Sex, gender, and inclusion

On October 13, 2018 Rachel McKinnon’s title winning ride in the match sprint event at Masters Track Cycling Worlds made history. Rachel is the first trans female to win a World Championship title. In the week following this event, there has been much debate, presumption, and (quite frankly) tantrum throwing over Rachel’s title. On October 15, 2018 Velo News conducted an interview with Rachel which asked many questions covering accusations of performance advantage, rules of the sport, and Rachel’s transition. You can also listen to this online on Velo News Podcast episode 110, minute 28:20

Cycling is paving the way for inclusion on this subject, the Alberta Bicycle Association is one of few provinces to provide a gender variant option in 2018 and allow trans athletes to select their racing gender category. Though Cycling Canada is following the UCI ruling on licensing for trans athletes, this field addition has not yet been made mandatory.

We stand behind Rachel who has been articulate and graceful with her rebuttals over the last week.

We encourage everyone to do their research, read articles around this event, other events, sport rules and Olympic rules before launching into conversations about situations that are complex and deeply personal.

IOC Consensus meeting on sex reassignment and hyperandrogenism

USA Cycling policy on transgender athlete participation

The Olympic Charter

A sport in transition

Creating inclusive environments for trans participants in Canadian sport

 

We would also like to acknowledge the tremendous work of all the Masters athletes who attended Track Cycling Worlds. A number of AB athletes attend this year despite the early snow, we see you and you are all awesome.

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