Transwoman wins women's US cycling race & gets $35k prize

[MrsJamin]

Austin Killips won the Tour of the Gila women's race www.cyclingnews.com/races/tour-of-the-gila-2023/stage-5-women/results/
Just outrageous. Any tweet by the organisers mentioning Killips has restricted comments (but of course many quote tweets)
It's getting more and more ridiculous:

• the rider retained their original male first name, Austin.
• they rode for the Amy D Foundation, set up to encourage and support young women through cycling, inspiring the celebration of healthy challenge and empowering the confident pursuit of lofty dreams.
• this is the first year the women's prize money is the same as the men's.

You couldn't make it up. When will the most sports-loving country in the world protect and give a shit about women in sport?

This is the footage of Austin Killips deliberately sabotaging the female cyclist Hannah Arensman. Austin is in white. This person is a cheat on so many levels. And should be banned for life baed on that incident alone IMO.

https://twitter.com/i_heart__bikes/status/1610747669827424260

So stunning and brave, eh @Mammothwoollyjumper

So unacceptable, just outright cheating. I wonder what the team mate who finished 3rd really thinks, she has her arm round Austin on the podium and looks pretty happy but maybe she's too afraid to show anger at the situation which sees her lose 2nd place to a man.

If the UK becomes an outlier in international circles with only females on the team, we'll drop in the rankings over time. There will be pressure to fit in with the norm. Coaching culture is more competitive than the sport itself - look how many sports had exploitative and abusive coaches for years - as long as they were winning, everyone looked the other way.

The USA is proving itself profoundly sexist in this way and it has big influence to make sure that men come first.

There is a delightful interview somewhere online with Austin Killips where she talks about her hormonal struggles and how difficult it is to manage her hormonal moods. Two blokes simpering at each other about the challenges of femininity. I may have thrown my phone across the room.

It reads like a speculative fiction story - men start identifying as women and taking everything from them and everyone pretends they can't see anything is wrong, apart from a small group who try to fight back. Except that small group is actually the majority of the population.

My heart goes out to all women in cycling. It's an impossible situation. I spoke out against trans inclusion (in another sport) and was kicked out of a sporting competition. I'm contemplating setting up a new competition but the accusations of transphobia stick and I don't know whether I'd be able to get others to participate.

Hidden under a larger pile of money, I expect.

The problem is that then they don’t get to race at all. Even if they try to set up female-only races (not easy to replicate with no funding), they’ll be abused and threatened into letting biological men compete.

The thing about sport is that your peak career is often pretty short. So it becomes a compete now or never compete at this level thing.

Good point about the history of the coaching culture in cycling in particular. And of course the drugs cheating that went with it. Cycling is probably going to be one of the last sports to consider fairness.

What we need is a Lance Armstrong to step out of retirement, take some testosterone suppressents and compete in the women's race. A reformed (alleged? proven? I forget) drugs cheat who has genuinely suffered from an awful experience with cancer... now possibly identifying as a woman (but nobody can ask because that's his/her personal business). Sorry, very tongue in cheek but that combination of traits would inspire a lot of kindness and support.. whilst also holding up quite a big flag to wave about what is fair and what is not.

And to anyone that may have seen me posting on other threads that I respect others' belief in gender identity even though I don't believe I have one, I do. However, I also said I would vehemently oppose this where their personal belief impacts others. Winning this money is a very good example of the impact of Austin's own gender identity belief (or possible medical dysphoria - I don't know her personally to have a view) on others.

Cycling has always had a bit of a "win at any cost" attitude. Doping is still an issue. They have to check bikes to make sure nobody has put motors in them. If there's a way to cheat, someone will take it. Other teams aren't going to sit by, if one team can win a womens race this way, in a couple of years they'll all be fielding their own "winners".

And what is so galling is that it's coming just at the moment when women's cycling finally is getting some sort of parity with men. First equal purse for this race - but no, a woman can't win it.
Only the second year for ages of a decent tour de France women's race (still only 1 week compared to 3, but better than just a day....) - will that race be all women?

Disgraceful

Sadly it may have to come to a point where there is only men’s cycling and biological men who identify as women’s cycling. When the only people making teams are biological men, and no woman gets anywhere near it, there will be uproar.

Even more sadly, the uproar will be from
the MRAs who aren’t happy that their choices are now men or de facto trans women categories and there are no women involved. It probably won’t be from
society giving a fuck about women, will it?

The men's race was won by a convicted doper.

This bit if trash journalism is from Canada.
There is even a phrase saying “cis women (born anatomically female)”.

It is based on scientific research. So how is that research getting it so wrong?

Trans women athletes have no unfair advantage under current rules, report finds | Cycling Weekly
www.cyclingweekly.com/news/trans-women-athletes-have-no-unfair-advantage-under-current-rules-study-finds

Every actual woman in that race is misranked. They should all be moved up one, more if other men raced.

I think it's about times female athletes went on strike just like Drs and nurses. Their pay and especially their working conditions are shit.

If they went on strike who would the trans women have to compete against? Themselves and they may as well compete with men... Oh wait they can't because won't win gold because their testosterone levels have been hampered with. But not fiddled enough with to win gold at a women's race though.......

As the mother of a young, very good, cyclist things like this concern me a lot. Just not sure what I should be doing here. Are we letting her go down a completely pointless path?

I could steer her back into triathlon as British Triathlon has been very clear about its intentions. (My 9 year old son competed in the “Open” section yesterday at an event.) But for her triathlon is effectively “sport I quite like before the cycling, yay cycling, other sport I quite like after the cycling”.

Or we could just accept that sport is fucked and get her to focus on school. She is very clever but the cycling does interfere. She’s on a ferry at the moment on the way back from a big event. It should be that the only thing that limits her is what her legs can do and what her head can force her legs to do.

She shouldn’t be limited by some random officials who are too scared to say what they really know.

Becomimg a social pariah is major problem for people speaking out. Teammates, club mates etc don’t want to be seen with the “problematic woman”. It’s really hard and you have my sympathies

@Mumoftwoinprimary assuming you’re in the UK, British Cycling’s new transgender policy should be released soon. That should give you a good indication of which way the wind is blowing in cycling.

I wonder how the male winner of the women’s race’s time compared to the male winner of the men’s race?

No need to google it, I think we all know the answer. It’s another “third rate male thinks winning a Women's race proves they are an amazing athlete, ” story

It’s this sort of thing that originally peaked me