303Cycling’s Nicole Odell caught up with Jillian Bearden last year, telling her story as a transgendered athlete. Read those stories here:
Transgender Cyclist – The Story of Jillian Bearden
Transgender Cyclist – Jillian Joins a Race Team
From The Denver Post
SALIDA — Less than three years into her transition from Jonathan to Jillian, pro cyclist Jillian Bearden has once again found serenity on her bike. Now, using studies and stats collected during her long career, she’s helping prove that transgender athletes change more than their names, they change their biology.
Bearden has watched her performance ebb since beginning hormone-replacement therapy in 2015. As testosterone fades and estrogen grows, her fastest times on favorite climbs have slipped into what she calls “the gutter.”
It was tough realizing her hard-earned power, developed over more than a decade of elite-level bike racing, was waning.
“I went from 16 minutes to 26, 27, 28 minutes,” she said of her times on her those climbs. “I was like holy … Testosterone gives you this drive, this oomph, and I didn’t have that push. My muscles looked fairly big, but I did not have that push to drive that extra energy. I had good days and really, really bad days. But at the end of it all, I always know that I won the biggest race of all. I am here on planet Earth with my family and it doesn’t really matter how slow I am. I’ve already won.”
Photo by Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post
On Thursday, when Bearden saddles up with the world’s best female cyclists for the Colorado Classic in her hometown of Colorado Springs, she will be the first transwoman to race with a pro peloton in the United States. Thanks to recently relaxed International Olympic Committee rules governing transgender athletes, and USA Cycling’s embrace of those new rules, Bearden has become a beacon for transathletes across the globe.
Johnny is still a DUDE.
Nothing will ever change that.
And when she crushes the biological women because she still has male bone mass and male muscle fibers who does that victimize? The biological women who have trained so hard to compete.
I dont care if you want to get a change, that is your business as an adult, just don’t pretend that it is a level playing field in athletic competition.
Life isn’t so black and white. Everyone is different.
Add this article to the story of women athletics. Dutee Chand, Olympic runner.
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/28/sports/international/dutee-chand-female-sprinter-with-high-male-hormone-level-wins-right-to-compete.html
How about Kristen Worley’s story
http://nationalpost.com/news/canada/canadian-cyclist-who-became-woman-challenges-world-sports-bodies-gender-rules/wcm/fafffe27-a41c-47ab-a1ff-4c0fef1d7fad
How about USA cycling create the T category? ST5, 4, 3, 1-2, ST40+ 4-5, ST40+3-2-1, ST 50+ 4-5, etc…
I’m not sure if this is trolling or not, but organizers struggle to fill women’s fields as it is and they are 50% of the population. I can’t imagine them being able to fill Transgender categories with more than one or two entrants per field and that’s being optimistic.