leveraging male advantage.

The article and its headline are syndicated content from National Review - a magazine which is produced for American conservatives.

I think some of the cultural feminism of my teen year is to blame. Showing female superhero’s beating male superheros. The idea that ‘women can do anything!’. I think some women are just a bit out of touch with the reality of our biological differences.

Yahoo! are stating the facts - good for them! This is how it should be. And yes, it’s a shameful state of affairs.

Yeah, you have to wonder if they will start introducing special categories for more girly or something. Nothing like a cheater to call out other cheaters.

That headline though was a sight to see.

There was an article. On R5 this morning about the world athletics decision. They interviewed Joanna Harper (no alternative viewpoint was offered) who happily stated that transwomen were not dominating sport (maybe she was just referring to athletics) and pointed to cycling as a great model of how things should be 🙄There was also a rehash of the ‘there’s always someone with an advantage’ argument, again, with nobody challenging that view.

The presenter asked whether excluding transwomen from elite athletics would mean they felt excluded from all sport (clearly bad), without any consideration that allowing transwomen to compete eventually excludes all women from elite sport (clearly worse, given the numbers involved, and the lack of choice)

The piece on R4 this morning was good. Seb Coe said something to the effect of, "every female athlete and coach we asked unambiguously said transgender women should not be allowed to compete in female categories". Heartening!

I’ve just watched Seb on Breakfast news and he was also vague, talking about saying “no” just for the time being, science has improved over the last 15 years blah blah.

Shame he had to say that. It blurs the clarity of the overall message which, surely, is “no”! Watching him reminded me of a parent trying to pre-empt a tantrum by mollifying the child with a “softening” closing statement.

So what? The headline and article are a matter of fact. It's a great thing that Yahoo has reproduced it exactly, let's hope other media outlets grow some balls soon and start reporting more honestly.

Fair play to her, getting into elite sport starting in your early 40s is no mean feat, what with perimenopause etc starting to kick in.