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news
Leia Genis individual pursuit USA national championships (screenshot USA Cycling / YouTube)USA Cycling accused of "transphobia" after individual pursuit medallist stripped of national championships medal
Update: On 5 August USA Cycling, responding to a request for comment from road.cc, claimed that Leia Genis was ineligible to compete at last week’s Track National Championships – where she took second place in the women’s individual pursuit before being stripped of her silver medal and removed from competition less than 24 hours later – as she had failed to provide the UCI with the documentation required to race in the Elite Women’s category.
The national governing body pointed out that Genis’ earlier participation in non-elite events fell under USA Cycling’s Policy VII Non-Elite Competition guidelines for transgender athletes, which allows competitors to self-select their gender (according to these guidelines, members are also able to file a grievance “in the event that a question should arise about a member’s eligibility to participate in a manner consistent with their gender”).
However, by upgrading to compete in the elite women’s category, USA Cycling says that Genis then became subject to the policies and regulations of the UCI and International Olympic Committee (IOC).
As noted in the original article below, the UCI’s new rules on transgender cyclists – which came into effect on 1 July – stipulate that athletes transitioning from male to female must demonstrate that their testosterone levels have been below 2.5 nanomoles per litre (nmol/L) for 24 months.
According to USA Cycling, Genis did not provide the UCI with the required documentation to upgrade to elite level and, when a review was carried out during last week’s track championships, had not completed the “required steps” to meet the eligibility criteria.
In a statement provided to road.cc, USA Cycling said: “At the 2022 USA Cycling Elite & Junior Track National Championships, a transgender woman, Leia Genis, registered for several Elite Women's events.
“Ms. Genis was made aware of the UCI's Transgender Policy in March 2022 and her responsibilities in complying with this policy. At the time, Ms. Genis was participating in non-elite categories and fell under USA Cycling's Policy VII Non-Elite Competition guidelines.
“Ms. Genis subsequently upgraded but did not provide the UCI with the necessary documents to race in the Elite Women's category.
“When USA Cycling discovered that Ms. Genis was participating in the event, a representative from the organization met with Ms. Genis to review her eligibility in accordance with the UCI’s policy.
“This review revealed that Ms. Genis was ineligible to participate in the championships as she had not completed the required steps to meet the UCI's Athlete Eligibility Regulations. As a result, USA Cycling refunded Ms. Genis’ registration fees, vacated her event results, and removed her from further events at the 2022 USA Cycling Elite & Junior Track National Championships.
“USA Cycling supports transgender athletes' participation in sport and was one of the first national governing bodies to adopt an inclusive transgender athlete policy.”
The original article appears below:
A silver medallist in the women's individual pursuit at last week's USA Cycling Elite Track National Championships has accused the governing body of "transphobia" after being stripped of her medal and removed from competition less than 24 hours later.
Leia Genis finished second in the women's elite individual pursuit, behind Bethany Matsick, at last week's national championships in Breinigsville, Pennsylvania. However, the next day both of the bronze medal race participants, Skyler Espinoza and Elizabeth Stevenson, were upgraded to second and third respectively, and Genis removed from the results list.
Writing on Instagram alongside a picture of her standing on the podium next to Matsick and Espinoza, with a silver medal around her neck, Genis said the "transphobia" behind USA Cycling's decision was "so blatant it's almost laughable".
"Being a trans woman in this sport is so incredibly frustrating," Genis said. "Poorly-communicated guidelines, restrictions and requirements that are constantly changing, lack of empathy from USA Cycling, and a peloton full of furtive whispers and sideways glances mean that even showing up to compete is an immense struggle.
"I am obviously heartbroken. I have worked my ass off to be here and I rightfully earned my silver medal. I will continue to train and race but this experience has left me disgusted and abhorred."
Genis also explained the events which saw her pulled from competition ahead of the next day's events.
"I was preparing for the mass-start races, a USA Cycling official informed me that I was no longer allowed to compete and that my place on the IP [individual pursuit] podium was to be revoked on account of my trans identity," Genis continued.
"Six weeks ago I was eligible for competition at UCI C1 and C2 races held at the same velodrome and overseen by the same technical director. Yet six weeks later, now that I am doing well at nationals, I am suddenly ineligible to compete. The transphobia is so blatant it's almost laughable."
Genis also took the opportunity to congratulate Matsick, who set a new track record in qualifying, on her "incredibly fast times".
USA Cycling remained silent on the decision in the days following the championships, with no comment other than to remove mention of Genis from the opening day's results.
While the governing body has since responded to road.cc's request for comment (see update above), questions remain surrounding why Genis, seemingly ineligible to compete under the tightened UCI rules, was allowed to race the event before being told.
