Inga Thompson on Transgender Athletes in Sports | The Forward with Lance Armstrong

[Music] foreign [Music] thank you so much thanks for being here before we obviously we're here to talk about this subject that I've spent the last month really talking about and and even more importantly really trying to learn about um I think it's it's uh it's interesting for me and I think could be cool for our listeners you know we go back I met you I was thinking about this today I think I met you 33 or 34 years ago at the Olympic Training Center so I when I came to the OTC I might be off it might be 30 years ago was it 92 I feel like it was just before that I remember doing a photo shoot with you in 92 and we were in Texas at a training camp oh well out there in the in the Hill Country probably out in Hunt Texas where they have all the um yeah kids summer camps which is like a big deal for Texas families to send their kid to summer camp and uh out in the Hill Country on the river there and we would use them in the off season for them for these training camps yeah I forgot about that but it's it's been more than 30 years yeah that was I think that was a 92. yeah sorry we you were just like the snot-nosed teenager kid around there yeah nothing's changed nothing absolutely nothing and I'm still Lippy well there's only a couple of things changed the more gray hair and you know and a in a more uh a little more drama in my life but wrinkles yeah I got the skunk Apache going here and and and I think for for uh you know also for a lot of people when people when we talk about you or people ask me about you I say listen like this is it'd be hard to find an American female cyclist that has the the palmaris as we see in cycling or the or the resume that that you had I mean how many Olympic medals um so three Olympic teams three World medals couple Tour de Tour de France Podium finishes and Stage finishes um yeah I mean we all know what a 10-year career does National intent national championships um we're on 7-Eleven yeah 7-Eleven for five years yeah a lot of people remember 7-Eleven great team just great team there's zero drama on the team it was just it was just run like a well-oiled machine right can't say enough about Jim Malkovich and his ability to just choose good solid people solid mechanics massage you know how that goes you have to have a cohesive team right I mean of course and everybody has to get along in order for things to work well you know well was Rebecca Twigg on that team this is totally unrelated to what we're talking about she we were teammates for years years and I I uh we can talk afterwards too but I'm just I've heard you know I heard some reports of her and I was I always thought I never really knew her but I thought golly gee this is and I think she's up in your neck of the woods and it sounds like a tragic story and I've well it's it's an inner knowing Rebecca um it's probably not fair for me to say this but we have it in my family we have Asperger's Syndrome absolute Brilliance and but not always functional and I think that Rebecca with her Brilliance she was brilliant absolutely brilliant yeah and at the same time yeah a beautiful writer and at the same time just if you have that Asperger's things aren't always as easy to navigate in life right and um and she has found a family within the homeless community and a family that she loves that she likes to be around and a lot of people have gone in and tried to or they are somebody sent me an article yeah and they want to rescue her but she she doesn't need rescuing she likes where she's at I mean the article I read was exactly that and you know she was so famous and people certainly knew the name and it followed her career and and wanted to help and yeah I I won't go into a family store with that with whatever one of the numbers but I understand that you know and I I know through their eyes what they went through dealing with Asperger's and dealing with dealing with the world is is sensory overload and and so I understand it from the perspective of a family member yeah we'll talk later about that or offline and then just bring me up to speed because I again it's been a it's been a long time right since we've uh so we were reconnected through this issue of of you know transgender and Sport and certainly when it comes to to our sport right the sport of cycling it is I I can't think of another sport uh where it's as top of Mind as it is in cycling at the moment um but since I knew you were always you know uh the way my would you call me a snot-nosed brat but the way I always imagined it let me just put myself back in I don't even need to put myself back in it but I'm still in this not nose brat uh body you know that was set out of kindness no I know no what do you mean I've I've been called a lot worse in the last forever but um I was always like yeah I think I think she's like a Rancher I think she's a farmer Rancher or whatever that was my impression yeah and you still have that's yeah so so through my cycling career um my aunts and uncles were selling out um portions of their inheritance of my grandfather's Ranch and they didn't get along so they wouldn't sell to the other brother or sister so they would sell to me right and by the end of my career you know you're always a little bit lost when you quit I'm like well I own a cattle ranch I guess I'll go up there and and start ranching and um bought some friesians you know they're they're a form of a draft horse they're a light draft horse and I started farming with horses and I have I've always the family cattle ranch I've always worked on it so I know how to work heavy equipment horses cattle so for me it was just it just it was just a love something I always want to do and I have this thing about operating heavy equipment I've had a um a John Deere excavator 120c I mean girls best friend is having a thumb on an excavator you can do anything yeah this is all Greek to me I don't know anything about it yeah and I mean I drive backhoes I drive loaders I've you know bailing equipment mowing equipment and then how big of a wrench it's not huge it's 168 Acres but I did most most everything horse-drawn um and so bread horses and put up the hay with the horses fed the cows is a great way to torture children when you raise them just put them on a cattle ranch put them to work right get out there yeah so here I have my son and it was like what better way to raise him than on a ranch right and I I swear