A biological male has won two women’s professional cycling titles in the last three months, with the latest victory coming by a margin of almost five minutes over the female second place finisher. An increasing number of current and former female athletes are stepping forward to protest the phenomenon as the percentage of Americans opposed to the practice continues to climb.
On June 10, Austin Killips, a biological man who identifies as a woman, was allowed to compete in the women’s Belgian Waffle Ride cycling race in North Carolina. Killips beat the next best female competitor in the difficult 137 mile race by almost five minutes and the second place finisher by almost seven minutes, and was awarded the $5,000 first place prize.
The first place finish for Killips comes after he claimed another women’s cycling victory in April, when he won the women’s Tour of the Gila event, “the premier road race in New Mexico,” claiming the $35,000 cash prize.
Tennis legend Martina Navratilova, who has been outspoken in her opposition to men being allowed to compete in women’s sports, was not impressed by Killips’s win. “What a joke,” she tweeted.
In response to Killips remarking after the race that he was “just really proud to lay it out there and get the result,” two-time Olympic marathon runner Mara Yamauchi expressed disgust, tweeting, “Man explains how he won a women’s cycling race. #SaveWomensSports”.
Novelist Christina Dalcher was blunt in her reaction to Killips’s latest win, tweeting: “This is a man who says he’s a woman & wins cycling races because he races against women. This is not stunning or brave. This is not deserving of love and respect. This is a man who wins cycling races because he races against women. This is a cheat.”
The two titles claimed by Killips add to the growing list of women’s titles won by men, who have claimed over 30 women’s titles in the last five years.
Cycling isn’t the only sport as of late to allow men to compete in women’s events. The Post Millennial reported on Monday that the Premiere Rugby Sevens is allowing Emma Farnan, a man who identifies as a woman, to compete on a women’s team starting this upcoming Saturday. The move comes despite the World Rugby official guidelines stipulating that trans-identified males are not allowed to compete on women’s teams because of the “size, force- and power-producing advantages conferred by testosterone during puberty and adolescence, and the resultant player welfare risks this creates.”
In a sign of growing dissention forming within women’s athletics, three members of England’s women’s angling team quit in protest over a male being allowed to join the team before a major competition. “I have no grudge personally,” said the team captain, one of the members who pulled out. “This is an advantage to our team, but we find it totally unfair to other nations. Transgender competitors are ruining our sport, and the Angling Trust will not listen to our views, so this is why myself [sic] and the team decided to pull out.”
The number of Americans who oppose men competing in women’s sports is also climbing. A new Gallup poll released Monday revealed that almost 70% of Americans believe that athletes should only be allowed to compete on teams that match their biological sex. Notably, the number has risen seven percentage points from two years ago, the last time the poll was taken.
Former University of Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines, who has become the face of women’s sports advocacy, remarked over the weekend that the controversy over biological men competing in women’s sports has become “spiritual warfare.”
“… [B]eing a Christian, I entirely see this as spiritual warfare,” she said at the Young Women’s Leadership Summit. “It’s no longer good versus bad, or right versus wrong, this is moral versus evil. And I looked this evil in the eyes in San Francisco, and it’s soulless, it’s hateful, it’s vengeful, it’s violent — and I think it’s ironic, they do it in the name of love. They do it in the name of ‘compassion,’ and ‘tolerance,’ and ‘acceptance’ and ‘welcoming’ — and all of these different terms. But it is not that; it is none of those things. Our argument is rooted in love.”
Dan Hart is senior editor at The Washington Stand.