From July 1, new UCI rules on transgender female cyclists competing in women's races came into effect, doubling the time an athlete transitioning from male to female needs to wait before being able to compete in women's races to 24 months.
It now stipulates that athletes transitioning from male to female need to have had testosterone levels below 2.5 nanomoles per litre (nmol/L) for 24 months. Previously, the rules required testosterone levels below 5 nmol/L for 12 months.
According to the athlete's Instagram, Genis began racing last year.
"Unfortunately, not everyone is happy to see a trans person racing," she said at the time.
"Many of which have expressed their disapproval quite loudly. But there have also been many supporters and honestly, I've had so much fun, they couldn't keep me away if they tried."
In March, British-based racer Emily Bridges was barred from making her racing debut as a woman at the National Omnium Championships. British Cycling said that the UCI had intervened to say Bridges "is not eligible to participate in this event".
Dan is the road.cc news editor and joined in 2020 having previously written about nearly every other sport under the sun for the Express, and the weird and wonderful world of non-league football for The Non-League Paper. Dan has been at road.cc for four years and mainly writes news and tech articles as well as the occasional feature. He has hopefully kept you entertained on the live blog too.
Never fast enough to take things on the bike too seriously, when he's not working you'll find him exploring the south of England by two wheels at a leisurely weekend pace, or enjoying his favourite Scottish roads when visiting family. Sometimes he'll even load up the bags and ride up the whole way, he's a bit strange like that.
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139 comments
Most commented on =/= most popular. They're largely only the most commented on because a small vocal minority (mentioning no names) immediately descend into an interminable round of 'You're a dick' / 'No you're a dick' posts as soon as they see anything on the subject.
Certainly not all of my posts are about cycling, but the majority are - unlike yours. Which is fine, but don't then be a hypocrite and castigate others for exactly what you do. If you see threatening undertones in what I said that's down to your paranoia, I was simply commenting on what one would be able to see if, as on most websites, one could see a poster's history. There is a capacity to review user postings and have them banned, road.cc have community editor Simon for precisely that purpose. I have reported a sum total of one poster, Nigel Garage and his many different usernames, and that was not because I disagreed with him but because he made libellous remarks about me, attempted to share my personal information from other websites and made offensive personal attacks on my wife.
So you're admitting to being a troll?
the transphobic troll finally admits they're a troll. It must be such a relief to you to finally come out and live your authentic self.
If we're calling out 'name calling and aggressive posts', JohnnyDanger's first couple of offerings would seem like the prime place to start.
How dare you criticise one of the Cadre - don't you know that only the opinion of the cadre really counts!
I've mentioned exactly the same thing before and been pilloried for it as you are now. I've also seen it happen on other sites where eventually the bulk of people just move on and the only ones left there all agree with themselves. Site becomes a shadow of it's former self.
The case for the persecution rests m'lud.
A lack of blood flow to the brain probably contributes to the spelling of decern and psysiological.
Is it too early to welcome Nigel back to the fold?
You seem to have forgotten to read beyond the headline - it's not road.cc making these accusations.
Where are you getting that from in a news story that reports the facts of a situation but does not provide an opinion on it?
Two things:
1. If someone's ineligible to compete, their entry should be refused, rather than corrected retrospectively.
2. Clearly there are trans women who want to compete in various sports. Maybe it's appropriate for them to compete with women, maybe it's not – I'm not going to judge that one – but it is unreasonable to stop them competing full stop. Do we need a third category, for trans (and intersex maybe) competitors, alongside male and female categories? Or perhaps we should abandon sex-based categories and group people by past performances or something? Probably no one solution suits all events and all sports.
There are already categories that trans athletes are perfectly entitled to compete in if they meet the qualification standards, one that transwomen can enter and one that transmen can enter.
Do you not see the problem with that simplistic analysis? Trans people are not prevented from competing, just so long as they don't compete in the category they cleave to. That's the whole issue, the category. Telling transwomen to compete in a category that is not women is telling them they're not women. So now you are going to have to judge that one after all instead of dodging the question.
Someone will have to make that judgment, as long as we have two gender categories, but it's going to be a UCI (or USA Cycling, or Olympic Committee, or whatever as appropriate) official. I'm certainly not qualified to make that decision!
Edit: It's not just "is this person a woman?" of course, but there are also trans men, non-binary and inter-sex people. It all makes a previous generation of competitive decisions such as "Is this person entitled to play for the Faero Islands because their great-grandfather spent a winter there having his boat repaired?" seem quite simple and non-controversial!
My grandmother was a woman - do I qualify? Come to think of it both were...
