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Transgender Canadian woman sets off debate after winning cycling world championship

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vinnykappa

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Oct 27, 2017
188
A Canadian transgender athlete has become the first to ever win gold at the UCI Masters Track Cycling World Championship.

Dr. Rachel McKinnon, from Victoria, B.C., finished first in the women's 35-44 age bracket in Los Angeles on Sunday. McKinnon was born biologically male.

She tweeted: "First transgender woman world champion...ever*", with a photo of her on the podium flanked by second- and third-place finishers, Carolien Van Herrikhuyzen of the Netherlands and Jennifer Wagner of the U.S.

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McKinnon's achievement was lauded by some on social media as even more spectacular because she is forced to suppress her testosterone levels to what she deems "unhealthily low" levels as a pre-requisite for competing.

Others on social media accused the athlete of cheating, claiming her competing is unfair to cisgender women.

McKinnon, an assistant professor at the College of Charleston Department of Philosophy who studies transgender issues, posted a lecture she presented entitled, "Including Trans Women Athletes in Sport", in rebuttal to those citing the ethics and fairness of her being allowed to compete.

In an article in USA Today in January, McKinnon argued her competing is not a question of athletic advantage, but one of human rights.

"We cannot have a woman legally recognized as a trans woman in society, and not be recognized that way in sports," McKinnon was quoted as saying. "Focusing on performance advantage is largely irrelevant because this is a rights issue. We shouldn't be worried about trans people taking over the Olympics. We should be worried about their fairness and human rights instead."

She also runs a Youtube Channel where she posts videos and lectures relating to transgender studies.
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Links to the Youtube Channel and other relevant news pieces can be accessed from the original article: https://ca.sports.yahoo.com/news/transgender-canadian-woman-sets-off-204200340.html
 
Titik

Titik

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Oct 25, 2017
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It's fucked up that even when they win something, transgender people are only noticed because they are deemed to be cheaters. Damn.
 
notpoca

notpoca

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Jan 16, 2018
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"We cannot have a woman legally recognized as a trans woman in society, and not be recognized that way in sports," McKinnon was quoted as saying. "Focusing on performance advantage is largely irrelevant because this is a rights issue.
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Absolutely nailed it!
 
RedMercury

RedMercury

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Of course shitty people are going to be shitty about it, but I'm super happy for her and I wish she could enjoy the moment, I hope she's surrounded with good friends that can help get her mind off the negativity.
 
brochiller

brochiller

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Oct 25, 2017
2,191
Interesting that they even put in testosterone limits to try and shut these people up yet they still complain.
 
Falcs

Falcs

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notpoca said:
Absolutely nailed it!
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See, I fully understand that. But brushing aside one issue to focus on another doesn't resolve the first issue.
Yes, equality of rights is all well and good but when it comes to sports you can't deny that there are genetically physical differences that are determined at birth.
It's so complicated. I feel like that statement just over simplifies the whole issue(s).
 
Stinkles

Stinkles

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Oct 25, 2017
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Something something slippery slope something something Ivan Drago.

Meanwhile on Twitter, thousands of people are now intensely concerned about the details and rules of women's track cycling, as a matter of great import that they should have an opinion about.
 
Tapiozona

Tapiozona

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Oct 28, 2017
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It's cycling. The women born women are probably as testosteroned up as the woman born a man. Good for her.
 

Steamedhams

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Nov 23, 2017
98
Most sports have traditionally divided up men and women not because of politics but because of common sense. There's a nuanced discussion to be had here but it won't be because it's such a politically charged issue. And that's a shame.

I don't care what her gender is, I find her rebuttal to be lame.
 
Westbahnhof

Westbahnhof

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Oct 27, 2017
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This is such a shitty situation, because it's such a complex issue.
Obviously, there is a reason to make a gender split in many sports. Wouldn't trans women just have an automatic edge in many cases? I know the chance of having a top athlete be a trans woman is pretty slim (as trans people are a minority, and there are very few people at the top of competitive sports as well), but it can't be disregarded. At the same time, it sounds absolutely terrible to have a trans woman that's being told "sorry, you're just not "real woman" enough", which is essentially what's happening.

