Rachel McKinnon Wins Another Women’s Cycling World Title

M2F transsexual cyclist Rachel McKinnon is in the news again, having won a women’s sprint world championship, and earlier, setting a world record qualifying time in the 200m event. As usual, she is full of the same lame justifications as to why she should be allowed to participate in women’s cycling:

"All my medical records say female," she said. "My doctor treats me as a female person, my racing licence says female, but people who oppose my existence still want to think of me as male.

"There's a stereotype that men are always stronger than women, so people think there is an unfair advantage. By preventing trans women from competing or requiring them to take medication, you're denying their human rights."

Luckily, the Sky News piece goes on to mention (without linking to) the Karolinska Institute study showing M2F transwomen retained the vast majority of their leg strength even after a year of hormone therapy. On Twitter, she was even more uninhibited, claiming

The thing is, the people who oppose trans women's full and equal rights think that the 'facts' are on their side.

This is why they always come back to "common sense."

That's not an argument, loves. It's the last refuge of the ignorant. It means you've already lost, bad.

— Dr. Rachel McKinnon (@rachelvmckinnon) October 20, 2019

Pressed on the Karolinska study as to whether she retained an advantage, McKinnon weaseled her way out: "Is it possible? Yes it is possible. But there are elite track cyclists who are bigger than me.“ Needless to say, this is less than satisfying. The main reasons why transwomen’s stature within women’s sport is what it is come down to a number of causes:

1. The bullying of trans advocates to gain M2F transsexual entry to biological women’s sporting events. It is telling that the IOC’s position statement on transwomen participation contains not a single reference to any scientific papers.
2. The small sample sizes available even in the limited number of quality studies available in this space (c.f. the Karolinska Institute study linked above, n=11 for transwomen, and n=12 for transmen).
3. The minuscule number of M2F transsexuals actually participating in biological women’s sporting events.

McKinnon routinely elides the strong evidence that transwomen retain a huge advantage over biological women in athletic events, expressing the narcissism, feigned ignorance, and contempt that has been her hallmark ever since she started winning UCI races. I have to believe this is typical of the whole of trans activists. When do any of them express any kind of empathy for the fourth place biological woman denied her place at the podium?

Update: McKinnon has written off participating in the 2020 Olympics, and I can only wonder at the reasons. Is it because she can’t compete among the best (younger) women in the world? Or because she knows what a firestorm she would face if she won on that stage? Consider her differing photos from victories in 2018 versus 2019:

2018

2019

McKinnon literally towers over her second- and third-place competitors in 2018 (per this Velo News article, she is six feet tall), but has been apparently shot to minimize her height advantage in the 2019 photo. I have not been able to find Kirsten Herup’s height thus far, but assume six feet (183 cm) is unlikely.

JayCee Cooper And Media Stenography, Deadspin Edition

More trash from Deadspin. Jesse Singal:

"When it came to physical attributes there was complete overlap between the men and women analyzed, McKinnon pointed out."

I meeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaan okay but. pic.twitter.com/rC25Goq20y

— Jesse Singal (@jessesingal) May 9, 2019

More Transsexuals Winning Girls' Events, Martina Navratilova Hates It

• Transsexual sprinters placed first and second at a Connecticut high school indoors event.
• Martina Navratilova hit a fabulous return shot about transsexuals competing in womens' categories and took heat for it. I have asked her for the basis of her Times piece.
• The IOC is okay with transsexuals competing in womens' events, but their own guidelines permit "females" with penises — highly suggestive of their political aims.
• At bottom of a lot of the claims that trans women should be competitive with biological women is a 2004 study in the European Journal of Endocrinology by Louis J. G. Gooren and Mathijs C. M. Bunck studying muscle mass in n=19 transwomen, and concluding that after a year, muscle mass had diminished to the point where "it is justifiable that reassigned M-F compete with other women", while ignoring height, size, and bone differences.
• Update 2019-02-26: A pretty good article at Velo News on the post-Rachel McKinnon landscape on M2F transsexuals competing in women's events. Something I didn't know, and seems to have been missed in the fracas over McKinnon's victory: the reigning women's cycling champion, Sarah Fader (née Caravella), resigned in protest minutes before the races were to begin, despite the fact that she beat McKinnon in both the 200m and 500m preliminary time trials.

  Track racer Sarah Fader believes the IOC’s rules create an unfair situation for cis women (cisgender refers to individuals whose gender identity matches their birth gender).
  