that the ranch saved him in the sense of boys will be boys and he is one of those active Brilliant Minds and he had to be Hands-On with stuff and when he was little we kind of maybe worried of Asperger's because it runs in the family and I for me it was really important to have them on a ranch and have them hands on and he would be constantly taking apart equipment putting it back together taking balers taking them apart putting them back together and why he's alive I have no idea because he was just such an adventuring Soul he'd take snowmobiles at the age of eight up into the forest because we back up into National Forest and into Wilderness and and he just had a posse of boys that let me put it this way I think most of my uh time raising him was like no no you may not do that they do it anyway right I mean like jumping off the top of barns with like tarps and trampolines and right we did stupid stuff too we would do we had this thing called Fireball we'd take tennis balls and soak them in gas and of course light the tennis ball which it would you know diesel you should have used diesel yeah I didn't use diesel listen we were in Plano Texas I don't even know if they had diesel in Plano Tech or whatever but and then we'd throw them at each other and you get a little a little flame on you it was that was but that was anyway that was pre it's not it's not nose brat when we met with it but not that much pre only probably only have the hand no I was worse than you it's been it's not nose Brown yeah yeah well like but those are things that kids are supposed to do well geez yeah I didn't we didn't make any bombs oh well geez come on come on over God and and then you know uh you know I had not um you know I had we haven't hadn't connected and I hadn't really followed um your story and then of course and as I've said many times in this series right I I have a personal connection to the trans community and as um you know as much as I've tried to learn and just sort of soak up all of this really I mean not just through this series but also through my my personal relationship with uh with an employee um which is also different than the trans and Sport issue which I've really really come to find out um and so as I'm reading I see this story of you having you know just starting to work with the cycling team and of course as we said a second ago this has really become top of mind for women's cycling here in the US and it's become you know it's become uh an issue right and something that sort of talked about but not talked about not reported on comments disabled like it's it's it's there's something there there's a divide there that I couldn't figure out and as I've gotten into it I'm starting to I think figure it out but when I saw the the reason your story is so compelling to me it because it's not unlike a lot of the stories that I've heard or talked to in this series and the thing that I have found and I've had a few days to reflect since my last one how it goes so quickly from and I know you have friends and loved ones that are in the trans Community neighbors yeah um that you have embraced uh that that you hang out with uh that you love and and and I I can't figure it out and I'm struggling with how it goes so quickly from your relationship for example your relationship with your neighbors and the person the people in your life who are in the trans community but also your position in with trans and Sport how we go from sort of a loving accepting place to a turf right how yeah how how this I mean it's so abrupt and just as a reminder for y'all listening to Turf is a terf that's a and this is a real thing I'm not making this up and I believe me I've just learned this um is a trans exclusionary radical feminist but there but there's no gray in there right it goes from black to white or white to black immediately immediately and it's and it's it's it's just and in your situation of course not not different than Carol hooven or Stephen Joyner or uh many many others uh it goes and it cuts right to this thing that's so personal to me and it's outside of this debate or this issue or this conversation is this issue of how them we're just going to cancel them we're going to erase them we're not going to listen to them we're going to discredit them and that if there's one thing I take away from this that that's the one thing outside I mean I obviously have the personal connection but boy I struggle with how we're just there's no middle certainly no common ground and it's like there's no middle ground they're they're and what you're saying is actually going on like when I started this and I still am do feel this way I'm an absolute supportive transgender people and I've been the most sympathy that I I can that can go out to them it's definitely because their their stories are difficult like think about as a young boy growing up and you go through all of the testosterone surges and you're trying to graft what it is going through puberty as young girls we go through all the changes of hormones coming in and menstruation and breast development and just the hormone surges that you know ebb and flow throughout the month and I will never be able to understand your experience of trying to learn how to harness all the testosterone as you will never be able to understand my experience of going through puberty as a woman this this is just where we're different having three daughters doesn't give me a little I mean but survived those three but I got you but but it does but but I mean to you can watch it with your daughters I can watch it with my son and in that same vein we'll never really understand what a transgender person goes through in the sense of going through the testosterone surges and being at war with that and feeling like they're a girl or or vice versa but their experience I will never truly be able to understand as I will never be able to understand yours I'm only going to really be able to understand mine as a woman and all we can do is have compassion and try to try to understand I mean I've raised boys as you have raised girls um and so we want to have this compassion towards them and yet we have the reality of biology and so you look at when I look at these two we have this this gender dysphoria this ideology and and we have facts and we have science and we have biology and so when somebody has gender dysphoria yes do help them make them feel comfortable what they're finding now is with young people the last