Transgender cyclist is first female finisher at Arizona race

I'm off on Strava as a woman get some QOMs.

Another liberal stupidity ; and think of it, when money enters in the equation, things will go nasty.

Load of repressed Alan Partridge types in here.

Here we have another example of left wing political correctness gone mad. As someone who has undergone sex reassignment surgery I find the term Transgender offensive as the correct term is Transsexual. As for anyone claiming they have changed Sex or Gender by growing breasts and wearing female clothing whilst still having a penis denigrates Male to Female Transsexuals, and the evolution of the human species.

Male and Female are the sexes of virtually every species on this planet and these are determined by your sexual reproductive organs. It is no coincidence that transgender, gender identity or 'identify as' do not occur in any other species because no other species wears clothes. In pandering to gender identity and the culture of identify as a Female or identify as a Male society has reduced the sex if the human species to a fashion statement which has absolutely nothing to do with Transsexuals. 

Transsexuals are born with the sexual reproductive organs of one sex but the sex of their brain is exactly the same as that if the opposite sex, proven by research on the brains of deceased male to female Transsexuals. This abnormality was caused in the womb during foetal development. Any proper Transsexual what to change their physical sex i.e. Have the sex reproductive organs of the sex of their brain. Modern medical Science cannot facilitate that yet.  What the likes of Bearsden has done is hijack part of Transsexual research by claiming they have a female brain and claim suicidal tendencies, which is all to common in Transsexuals. Transsexuals are suicidal because they have been born with the wrong body but what has Bearsden been suicidal about, not being born as a female with a penis? Its a fantasy.

As for the IOC, the previous standards were perfectly acceptable and fairer to normal females. A Male to Female Transsexual could only compete as a Female if they had undergone sex reassignment surgery and been on female hormones for 2 years. Having met both of the criteria my testosterone level barely gets about 0.1 nmol/l. A normal female has testosterone of 2-3 nmol/l. The new standard within the IOC  is testosterone at a max of 10nmol/L and they do not have to undergo sex reassignment surgery. I fathered two kids with a testosterone level of 10.5nmol/L therefore it is highly likely a transgender individual with 10nmol/l could still produce viable sperm.

Females  with penises do not exist in any species, especially those who can produce sperm. Its political correctness gone bonkers. 

Athletes are not categorized by their height, or leg length, or so forth. Otherwise, we would have the "short person" high jump, the "taller person" high jump, and the "really tall person high jump. Similarly, if sports were categorized by their ability, then most sports would be dominated by males (notice I said "most"). This goes for most sports, as it would simply be unfair to have men compete against women. The biological reality is that men are physiologically built differently than women. And in the arena of sports, those differences translate typically in superior athletic performance (notice I said "typically") since there will always be outliers and exceptions in very specific circumstances.

Being male or female actually is their "birth condition". It's irrelevant to their height, leg length, etc because women's biology generally corresponds fairly within a few percentage points of performance at the top level, against other women. Same with men. But men vs women? Women who used to be men and still have that XY-chromosomal advantage? Now we're not talking about height, we're talking about inherent, physiological differences that cannot be reasonably overlooked.

We, as a society, globally throughout recent human history, draw the line at men competing against men, and women competing against women. So until sports start categorizing differently, then it's male and female competing separately. Not "women who used to be naturally-born men, but now want to compete against naturally-born women".

Lastly, for those outliers such as this athlete (for example) who MAY feel they're being treated unfairly, what about those naturally-born XX-chromosomal women? Now ALL of them are being treated unfairly by trying to accommodate the outliers. Rules aren't determined by the outliers; they're determined by the 99+% of the population. Athletes such as this cyclist are well intentioned but sadly misguided: their apparent "right" to compete isn't a right. It's a choice, and a privilege. 

And so we end up with a scenario where "equality" rights are, in fact, discriminating against the naturally-born women in women's sports.  So what is supposedly is a "win" in gender rights, is the very thing causing strife and complaints by the other 99% of competitors are being unfair.

Cycling saved her life. Great, that's awesome! Seriously. But that doesn't give her the "right" to compete, let alone compete against all other women who now have a very distinct unfair disadvantage. The pendulum swings both ways, as it were. (no pun intended whatsoever, seriously).

I don't see why trans or disabled people should be competing with people who do have a different make up. Running on blades is different to running on legs, have hormone treatment is different from naturally being a woman, or a man. The base idea of competition is that you compare yourself to your peers - we have men's sport, we have women's sport, we have the paralympics, why not trans sport?

We have doping tests to try to create a level playing field, but here you are effectively saying it's OK to dope because you want to be the opposite sex. I find the whole thing perverse and a triumph for liberal ideals, but not common sense.

In particular we see that trans women start to dominate the women's sport - so clearly it is not a level playing field and makes a mockery of sport for women. I am not saying they can't compete, but in the same way that women forge a niche for their own competition, why don't trans seek to compete against others like them.

I never got why trans people can't compete, well at least trans women, as give it 6 months hormone levels are the same as someone born female, give it a year most of their fat distribution has changed,  give it 2 years muscle size, definition, and structure has completely changed,  the only thing that can't be changed is the size of their skeleton, but it does become less dense and more prone to breakage and osteoporosis, but other than size it's equal to the skeleton of someone who was born female.
For trans men i can see why they'd have issue competing in sports, due to them being on testoserone, and occasionally their hormone levels are higher than someone born male, which could lead to an advantage.

Quote:

Reflecting on her win, Bearden, who was riding for the Southern Arizona Gender Alliance, said, “It’s absolutely huge.”

Not the first thing I'd say in her position.

What an interesting situation we are getting into here.  In an attempt to include trans-gender athletes in the male/female classification of their choice we are in danger of destroying the validity of sport as we know it.

We have already seen cases of erstwhile 'men' athletes competing as women and performing, as might be expected, very well.  If this becomes more common, as these fads do, the gender classifications will be rendered meaningless and all competitors will have to be lumped in together.  This will obviously reduce women to the also-rans and they will simply give up their sports.

Is there a solution?  Should trans athletes be banned from competition?  Are we making a mountain out of a molehill over this issue?

By 'eck, it's a funny old world.