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?

@OldCrone
"This is a problem caused by males which is having an adverse effect on women. Other men need to step up and help. They can show how welcoming they are to 'transwomen' in the men's event."

Transwomen are welcome to compete in men's events any time. They wont because they would lose. Usually wouldn't even place well enough to be in the event to begin with. Men don't exclude transwomen. Transwomen exclude themselves.

As to it being a problem caused by males, unless you expect men to physically leap onto the tracks and solve this problem with physical force, which I'd be fine with but most people want a more peaceful solution, how are men to stop it when female athletes let the transwoman go ahead.

People are talking about sporting bodies being in charge. Boycott them. The sporting bodies depend on women for female sports. They can censure or punish a single woman, they will capitulate in a moment against a hundred.

Lots of men are speaking out very vocally against transwomen in women's sports already and long have done. Mostly on the political right, incidentally. But women are more powerful here. Women can solve this without men. Frankly, this is still the feminism board isn't it? Men will help but women need to act on this.

They will "give a shit" when women stop competing against men. If sportswomen cannot be bothered to defend their own sports by refusing to race against men then frankly touch s*

Men can help. I've already explained how (more than once). Men can also refuse to compete until there is fairness for women.

Why should women stop playing sport to bring about fairness? They will miss out on everything! They've already lost countless other things in their life that they have sacrificed to be able to do their sport - family gatherings, hanging out with friends, an all round education sometimes, a career, and especially when it comes to women, having to delay having a family. All that sacrifice and you think they are the ones that should step aside? I don't think you know what you're asking them to do.

That was for @AnotherDayAnotherView... "cannot be bothered", as if this is the sport women's MO. 🙄

The Telegraph have put this article out today www.telegraph.co.uk/cycling/2023/05/01/austin-killips-transgender-cyclist-wins-race-tour-gila/
Pertinent section for our conversation about the other competitors:
Amid the Killips controversy, Thompson, who came third at the women's Tour de France in 1986 and 1989, argued that the pattern was becoming more common. "These women are young, and there's a lot of bullying," she said. "They get cancelled, they get silenced, their jobs are threatened. They get put on the TERF [trans-exclusionary radical feminist] list. If they say anything, they are eviscerated. And so, instead of fighting this, they just walk away."

Posters demanding that elite sportswomen should sacrifice their careers are ignoring the battles women have had to face over the years simply to establish women's sport as a distinct entity - funding, sponsorship, media coverage and often even the "right" to participate.

This should be a battle for all of us, men and women, if we're concerned about fairness, equality and ensuring that our daughters, sisters, mothers and all women can participate and thrive in sport. The idea that men - who to a man are all mediocre sportsmen - are being allowed to colonise women's sport for their own financial and narcissistic benefits is completely unacceptable.

We know the public see the unfairness. Just as is having to happen in schools, the toxic anti women tentacles of Stonewall and the other trans lobbyists need to be removed from influencing sporting bodies for their own benefits.

If we're asking why other cyclists don't "do" something, does anyone remember what happened with some of the whistle-blowers on Lance Armstrong? They got publicly slandered, false stories printed about them, even death threats....
That's as well as the issue of athletes losing money and sponsorship if they pull out of a competition or boycott it.

And here's an example of what happens if a team refuses to play against another team with a biological male as one of their players -

www.theguardian.com/sport/2023/mar/13/vermont-school-that-boycotted-game-with-trans-player-banned-from-tournaments

Banned from all School tournaments. For all sports.

This is so enraging. Apparently this was the first time the women had the same prize money as the men and the money had been donated in memory of a local couple who owned a bike shop and supported women’s cycling. How bloody insulting to their memory as well as the women competing.

https://twitter.com/RebeccaReza/status/1653204951076864002

Posters demanding that elite sportswomen should sacrifice their careers are ignoring the battles women have had to face over the years simply to establish women's sport as a distinct entity - funding, sponsorship, media coverage and often even the "right" to participate.