um study that I read through Sweden is like 90 of these children if you don't transition them maybe you just you support them through their Journey ninety percent of them turn out to be young just just gay and this is absolutely acceptable of course absolutely and so too and this is why we have this watchful waiting to not do anything and let them grow through it and and I think that this is a very reasonable way to go because you don't want to put all of these children onto puberty blockers and hormones because we know the side effects of these are they're devastating and just I just want to pause for just a second so just so the audience understands um and again just more stuff that I've learned in the last couple of months on this so watchful waiting uh it's really kind of a a comparison between our our largely our what has been our approach here in the United States versus the EU or in Europe or primarily England and Sweden um where it's a less drastic uh [Music] transition or process where it's watchful waiting I mean it literally means what it means yeah yeah um versus taking more drastic measures whether it's puberty blockers or double mastectomies or you know things that are uh and again I'm not a doctor so but you know by and large irreversible yeah um and as a parent I mean just speaking selfishly um yeah I think watchful waiting is probably a pretty good idea um but it's also that's also one of the pieces of this thing that just gets it's so slippery right where we fall into these um see salacious really really controversial things but I hear you so so to put forth something like watchful waiting if you don't line up 100 with the I call it the TQ crowd because there is a division now between the LGB and the TQ so you have LGB as is your preference your sexual preference of who you were attracted to and the the t is your gender dysphoria and so the LGB is saying that the T has nothing to do with them you having gender dysphoria has nothing to do with your sexual attraction of who you want as your partner um and so if you don't line up 100 with their agenda then you automatically get put into the turf crowd and these are discussions that we have to have we have to have thoughtful discussions about this because to take children and to and to give them these drugs this is we should not be experimenting on our children and we have to have thoughtful conversations about this and the other thing that we have to have thoughtful conversations about the rights of women because we are different I mean we're we're humans but we are we are different and I will never ever no matter how much testosterone you give me I'm never going to be a man I will just be a masculine masculinized woman but I'm never going to be a man and then likewise with you if you go through a gonadectomy you're you're not going to be a woman you you're going to be a man with a very low testosterone um but you're still going to be a man and so what is one of the best ways to describe this like on the cattle ranch on the ranch that I'm on WE castrate the young calves when they're like a couple days old and they grow into basically a feminine a feminized Bowl they don't have all the characteristics that soba Bowl but if you don't castrate them and you the bowl goes through through uh full maturation that would be like you know two three years okay so it's and they get their full size and their full musculature and when you castrate that bowl they they never lose everything that they have developed of going through the process of having all of that testosterone I Like the Way Emma Hilton puts it you can't uncook the egg once they go through that process there's no coming back from that they still have the muscle mass and the strength and the build and so when we get into transgender women and women's sports if if you take away all the testosterone the the performance it it does go down a little bit but it never goes down to the point that it's that it becomes fair for the women to be there it and and so then when you have if they're not exercising there's more uh drop in performance but when you have athletes in sport oh so a transgender woman is training there's only a couple percentage of of drop of performance because they are still training so what they're really stating is you can take away the testosterone from a man and but if they're training and they're competing they lose very like like I think like one to three percent of because they they matured as a man right and that's where as I've come to learn you know you they're they're people have multiple versions of how this uh works or how how it um probably easier to say you know just different schools of thought different types of research are we uh you know is is that only one or two percent or is it normalized right and that's right and look I guess in a perfect world you know if you if you support the trans community and and and and Dr so-and-so came along with a magic wand and you made it totally equal I don't know we'd probably say okay but and then there's different you know different papers out there different bodies of work um that's not real clear right and certainly um the governing bodies of not done anything to help but and I'm not I'm not contesting it I'm right it just seems as a as as I mean you could look at this two ways right because you had you know Renee Richards 50 years ago you had uh other athletes and but this is this feels like it's more or at least becoming more top of mind but we have it seems to me we haven't had the um the end-all be-all study on this that says yes or no we have at this point I think over 22 scientific peer-reviewed studies that show that no amount of testosterone suppression mitigates the advantages of being born male to the point that it becomes a Level Playing Field with the women that you know their their their abilities go down a little bit but not enough to make it fair with the women and we have 22 I think more studies with this more importantly they don't we don't have studies that show that it is fair and so when this was passed it was passed on the ideology and it was passed on the politics back when they decided to allow transgender women into women's sports if they had gone through sexual reassignment surgery and this is when they allowed it and and then from there what happened is then here we have um Kristen Worley comes through and finds out that after she has a gonadectomy that her health is failing and so she