Female skateboarding legend Taylor Silverman just took a public stand in support of former NCAA women’s swimmer Riley Gaines and others who are protesting the participation of a transgender cyclist in an upcoming women’s cycling championship.
Speaking about the participation of transgender cyclist Austin Killips in the women’s division of the upcoming championship, Silverman told Stuart Varney on “Varney & Co” on Thursday, “I will be joining Riley and other female athletes this weekend in Knoxville, Tennessee at the Pro National Women’s Championship cycling.”
Continuing, Silverman characterized the participation of Killips in the women’s division of the race as “simply unfair,” describing the end result as women missing out on an opportunity to compete and win because of worries about one person’s claimed feelings.
Making that point, Silverman said, “I hope that UCI and USA Cycling hears us and decides to change the rules that currently allow male athletes like Killips to compete in the women’s division because it’s simply unfair. And it is not right that the women have to miss out on their opportunities because of one person’s feelings.”
Silverman also told Varney that she has been “bumped” from first place before and lost out on prize money when biological men entered women’s competitions. She said that she was ignored when she complained about the situation to contest organizers.
In her words: “Two of those times I actually got bumped out of first place into second, and I’ve also lost out on prize money. I understood that this was not fair. It was wrong, so I reached out to contest organizers after the third contest and it was with Red Bull. So I reached out to them and raised my concerns and they completely ignored me, which led me to share my story on social media, where I truly began to understand how big of an issue this was.”
She then told Varney that the idea of a separate category in which transgender athletes can compete could be appropriate and fair solution to the problem, but that whatever the solution is it should protect female athletes from the current state of things. As she put it: “I think that’s one possibility, or it could possibly be a solution in people competing in the category that aligns with their sex. But what we know for sure is what we’re doing now is not working, and that female athletes should not lose out because of male athletes in their division.”
Silverman also announced her opposition in a video posted to Twitter, as you can watch here:
Come join us at the Pro National Women’s Cycling Championship in Knoxville Tennessee this weekend! Rally and press conference will take place at 1:30 pm on June 25th at Pat Summitt Plaza. @IWF @IWN @Riley_Gaines_ @ithompsonfdn @PaulaYScanlan @barbara_ehardt pic.twitter.com/6WvaWpGiqX
— Taylor Silverman (@tmsilverman) June 20, 2023
The press office of the Union Cycliste Internationale, the world governing body for sport cycling, addressed the matter in a statement to Fox News Digitial in which it noted the concern expressed by Silverman and others but then claimed that it will follow the “current scientific knowledge” on the matter of whether biological men have an advantage over women.
Speaking on that, it first said, “The UCI’s objective has always remained the same: to take into consideration, in the context of social evolution, the legitimate desire of transgender athletes to participate in competitive cycling, while guaranteeing respect for equal opportunities between competitors, which is a widely shared concern, in particular among female athletes, in the context of female transgender athletes participating in their categories.”
Continuing, the statement added, “The UCI would like to clarify that any regulations regarding the participation of transgender athletes in international competitions in women’s categories must be based on the current scientific knowledge on whether any advantage is maintained in athletes who have transitioned after male puberty.”
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video
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