But there will need to be some level of sacrifice at some point to make this stop won’t there. If nobody raises their head above the parapet the assumption will be that female athletes are fine with what’s happening. Hopefully there’s a lot of activism going on behind the scenes.

Duper's Delight.

And 'you're beautiful when you're angry, darling'.

It reads like a speculative fiction story

I’ve always thought this, Truth. Except it wouldn’t have got published, because fiction has to be at least marginally plausible. I can happily suspend my disbelief in time travel, dragons etc, to enjoy a story. But not human beings behaving in psychologically unbelievable ways. A small number of men claiming to be women, OK. The rest of the world pretending to believe it and changing laws to prevent dissent? No way.

If I’d been a publisher or film-maker 20 years ago and someone offered me this story I’d have turned it down because no one’s going to suspend that much disbelief.

Some of you don’t seem to understand how things work in elite sport ( I’m not taking about cycling here but more generally ).

Athletes are tied by contracts with the sports governing body , which they have to sign if they want to be selected to compete at National, European or international level.

Thre is a long lots of things you are not allowed to do, such as criticise the events organisers, sponsors or the sports governing body . There are rules about “ respecting “ other players. In the case of athletes under 18, these rules also apply to their parents. They are very strictly enforced.

So an athlete can’t just pull out a competition because a transwoman is competing . If they don’t have a medical note they will be asked why and their reasons will be judged as “ discrimination “ against another player. It will be treated as if they said “ I’m not playing against her because she is black / Jewish “. The sport will take disciplinary action.

There is NO OPTION to just decide to not compete in certain events , let alone to stand up publicly and say why. Their career will be over - everything they have worked and sacrificed for for perhaps 15 or 20 years.

No one on here as the right to demand than of another woman. Especially keyboard warriors who do nothing for women’s rights expect post on twitter. Go out and sacrifice your own job/ home / children’s place in school / safety / whatever - don’t demand that others do it.

Apologies: Austin Killips is an American man and the race was in America.

Killips won a medal in the women's cyclocross at the US National Championships and is now seen as a potential contender for the US women’s team at next year's Olympic Games in Paris
https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/women-in-sport/300866982/transgender-cyclist-austin-killips-wins-major-womens-tour-in-united-states

What @TUCKINGFYP0 said.

I also think it's wrong to ask women to scrutinise other competitors in this way. I'm not one who believes 'you can always tell' - quite the opposite, and particularly over a short time in sports kit. You'd likely know over time as you get to know other competitors, but the whole point of women's sport is that you don't have to look any particular way to be a woman - it was the point of feminism back in the day, and what sport gave to me when I was a big brawny teenager. Cara Dixon looks much, much more feminine than I ever did. That glorious freedom and acceptance should remain, but it shouldn't be exploited at women's expense. Cara Dixon should be competing as a male.

I understand this. There is a risk to speaking up. It could be career ending. There is also a risk to not speaking up which is that female sports become dominated by males. Female athletes are between a rock and a hard place. Perhaps it will be the next generation of athletes who take this on when males are taking gold in most events or completely filling podiums. Or perhaps by then they will have done such a great job of brainwashing youth that nobody will care anymore that there is no place for women in sports.

I totally get the pp in that it shouldn’t cost women more to deal with this. I agree.

It’s so frustrating to see, not sure what else can be done by us non competitors than keep talking and hoping press push on it too

Not sure how US will impact events and what would change things there

All of this.

There is such a cost to women, whatever happens. Another of those biological birthrights that men never identify into.

Thre is a long lots of things you are not allowed to do, such as criticise the events organisers, sponsors or the sports governing body . There are rules about “ respecting “ other players. In the case of athletes under 18, these rules also apply to their parents. They are very strictly enforced.

🤔 Respecting other players only goes one way though.

“ discrimination “ against another player only goes one way, too.

🤔

*It reads like a speculative fiction story

I’ve always thought this, Truth. Except it wouldn’t have got published, because fiction has to be at least marginally plausible.*

The Handmaid's Tale?