wants to get a therapeutic use exemption in order to compete with the women and she needs more testosterone so transgender women are allowed up to I think at this point 10 to 20 nanomoles per liter if they've had a gonadectomy in order to compete with the women because of Kristen right because so this was 2000 that was precedent setting right and that was precedent setting and then that the door keeps opening up a little bit so it was kind of based on Kristen Worley because they were realizing her argument if I understood it correctly was that when she looked at the ioc rules it said that if she went through sexual reassignment surgery that she could compete with the women but and so she thought that that she could do this but then found out that her that her health was suffering because she didn't have testosterone so basically it was she was like well why didn't you guys tell me that my health would be hurt by this and kind of helped felt held them accountable for what had happened to her and so then the door opened to we're just going to do self-identification and not allow sexual reassign or not require require sexual reassignment surgery right and I asked Dr Blaine about this because it you know again just coming at this from almost a new set of eyes and as I said certainly not a researcher or doctor or certainly a scientist but you know you could say okay well if the you know if this is what is in your heart and soul then okay I asked him that uh that that I felt like I was in it he took it as almost an extreme question I did I actually didn't know the whole back story on on Kristen Worley um and then you know that leads to they're just you keep going down these roads of long-term Health um effects of of any of these procedures um and I've and again look I've tried to listen to all sides including you know and I loved my conversation with athlete Ally I thought wonderfully Sweet People very smart um but just as much as I uh uh invested in that interview I also sat around and watched Matt Walsh's what as a woman right um which goes into a lot of these you know some of the side effect long-term side effects um of these procedures and and and then obviously then you get into the the transitioners and and things that get really complicated right so you have what we have here is we haven't we have an ideology and then we have biology and what isn't being discussed is the impact on women and the impact on women is such that they show by the age of eight if little girls aren't given a sex separated sport they have a tendency to walk away and so you can have co-eds and we did a lot of that but you also need a sex segregated sport for the little girls to encourage them because this is where our future um Elite women are coming from our future Olympians our future world champions are coming from this this small pool and if you don't have this sex separated space for the girls you're affecting the future of women's sports right there and we already know that little boys are more aggressive than little girls I mean I was one of those little girls that was so easily intimidated and at the same time I really really wanted to do Sports and had it not been for Title IX I was at the very beginning of Title IX like when I was really little I wanted to run I wanted to do different things like no they don't they don't have that for girls Sports they just didn't and then Title IX comes around remember getting into junior high school and they had a girl's cross-country team I was I was ecstatic as a little girl me and we had a coach that followed us all the way through Lyle Freeman I I owe my whole career to this man because he took us all under our wing and he just I think torture is a good word for it it rained if it snowed he was dragging us up muddy Hills through water I mean just yeah you're still talking about it so it's pretty good yeah we all have those but I mean the the yeah and the way but he specific he put all of his energy into these young women and and this is what this is what these these young girls needed and to this day we we still all chat and talk it was bonding and so then you know so now we have Title IX so sports for women isn't just about we we want the the same opportunities that men do but they also show that for women in sports they go on to be in all of the C Level in in any company so they're either CEO CFO c-o-o and that most of these women come from a sporting background so Sports is very very important for young girls and we are and we already know that men dominate Sports you guys have a lot more opportunities for than the women do which is good but we're we're still not there I agree and so at this point we we need these opportunities from these for these young girls at a Grassroots level and handy more opportunities to young boys is that the exclusion of these young girls and what the women are asking for is like every woman that I know is sympathetic to the transgender issue and at the same time they still want their spaces and when it comes to sports it should be absolutely crystal clear that the biology is different you know starting in the womb I'm sure Carol hooven covered this that you just have the Y chromosome and then you have the testosterone but we can't at the exclusion of women include these young boys into women's spaces or men into women's spaces because we have women's rights or human rights as well and when you start trampling on the rights of women then that's not a human right it's not a human right to trample on the rights of women but why this is this is getting to I mean this really is is just getting it like what is the there is a block there there is something that is because the women's I mean I love getting in arguments and fights and uh if I had to pick between getting in an argument or a discussion with a man or a woman I'm taking the guy every time like I I'm scared to death of women like and I mean that in the best way I I understand you know it's like or if you know somebody's going to lead a team I'll get behind any woman right they're just they're just better and I don't know it's just my thing um something's something's missing here right if that's if that's the point that's the case uh and I don't know if it's because you see it you see it uh in politics you see it in in the sports governing bodies you see it in the Press um that's not getting through and at the same time I'm also not sure when I had this this uh a part of the conversation