Idk. Looking forward to views in this thread.
 

Deleted member 46641

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I gave up sport because of what those twitter TERF assholes are doing - people saying trans women shouldn't be allowed to compete, even when they have their hormone levels regulated to extremes that would never apply to cis women.
 
TaterTots

TaterTots

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Oct 27, 2017
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Do her competitors care? If not, then why should anyone else? People in the picture seem to be embracing her.
 
Wolven Hammer

Wolven Hammer

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I'm pro Transgender rights. Transgender women competing in women's sports is a very controversial topic for sure.

I recognize their rights, but at the same time you can't ignore an obvious physiological advantage.

It's like taking a boxer from the heavyweight division and unleashing him against the cruiserweights. Like the trans mma controversy.

Solution would be to be very selective and allow women who had therapy early on before their body had significant male development. Otherwise it wouldn't be fair to the other women.
 
Westbahnhof

Westbahnhof

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Oct 27, 2017
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Tapiozona said:
It's cycling. The women born women are probably as testosteroned up as the woman born a man. Good for her.
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Is that true? Are performances for men and women comparable in cycling? I'm trying to find some information, but in the races I've found in the past minutes, men and women race different distances (100 miles VS 160 miles, stuff like that), so I'm not sure what to make of it

FeistyBoots said:
Yep.
Plus, she already compensates via lowered testosterone, AND trans women lose a lot of muscle mass when transitioning.
Fully expecting this thread to turn into a shitshow, though.
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I don't know anywhere near enough about this, but that's why I'm very curious about this thread. Is the lowered testosterone and loss of muscle mass something that happens quickly?
These rules and regulations obviously need to consider all those bullshit "what if"s, and I'm wondering how it could work if a woman transitioned rather late in life.

I think that hormone regulations are probably more than enough, anyway.
 

preta

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Oct 25, 2017
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The thing is that if you want to suggest that a trans woman's strength/stamina gives her enough of an advantage that she should be barred from competing, then you'd have to also ban any cis women who is equally as strong, or else it would be discriminatory. All trans women aren't inherently stronger than all cis women.
 

Steamedhams

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Nov 23, 2017
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preta said:
The thing is that if you want to suggest that a trans woman's strength/stamina gives her enough of an advantage that she should be barred from competing, then you'd have to also ban any cis women who is equally as strong, or else it would be discriminatory. All trans women aren't inherently stronger than all cis women.
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The thing is that if you want to suggest that argument then it follows there should be no gender divides in sports at all.
 
Pandaman

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preta said:
The thing is that if you want to suggest that a trans woman's strength/stamina gives her enough of an advantage that she should be barred from competing, then you'd have to also ban any cis women who is equally as strong, or else it would be discriminatory. All trans women aren't inherently stronger than all cis women.
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A ridiculous argument. All men aren't inherently stronger than all women either and yet in just about every sport men dominate to such an extent that the best women struggle to compete with average male athletes.
 
FeistyBoots

FeistyBoots

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Wolven Hammer said:
I'm pro Transgender rights. Transgender women competing in women's sports is a very controversial topic for sure.

I recognize their rights, but at the same time you can't ignore an obvious physiological advantage.

It's like taking a boxer from the heavyweight division and unleashing him against the cruiserweights. Like the trans mma controversy.

Solution would be to be very selective and allow women who had therapy early on before their body had significant male development. Otherwise it wouldn't be fair to the other women.
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It's almost like you didn't even read the story and assumed she had advantages she doesn't have.
 
