A transgender cyclist is currently leading the female category of the Transatlantic Way bike race by 300km. The annual race around Ireland via the Atlantic way is a 2,500km endurance cycling event which takes between 6 and 9 days to complete.
Cara Dixon, from Britain, is currently 300km in front of the second placed woman, Hillary Allen, with roughly half of the race left to go.
Dixon won the women’s class at the 200km Dirty Reiver gravel race in the UK last month, beating second place by over an hour. Dixon was 19th in the men’s class.
Dixon’s win in the UK last month prompted A UFC featherweight fighter, Lando Vannata to weigh in on the controversy by criticizing the decision to allow Dixon to compete in the women’s division.
In a tweet Vannata said:
“Anyone who agrees with biological men competing against women has either never played a sport or is really stupid.”
In May of this year, women’s cyclist Hannah Arensman, 24, quit cyclocross after losing a podium place to a trans rider in a race which was also marred by protests from an ‘Antifa’ gun club group. Arensman gave up on her Olympic dream after ‘sickening’ losses to a biological male. She said the experience ‘hurt on a million different levels’ and has spoken about the importance of protected categories for females in sport. “The very people who should be protecting our sport are not doing so,’ she said.
World Athletics, the governing body for track and field and other running competitions, announced last month that transgender women who went through male puberty can no longer compete in women’s events at international competitions. The policy took effect on 31 March.
The body also ruled that to compete as a woman, athletes with differences of sexual development (DSD), who have congenital conditions that cause atypical sex development, must have a testosterone level below 2.5 nanomoles per liter (nmol/L) for at least 24 months before an international competition.
World Athletics said its rules prioritized fairness and integrity of female competition.
We have contacted the organisers of the Transatlantic Way race for comment and are awaiting a response.
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