with athlete I Ally about this is like I'm not so sure that this level of advocacy is also effective right in terms of you know if you look at the polling and you're you're finding this level of advocacy is backfiring by not allowing people to speak it it happens for a while then people start getting resentful of not being able to allow to have a nuanced conversation about this to to discuss the differences between ideology and biology and so one of the things that I think is really hurting the discussion is if we cannot discuss the reality of biology and if we're going to try to deny facts and science then everybody starts pushing back on this and I think that's what you see happening is that they the the the T crowd the TQ crowd um refuses to acknowledge the biology and so like when we're listening to and we're talking about sports sports I I want to keep it at sports I want to I want to stay in my Lane right yeah and just for the listener I think because we both have these personal connections and um but we also have a personal connection to Sport and certainly you know I'm a guy you're a girl so this is way more personal for you but right so with regard to sport but but it's the politics behind it because like when the ioc put this in they slid it through it was based on the ideology and the politics and once again the women were not were not asked about this and so now we're starting to bring up the biology and it is it is blatantly being ignored like when our uh dealing with like say the so the ioc kicks it all down to the international federations to figure out what is fair and what is not fair so we put together a group of five Olympian women and um and then let's see we had in there um Emma Hilton who's an evolutionary biologist much like Carol hoove and we had um John Pike in there we had Kathy Devine in there who was a sports writes human women's rights human rights and we were trying to talk about we wanted a seat at the table when they were doing the review with the um with the management committee wouldn't even look at it wouldn't even consider it they said well you have to put it through the the man's cycling Professional Association so the men's yeah but we had to put it through the men's we could even go through as women to put it through we had to have the men put it forth for us which was frustrating it's like the women couldn't even speak and then the women they used to have a women's committee and the women's committee was taken apart and all the women were put in different spots that the international Olympic Committee or in the international cycling Union and so the women's committee is now gone so there's nobody to speak for the women they're like well we have more women in here than ever well I call that gerrymandering we had a a women's group to speak for us and then they have split up the women's group so that we don't have women to speak for us and the the other frustrations that so the the cycling professional association for women put a survey out and 93 of the professional women said no we want women's sports to be for women but just so I'm clear is that the USA cycle the report that was out this was this was only professional this is the the CPA women okay the professional when was that that was done last year okay which is recent right and they only polled the professional women so anybody any woman with a with a pro license could could take part in this survey like the the the USA cycling one was open to everybody well right it got yeah it was a little a little faulty I mean yeah yeah I don't know how that works but when it gets out and anybody can vote and yeah I'm not going to beat up on them I mean this is what what I'm but we're going off yeah only Pro women were surveyed and 93 of the pro women said no okay and David lapartian said you know we're not going to really look at that survey because that's based off of feelings and emotions it was an anonymous survey uh it was an anonymous survey of only the professional women's cyclists well that's that feels pretty factual to me but they didn't want to listen to it because they said it was based off of feelings and emotions so then what happened but but they allow men into a women's field based off of feelings and emotions so then the CPA women tried to put forth uh they were going to have um Ross Tucker on their Emma Hilton on there and give them you know the science and then they were called transphobic and biggest and biggest and and this is boy this this is my point of the just no middle ground no Common Ground no rationale I mean how we go so quickly from look we hear you we see we support just you know let's be let's be careful here how we address sport to fast forward your Trans transphob in a bigot I struggle with that I think a lot of people struggle with that I I don't that that doesn't seem look you are not a transfer no I mean I I it's been a minute since we caught up but just hearing about your personal history and certainly knowing mine [Music] um those are those are real those are harsh words that they are very harsh words and and all just because we're trying to protect women and have fairness for women because women deserve to have we don't deserve meaningful like men get to have Fair competition but women now we only get to have meaningful competition and that's not fair I'm I'm competitive I am maybe I'm not as competitive of you but I'm pretty damn competitive and I want I'm I'm I know I I want to win yeah I and I want to have a fair playing field right and if I was asked to compete with the man and be like no absolutely not and and that kind of sounded harsh there but same with the man but a transgender woman the answer is no because they still have the biology of a male and and also on that going back just a second to the to the you know immediately branding or labeling people transphobes or bigots it isn't just that right I mean we know the example or most people or anybody that's followed this that has um seen Martina navratilova's opinions on this and her tweets and all the other social media and you know she had a nice go at me which is okay I mean Martina navratula would by the way for the record didn't say anything wrong about me I mean I don't know that it really adds to this discussion but everything she said was true right I am a guy I've cut a few Corners okay these are all true but nonetheless we're having this conversation she's she's an icon and certainly an icon when it comes