Emily Bridges gutted British Cycling after deciding to ban trans women from women's racing. Photo: Eamonn M. McCormack/Getty Images)
Emily Bridges' gutting of British cycling, accusing the governing body of “promoting genocide” by denying born-males the right to compete with women, is a classic of his work. He uses the well-established tactic of the transgender lobby to turn women's legitimate claims for justice into some kind of dastardly plot to wipe transgender people from society. This has always been a ridiculous exaggeration, addressing none of the reasons why so many female athletes are outraged, and instead making allegations of transphobia as sweeping as they are baseless.
At no point in this hectic debate was anyone advocating the “eradication” of transgender people, to use Bridges's term. Not once have people put Bridges' “existence” up for debate, as the exaggerated Instagram post claims. On the contrary, all those who asked questions in this conversation had to walk on eggshells in their use of language, constantly checking pronouns and nuances so as not to stir up sensitivity. If only the same could be said for trans activists, whose idea of civilized discourse is to condemn anyone who disagrees with their worldview as a fanatic.
Trans people have the freedom and the right to choose any path in life that brings them the most happiness. But categorically there should be no right for biological men, who have received all the physiological benefits of male puberty, to colonize the female category or take away records and achievements from women. Sarah Gibson, who went to an elite all-boys school and is now non-binary, had no right to deny a young woman life membership to the Cambridge University Boat Club simply because she presented herself as a woman at the 2015 rowing race. Austin Killips, who grew up to be a man and wrote a blog about the transition called “Estro Junkie”, had no right to usurp Mexico's Marcela Prieta at the Tour of Gila, becoming the first transgender driver to win a UCI multi-day race.
This is a context that Bridges deliberately ignores. The benefits of male biology are so compelling that Killips, a mediocre cyclist who only started playing the sport in 2019, is now earning a spot on Team USA for the Paris Olympics next summer. Bridges, on the other hand, is anything but mediocrity. Let me clarify, for the avoidance of doubt, how much chaos Bridges could have created in women's competition if British Cycling had not seen fit to act. Here's someone who set the 25-mile junior national record in 2018, clocking a time two minutes faster than any adult female racer before or since. The suggestion that Bridges could beat Dame Laura Kenny, the nation's greatest Olympic champion, was no exaggeration.
To Bridges, to suggest that with a male pedigree that there was no problem with running female races with some testosterone suppression seemed the height of narcissism. And that left British Cycling with no choice but to stop it. Because if you allow such a blatant injustice, you are abandoning any effort to provide women with a level playing field. I've read Bridges' emotional response more than once and I'm trying my best to evoke sympathy. All the wild ranting about “unscrupulous actors” and “far-right ultra-capitalists” does nothing to disprove the fact that biological men have no place in women's sports.
Bridges says British Cycling's decision is a “violent act” but nothing like that. This is a justified – and, frankly, belated – attempt to guarantee the integrity of the female races. Bridges cites being “banned from racing”, but this is also a mistake. Nothing at all stops Bridges from lining up in the men's category, or the “open” category, as it has since been renamed. It seemed perfectly acceptable in the days when the cyclist was still breaking junior records, so why not now? The very concept of a ban is just a transparent attempt to arouse undeserved sympathy.
If anything, British Cycling's decision is still not far enough away. While common sense has finally been seen at the elite level, there is a caveat that “our Breeze program, a women-only community program, will continue to be open and inclusive of transgender women and non-binary people.” Why? Surely the clue lies in the description “only for women.” Why should women who specifically choose to compete in women-only competitions be willing to tolerate a policy of pure self-identification for any post-puberty male who likes it? This grassroots exclusion has already sparked a fury that lawmakers would be unwise to ignore. ideology affects only a small minority of people. For when it reaches its most ridiculous extremes, as we see all too often in sports, it can affect half the population. It is women who are at risk of erasing their achievements, not transgender people. The Sports Council's 2021 Equality Group statement was unequivocal: Inclusion and fairness were incompatible concepts. Individual sports will have to be chosen. In the end, British Cycling came to the inevitable conclusion that the rights of the many must take precedence over the rights of the few.
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