  Known by some cycling fans for her maiden name, Caravella, Fader raced in the U.S. professional road scene from 2006-2015. Fader was set to race against Dr. McKinnon in the masters finals in Los Angeles. She was the defending masters world champion in the event, and she set the fastest time in the qualifying heats. She beat Dr. McKinnon in both a 200- and 500-meter time trial during the weekend.
  
  Fader, however, told me that she felt that racing against Dr. McKinnon was simply not fair. Dr. McKinnon stands six feet tall and weighs 200 pounds. Fader, by contrast, is  5-foot-5 and weighs 135 pounds. So minutes before the finals were set to start, she pulled out of the competition entirely.
  
  “I thought that doing it this way was my own form of protest,” Fader said. “I knew that I personally did not agree with the situation. I don’t want to compete in a sport where the rules are unfair.”

• Included in that Velo News piece is a good link to a Stuff (New Zealand) article interviewing Otego University physiology professor Alison Heather, who says "She is adamant international sporting regulation bodies such as the International Olympic Committee (IOC) have rushed a decision to include transgender athletes in male and female categories, as there has not been enough research."
• Update 2019-02-27: More linky goodness: the IOC's policy (PDF) has no mention of any studies of the situation, and neither USA Cycling's policy.
• The American Spectator has a fine essay on the subject:

  A transgender training expert says this later in the same article:
  

  “The gender identity doesn’t matter, it’s the testosterone levels,” said Harper, who studies transgender athletes. “Trans girls should have the right to compete in sports. But cisgender girls should have the right to compete and succeed, too. How do you balance that? That’s the question.”

  Harper is wrong. Biology matters. The DNA. The sex of the baby, child, teen, adult matters. The hormones make a difference but they are secondary.
  Think of it this way. Lance Armstrong and the rest of the doping cyclists (which is about all of them, at this point) have extraordinary biology before they doped. A woman with similar testosterone levels could not even come close to the last place male finisher in the Tour de France and cycling is a lower body-focused sport where men and women have more muscle strength/per size parity. The biology of the males before the doping is already an advantage. The extra hormones are a boost.

• Madeleine Kerns at National Review:
  

  In December, Navratilova tweeted: “You can’t just proclaim yourself a female and be able to compete against women. There must be some standards and having a penis and competing as a woman would not fit that standard.”
  McKinnon was not pleased by this and began a tirade against Navratilova. In her Sunday Times essay, Navratilova describes this behavior as bullyish and argues that, while she feels able to take a stand, she worries that other women will be “cowed into silence or submission.”
  

  
  

  Likewise, when a spokesperson for the organization Fair Play for Women (FPFW) was invited by the BBC to discuss Navratilova’s comments about trans participation in female sport, McKinnon wrote on Twitter: “I will not participate in a discussion panel that takes them [FPFW] seriously and gives them a platform.”
  FPFW were then disinvited by the BBC, and McKinnon boasted about having the platform to himself.

  What an appalling state of affairs. 
• Speaking of Fair Play for Women, their website is chock-full of resources, including, especially, their science links. I highly recommend following their Twitter account, @fairplaywomen.
• Something FPFW tweeted recently, an excellent summary of the scientific landscape at Medium by Dr. Antonia Lee, including an incredible call for the retraction of a widely-cited paper purporting to justify M2F trans inclusion in sports on evidentiary quality grounds.
• Update 2019-03-02: This keeps trickling on: A M2F transsexual hit the automatic NCAA qualifying time in the 60m hurdles in New Hampshire.
• A M2F transgender woman won a 54 km Dutch beach cycling race (English Google Translate version).

More Women Beaten By Transsexual Women In Sex-Segregated Sports

Comes a report now that a transgender female is dominating Australian handball; some months back, I noted a transgender woman winning the UCI Masters championship; a post-victory interview contained this silliness (formatting all original):

VN: Do you feel like you have an unfair advantage because you are a transgender athlete?
Rachel McKinnon: No, absolutely not. If you look at my results at Canadian nationals, in the 500 I was like eighth place (editor: Dr. McKinnon has always competed in the female category). At masters worlds, for the 500 I was a very disappointing fourth. In the Keirin at Canadian nationals, I was fourth. I haven’t won any elite UCI races. I got a third in the Keirin at Trexlertown in June.

On it goes. Because "she" didn't win every time, we are supposed to say, well, fairness prevailed or something. The idiocy and narcissism of transsexuals, who wish to deny the substantial advantages their pre-hormone treatments confer upon them, needs mass public condemnation until this nonsense is chased back to the academy where it belongs.