to the to the gay and lesbian Community even a real Pioneer um and she said look I don't I don't think it's fair now she might have gone a little far the one thing I think that also really um tough for that Community to hear is that you're you're cheating right and and you know and you you read if you do read the social media in the comments oh it's just a it's another guy cheating it's another guy cheating and you know Martina went so far as to say this is just like cheating um but nonetheless the community reacted right this this you know the T community and and branded her a transpho a bigot and a Turf of course right which seems a little again and this is this was my question to to Ann and Chris at athlete Ally like if I imagine because you look you've got the lgbtqa plus Community right to me I know what a community is well you know we all know what a community is right so we all live in a neighborhood in different streets this just seems like this thing's going to come to a head when you have a real icon and a real Pioneer like Martina that you've basically said just just tried to erase that something there's a misalignment there in a in a really big way well what happens I think all of us started off with trying to be nice and just trying to point out biology and got labeled transphobic and bigots for just trying to to show the science that was coming forth and I think a lot of us end up kind of just fighting back like it but it is cheating it is because but but let me take a step here they are legally allowed right now to compete which is which is what Roger Pilkey said right they are right I agree with that right and this is what I've been talking about is we have to look at the policy and we have to look at the science and when you ask to look at the policy and you asked to look at the science you're also called transphobic and being a big it's like no that this is biology and this is science but if I had to defend them because I I've you know look the whole world knows my story and and it doesn't it's not justified that that we lived and raced in a really up time and none of us really viewed it as cheating at the end of the day it was um I'm I'm not so sure I don't think Leah Thomas or or or you know Veronica Ivey or any of them viewed that as cheating I really don't I don't think there are I'm gonna go out I'm going to transition and I'm gonna cheat and finally win something I agree with you on that I don't think that there's any motivation like this that word gets I mean that will that will get their attention and their anger super fast I'm out obviously it has let me look at it this way if you any emotionally healthy person Growing Up by Elementary School we all figured out the differences between boys and girls could you with a good conscience transition and get into a woman's race well could I yeah no but but to me you're you're really talking about two different things okay um and this is again just just sort of my view and the way I've I've come to understand if if at some point in my life I grew up Lance and I was a boy and I wanted to be a you know I wanted a transition be a trans female that's that's sort of everything I need I I don't know that that's why I I and I'm I'm I align with you on this I the sports piece is almost I mean that's a whole nother level right if because if the issue is look we can't uh deny people what's in their heart and their soul if they want they feel like they're in the wrong body and they'd like to transition absolutely taking it you know that's where that's why what you know why this thing is is is why we're discussing it it why does you know the sports piece is another first of all I can't relate to that just just unclear none of us could um no and that's not a slight it's just it's it's it just hasn't been my life um and Andor is Sport because you have you know the the process of transition you have being an athlete which a lot of people are athletes anybody can be an athlete and then you have this idea of being a really really high level Elite competitive athlete that's real that's kind of a whole nother thing and I think for a lot of people that's taking it too far think Caitlyn Jenner had the best really likely she's Republican which I think is important to note because yes anybody that's on the other side of this fight that gets branded and labeled turfs and transphobes and bigots you know people just automatically assume you sit around all night and watch Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson and all these loons and I'm a right wing right whatever so I think it's important I've been all set the record straight there a lifelong Democrat but we can agree in certain Democrat Republican we can agree in certain areas even if you're you know I'm a woman in somebody's trans there's a lot of areas where we can agree and what I really liked about Caitlyn Jenner is that their emotional stability with this that they are comfortable in their own skin going saying you know that she can say yes I am transgender and I understand that I'm male at the same time and she understands to she wouldn't race against the woman I mean she she still has the the moral compass to say I know that I'm male and I'm a transgender woman and to me that is an emotionally healthy balanced person that can come to to terms with their gender identity and still come to terms with the fact of their biology and this is and this is where it gets into this difficult area of you have transgender women that are wanting to go in for for pelvic screening and for um cervical smear test these aren't things that affect transgender women they still have a prostate and so somewhere in there we have to have reality and so we have ideology and we have biology and so your biology is still that you're still male and if you have transitioned don't be demanding Women's Services you need to be looking at having your prostate looked at not going into doctors offices and demanding to get you know a pelvic exam you need to go to the doctor that does the sexual reassignment surgeries and so so now we're kind of looking at the reality so we have the ideology and then we have reality reality to me when it comes to sports I'm going to get back into my own lane here when it comes to sports sports are based on biology so we have with within Sports we have classifications we have male we have female we have para Olympics and then under that under that we have categories of we have age we