Only if at least one was also a tricyclist!
Older folks like me will remember the amateur/professional transition, especially in athletics, where people would be thrown off the Olympic team because it transpired they'd accepted a £1 book token as a prize in a race when they were fifteen.
The Rugby Football Union were banning players of Rugby League as late as 1993 even if they hadn't been paid to play or without proof of payment and all despite disclosure of boot money and NZ player endorsements in RU.
Yep, Union (which was/is very much one of my sports as both former player and current spectator) behaved with staggering hypocrisy towards League players at a time when a club like Quins would have half the roster "working" in city jobs for which they showed up as much as a day a fortnight, coincidentally all jobs supplied by the club's sponsors and affiliates.
Why do we have a seperate race for women at all? Why not just have a "human" category and call it a day?
That would be a massive regression for womens' participation in sport, because in a lot of disciplines they could never hope to compete on the elite level. The fastest womens' 100 metre run was 10.49s, almost a full second (10%!) slower than Usain Bolt's record. The UK's under-17 boys' record is 10.42.
Without having a large amount of data, it's impossible to make statistical analyses. But it does seem to be that there are several cases of transwomen performing at a top level in womens' sport, to an extent that seems to indicate that they're overrepresented - and thus likely have a physical advantage.
"Telling transwomen to compete in a category that is not women is telling them they're not women." How do you define "cleave"? Because, if it was a question of simply saying that they identify as a woman, that's a very easy way for a 2nd rate mens' athelete to have a shot at the big leagues. Given all the doping that goes on, do you really think they wouldn't?
What you're suggesting is potentially excluding women from birth from elite sport. How very progressive of you.
There has to be a line drawn somewhere. Because, the world is not black and white. Transwomen self-identifying in sport conflicts with female participation in sport. When people get called TERFs by simpletons declaring that there is no such conflict, it actually makes people more inclined to go full JK and take a hardline position.
What is needed is evidence led, careful consideration. Not identity politics.
I agree they should be refused entry. However, many people are scared to refuse them entry as they know they will be targeted by the hate brigade and any reasonable comments shut down.
People go on about the UK being freedom of speech. Never has that been in jeopardy as much as it is currently. We are all but living in a dictatorship thanks to the woke brigade, who police what people say and cancel them if their views differ. For example, look at what the trolls and wokes have done to JK Rowling and Sharron Davies? Disgusting behaviour by the wokes.
Have you reached the top of that hyperbole yet?
I just don't understand why people use 'woke' as some kind of insult/negative. Surely 'woke' is just recognising that our society has had racism and sexism baked into it for centuries and we should move beyond that. It's like complaining that World War II was just some 'woke' campaign against the poor innocent Nazis.
Also, which people think that the UK has freedom of speech? Presumably people that don't know history or haven't heard of Spycatcher.
Honestly, I've come to the conclusion that people who love to drop 'woke' into conversations are some kind of Fox News watching/Daily Mail reading idiots that don't really understand the concepts behind treating people as people.
When someone in the running to be our next PM can unblushingly say that "people who vilify the UK" will be put on the Prevent deradicalisation programme it's clear that if we did have it we won't keep it for long at the current rate of "progress".
That highlights an important aspect of 'Freedom of Speech' - it's to do with government control of speech. If a government restricts certain topics, then that's definitely infringing freedom, whereas if people decide to stop using certain loaded words (e.g. 'spaz'), then that's just people conforming to social norms. Breaking social norms will turn large numbers of people against you, but breaking governmental speech laws puts you in prison.
Yeah - that was concerning. A move in the direction of "Insulting Turkishness". Although I keep in mind this is just a contest to win over the swivel-eyed loons (as some from the same party affectionately refer to them as).
Thanks for proving my point.
I'm not really understanding what your point is.
Was it that I am somehow preventing you from expressing yourself? Or is it just that I disagree with what you are saying?
BINGO!
Racism, sexism and Nazi's.
All you needed was slavery and you'd have had a full house.
I love how as soon as you get someone disagreeing with you it goes straight to the "people that usually disagree with me are sexists/racists/Nazi/slavers".
Was Biker Phil disagreeing with me? I don't recall posting a comment here that he was addressing, so I think you'll find that I was disagreeing with Biker Phil's usage of the word 'woke' which is just bandied around as some kind of right-wing dog whistle. Isn't the entire point of 'woke-ism' to avoid the past horrors of sexism/racism/Nazism and slavery?
I think you've mischaracterised me with your straw-man approximation of my posts - for more information, please re-read.
You linked Biker Phil's use of the word woke to Nazis. You know what you were doing, where you were going with it. It's your default position.
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