This past weekend, transgender female Tiffany Thomas won the Randall's Island Crit cycling road race that is held in New York City. There are three races in the series.
This issue caused former elite female cyclist Hannah Arensman to quit cycling. Hannah was racing in the elite women's category at the UCI Cyclocross National Championships held in December 2022. Arensman came in fourth, with two transgender riders taking third and fifth place. One of those riders finished in front of Hannah after having had several physical interactions throughout the race. Arensman says she has felt deeply angered, disappointed, overlooked, and humiliated that the rule makers of women's sports do not feel it is necessary to protect women's sports to ensure fair competition for women anymore.
The Supreme Court last week had an amicus brief filed in support of the West Virginia law protecting women's sports, which has been halted due to an injunction granted by the 4th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. The brief has been filed by 67 female athletes, family members, coaches, and sports officials. Some of the athletes include Martina Navratilova, former NCAA track athlete Jennifer Sees, Olympic gold medalist Summer Sanders, and Olympic swimmer and former world record holder Jill Sterkel.
The brief states that all "have been forced to compete against males or to suffer the psychological impact of helplessly watching the forced competition of men against women."
The Center for Sports Law and Policy at Duke Law has data and comparisons that show why sports traditionally have separated biological males from biological females. According to the data, there is an average 10-12% performance gap between elite males and elite females.
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