have weight we have [Music] um um and and then you go under that like so then it's like say we'll get into cycling all right so then we have the pro category and then we have cat one and we have cat two and we have cat three and four and five we have all of these classifications and categories in order to have fairness in sports because we want to see the people that shine the very best within their Sport and within their category and so when we get into sports you you you compete in the the event that you that you qualify and if you have male biology you need to be in the mail category so with all of these classifications and categories I don't see a reason in the world that they can't have a transgender category so it's a it's a very common uh response yeah and it's also it's also wildly unpopular very wildly and so then you I know it um World Athletics did is and then we're going to have the open category and that also I think is is the best solution to all of this because it would allow women to compete in the open category if they wanted to like so transgender man or women that identify as men um I raced with a man all the time I loved it it is how you but it is your training you probably kicked their ass too oh God I got walloped all the time of course I do remember Alexi gray while screaming at me because I chased down one of them you shouldn't be Alexi screamed at everybody that's I'm like yeah just welcome to the crowd if he's screaming at you yeah that means he woke up that day you're not special he yelled it I was at the receiving end of that many times but if you had an open cat because I know a lot of times I couldn't race because they would say I couldn't race with men because like well women can't race in the men's category and to this day they still have that where women can't race in the men's category and so this is like say like what Molly Cameron ran into is that she had a female on her license even though this is the gravel racer yeah the gravel racer and so they wouldn't allow her to race the national championships and they should have and if they had been an open category Molly would have raced with the men as a female and so it forced her into the women's category but then you're not obligated to it a lot of times if there is an open or a non-binary division um you you can you you know you can check the box of whichever category you identify with um there's not you know if I think about this thing and we're going to watch this clip in a second because this is somebody sent me this today and it was some sort of I don't know how all this stuff works like a correct Congressional testimony um but if you look at we are not going to decide this you and I are not going to decide this the trans Community is not going to decide this the anti-community is not going to decide it right this has to this is you know here in the U.S you look at and there are these reports or or indications of how the Biden Administration will View Title IX and and perhaps almost amend it and I I take great upset exception to them amending it because of course it was passed to protect women and to give women equal opportunities and to take the meaning of a word and change it is very disingenuous something has already been passed to to like you just can't do that right and they're doing that anyway so back to the Congressional hearing but but it but also it goes you know even we're going to show that in a second uh or listen to it if you're listening to the show but all the way from the top we're talking about the Oval Office you know which trickles down to all these things whether it's ioc usoc uh nc2a um uh all of them down to our club events yes um people are afraid people are terrified and and look you you just told us the the the the numbers from if you you pulled all of the professional female cyclists in the Peloton which I don't know how many there are but you know hundreds and hundreds 93 said no David laparshian the head of the uh the U.S sorry the UCI the world cycling governing body says oh no this is uh et cetera um people are scared it's people are terrified let's play this clip this this to me and I asked just before we show it um I asked uh Dr villain this question it was sort of a hypothetical and I use the example of Usain Bolt and and who's not that old I was surprised that Hussein Bolt's not very old only 35 I think we looked it up 35 or 36 could still be competitive um and and what we'll see here in this clip is they're one of the senators or Congressman was asking about another hypothetical if Mike Tyson decided um that he was going to transition and he asked a fellow Congressman this fella here this is the question and here is the answer this is the thing and we'll we'll pick up after this should Mike Tyson have you heard of him yes I have if he identifies as a female should he be allowed to enter a boxing match with a biological female well the answer the short answer is yes somebody who is trans so this is what we're up against right and when they say there are so few and this is never going to happen well it's happening because in 2015 is when they started the self ID and now that we have the self ID and the ioc saying that they have no perceived there's no perceived advantage of testosterone and that's a different discussion get into it a second but the door has now been opened to self ID and this is what we're going to be seeing and when they say oh we really won't see this we are seeing it it's just not being reported on because the media they don't want to cover it but we have now over 50 transgender women in cycling and you see it again and again and again and we've been watching this for years and this is what got me into this was about five years ago when self ID started so I think this was like 2016. um I had women coming up to me frustrated angry mad because in just the club races they were allowing the self ID right and this is when the women started walking away and so then when I was but when you say walking away meaning they're walking away from the sport quitting the sport yeah they're quitting the sport which we saw in the example I forget you know and I've seen Hannah arnsman or the cyclocross racer there was a cyclocross racer that had an interaction with Austin kellips at a I think cyclocross Nationals and was yeah sort of nudged out of the way and as The Story Goes she she said you know this and just quit the sport and Hannah's not the only one I have talked to