Vivian-Pogo

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Jan 9, 2018
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If you go through male puberty or partially go through male puberty, on average you'll have advantages over cis women in most competitive sporting events, mostly in the form of height/bone growth/ligaments(?). Of course some trans women end up small/short like myself (5'4) and some cis women are freakin massive <3

IMO, in the future there should be an age limit to which one starts puberty blockers/hrt. Like you must have started puberty blockers by age 13 if a trans woman wants to compete in professional women's competitive sporting events. In the future that should hopefully be the norm. As it is now, healthcare, education, and acceptance for trans people is severely lacking, so I feel the rules as they currently are are fine. Instead of complaining about trans women participating in women's sports, people should be fighting for trans rights, so future kids are educated on what it means to be trans, have access to medical care, and don't have to feel afraid of coming out to people about it. But honestly that feels like a pipe dream.
 
Westbahnhof

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Unknown Unknown

Unknown Unknown

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"We shouldn't be worried about trans people taking over the Olympics. We should be worried about their fairness and human rights instead."
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As long as fairness and human rights are carefully considered and accounted in the development of consistent professional standards that reflect the reality of competition there shouldn't be an issue for anyone.
 
Cantaim

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She sounds like a badass couldn't win first place in any sporting event period myself. Congrats to her she must have worked her ass of for this.
 
Dan-o

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Oct 25, 2017
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She did an interview... Not sure when... But this answer is perfect.

VN: Do you feel like you have an unfair advantage because you are a transgender athlete?

Rachel McKinnon: No, absolutely not. If you look at my results at Canadian nationals, in the 500 I was like eighth place (editor: Dr. McKinnon has always competed in the female category). At masters worlds, for the 500 I was a very disappointing fourth. In the Keirin at Canadian nationals, I was fourth. I haven't won any elite UCI races. I got a third in the Keirin at Trexlertown in June. That was my best result. In the road, I won one pro stage in the Tour of the Southern Highlands that had a downhill finish. Me being not the lightest person, I'm pretty good at sprinting. The next stage was an 80-mile road stage and I was out the back a quarter of a mile into the road stage, which started two minutes into the race. I finished 30 minutes behind the pack. If you look at any hilly race I've ever done, I've never won. The races I do win are only the flat ones, and even then I train my butt off. Just getting on the podium at a UCI race, that isn't even a World Cup, is a huge victory for me. I think there is absolutely no evidence that I have an unfair advantage. People who oppose transgender inclusion in sport put us in the double bind. It's the "damned if you do, damned if you don't" scenario. If I win, they attribute it to me being trans and having an unfair advantage. If I lose, the same people think I must not be good anyway. People will never attribute my winning to hard work which is what I think I deserve.
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Benita

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FeistyBoots said:
Prove her advantage, then. Keeping in mind that there are cis women stronger than her.
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Biological men and women have different musculoskeletal structures which develop differently. In an explosive sport like sprint cycling, the fact that she went through adolescence as a biological male gives her an inherent advantage.

To your second point, I could take steroids yet there would still be natural athletes stronger than me. Doesn't make the steroids ok.

Anyway, she's clearly improved tremendously thanks to hard work so kudos to her for that.

I won't pretend there is a simple solution here but it's silly to stick your head in the sand.
 
MasterSummerSmith462

MasterSummerSmith462

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When it comes to sports, politics do not apply, politics don't determine the winner.

However, I'll defer to what ever the official sports committies decide about this.
 
Wolven Hammer

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FeistyBoots said:
It's almost like you didn't even read the story and assumed she had advantages she doesn't have.
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It doesn't matter how much special therapy she does now. If she got a sex change after her body had irreversible male development she has an edge a natural born woman can't normally counter against.

I'm sorry, but that's the truth.

Edit: I read the interview. She's 100% right. "Damned if you do, damned if you don't"
 
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Deleted member 25606

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Science has shown the loss of most advantages a biological male would have, the toughest committees that actually do real testing and punishment for things like doping already allow trans people to compete with hardest rules for hormone levels and amount of time at those hormone levels, levels by the way that at least in the case of women put those levels lower than those born biologically female, but let's throw that all out for feelings (as "shockingly" enough is already happening in this thread, one of those era double standards I just love) and TERF rhetoric and repeated calls for "evidence" which as I said already exists and has already been set in place according to quite a few competition committees based on scientific eveidence and medical consensus which if previous threads on both pre-migration GAF and here will be repeatedly ignored no matter how many times stated or links posted as those ignoring it repeatedly say they have no problem with it if scientific eveidence says it actualy affects them though they cannot see how because biologically birthed males have inherent advantages regardless and evidence will be posted once again to be ignored by "concerned" terf rethoric posts saying there needs to be scientific studies, which will be posted, ignored, posted than ignored to infinity worse than my run on sentence of a post.

Every single time a thread about trans athletes is posted...every.single.time.
 
SweetNicole

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Benita said:
Biological men and women have different musculoskeletal structures which develop differently. In an explosive sport like sprint cycling, the fact that she went through adolescence as a biological male gives her an inherent advantage.

To your second point, I could take steroids yet there would still be natural athletes stronger than me. Doesn't make the steroids ok.

Anyway, she's clearly improved tremendously thanks to hard work so kudos to her for that.

I won't pretend there is a simple solution here but it's silly to stick your head in the sand.
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At the same time, athletes have superhuman advantages genetically throughout history, too, namely Olympic ones.

http://articles.latimes.com/2012/ju...s-gene-doping-coming-to-the-olympics-20120718

They write that "almost every male Olympic sprinter and power athlete ever tested carries the 577R allele" — a version of a gene that enhances performance. And that's just the beginning. There are endurance-related genetic variants in some athletes that have been shown to be far more likely to occur in those who successfully summit high mountains, and less likely to occur in those who fail to. These genes, they argue, are quite common, and "athletes probably need a subset of them to achieve elite status."

There are also spectacular examples of extreme abilities that are conferred from genetic mutations. In the 1960s, the Finnish skier Eero Mäntyranta won seven Olympic medals in cross-country skiing. Tests later revealed that he had a mutation in his EPOR gene, which improved his blood's oxygen-carrying capacity by somewhere between 25% and 50%. This almost certainly contributed to his remarkable streak of medals; taking supplements that mimic his mutation is strictly banned as doping.
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The very nature of genetics and sports makes competitive advantages inherent in certain people. No one is on a level playing field. It is impossible for there to be a level playing field.
 
Westbahnhof

Westbahnhof

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SweetNicole said:
The very nature of genetics and sports makes competitive advantages inherent in certain people. No one is on a level playing field. It is impossible to do so.
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While that's obviously true, this kind of argument always makes me wonder if there could be any fair way to do away with gender barriers in sports in general. It doesn't seem realistic, but "Just remove the restrictions fully" seems like such a nice Occam's Razor type dream.
Though that would probably massively backfire.
 

Steamedhams

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Nov 23, 2017
98
SweetNicole said:
At the same time, athletes have superhuman advantages genetically throughout history, too, namely Olympic ones.

http://articles.latimes.com/2012/ju...s-gene-doping-coming-to-the-olympics-20120718



The very nature of genetics and sports makes competitive advantages inherent in certain people. No one is on a level playing field. It is impossible for there to be a level playing field.
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This line of reasoning makes sense if you think men and women shouldn't be separated in sports at all. Otherwise I don't see how it's not a dead end.
 
Benita

Benita

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SweetNicole said:
At the same time, athletes have superhuman advantages genetically throughout history, too, namely Olympic ones.

http://articles.latimes.com/2012/ju...s-gene-doping-coming-to-the-olympics-20120718



The very nature of genetics and sports makes competitive advantages inherent in certain people. No one is on a level playing field. It is impossible for there to be a level playing field.
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So you would advocate for scrapping male/female categorisation for sports?

I mean, your're definitely correct in stating that some people are born with inherent genetic advantages for certain things, but where a categorisation framework exists, you have a to draw a line somewhere.

I won't pretend to know exactly where that line should be though.
 
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