no exaggeration hundreds of women that are just walking away they're frustrated they're like why bother and and this is you know because I'm in touch with a lot of people in Oregon and and Portland is one of the hugest I mean it's the biggest it's Portland and they're just like you know they kind of start to speak up they got shame they got silenced and it was really disheartening for them and so they just they just left because they didn't want to go up against this they didn't like being called turfs they didn't like being called bigots and transphobic and this is um I have the screenshots from this one back in 2019 when I first spoke up Veronica Ivy Rachel McKinnon actively went after me and and there was a a mole in this chat group but in this chat group you watch this the the systematic um okay this person liked inga's post this person liked Dingus post and they're talking about going after their jobs and Reporting them and then they started the turf list and then it got passed around and and I just I just struggled with that I I I I I and after all of this this whole and I call it a process but this journey that I have been on obviously my own personal Journey the Journey of this series of learning as much as I can listening to all sides uh you know going after people's jobs whether you're actually going after them which I'm sure has happened or in your case or in Carol hooven's Case or in Stephen joyner's case just speaking to to you know what you feel are facts and losing a job I don't know what I thought I'm just well and and it happened I really struggled with that when I was at the pro Nationals um I got just recently just recently got to speak to a lot of the parents and they know me and they're coming up to me and they're and it's the same story they they will not speak out because and they agree with me but they don't want to hurt their child's chances in their events and we're talking parents that had men in the Peloton and women in the in the Peloton that even the men can't speak out it was like nobody can speak out without you believe me I know what it feels like when you try to do one of these things it's it's been interesting you know it's it's I was joking on the show yesterday I was like God I just I'm just trying to think of some other thing I can go do a series on just piss off everybody but I said you chose it yeah I mean this is but that's that was also I I went into this uh process just being fine with that like I don't really I don't mind if if uh you know what you know 100 journalists ride or what's tweets come in nice to be at the point of course but you don't care of course well and it's and I always try to stop short of saying I don't care because I do I do care about a lot of things but I'm I'm just removed from that a little bit it's it's it's it's I'm not gonna let things like that influence the projects we take on or I take on our ideas or Journeys or homework which this has really turned into it's fine I mean it's it's it's kind of uh a blessed position to be in where where you just kind of do what you want and you weathered the storm and um and and the funnest thing about because I I will say this and not you know I'm interviewing you you're not interviewing me but I will answer the question you know the amount of shade that has been thrown at me in the last two weeks I haven't seen I've in my life I've had a lot of shade thrown at me right all the things you can imagine negative articles Mean Tweets just really hateful stuff um 10 years ago I would have been sprinting around the block just ripping my hair out the bottom line is now it's like all right like there's there's a real piece in that at least for not to get to but there's you know some of the stuff you're like oh that kind of hurt a little bit but five minutes later like nah it I mean it's it's so that's good yeah um it it's helped me to learn how to just kind of let it slide off of me not worry about it because I'm protecting women right and and I feel strongly about that five years ago I'd read this stuff any any it heard right and even like when cenesca did their little hit piece with their press release I read the release I thought it was it I just don't think and and again I as I read it and if I just had to look at the polls and look at this the way I have analyzed this situation I don't know that that wasn't reflection of if you just asked everybody which of course we can't do but imagine if you did I don't think that was an accurate reflection of what quote unquote everybody would feel and I thought it was awfully harsh way too harsh um and I don't know you know I don't know all the ins and outs and the history in the back you hadn't been there that long but um those are those are real real words and and real and real consequences certainly for you first was invited on I said I said I don't think that you want me on here because of my position I said that and I talked with Jeff Jones and Chris katoski and they said we agree with your position um I even have an email that states that they would be breaking windows and riding in the streets if they were women because it is that unfair and that's that's a little hypocritical then and and Jeff Jones has paid me to abdicate in the passing course not now but that's how strongly he felt about this and so and I was put on to the team or invited onto the team knowing this about me from there within a couple weeks I had was diagnosed with breast cancer and it was throughout the winter and so I had zero interaction with the team you know I'm I'm focused on other things I'm focused on my health at this point and um and then from there when the whole thing came out with Riley Gaines Jeff Jones asked me to Advocate with the the San Francisco State University and a lot of people were livid about that and he says I want you to Advocate more and like I can't do that being on siniska and at this point I'd had almost zero I think I had done one Zoom call within just kind of trying to catch back up but zero interaction and uh and I said yeah but I need to step down from siniska in order to do that because that won't look good on siniska and so I had stepped down a couple weeks previous but what was the quote there was some quote and maybe you know who knows if these things are over accurate but yeah did you said something like you know if I were any of the this was either during tour of Hilo with Austin kelbs um or just after um and as I read it it was sort of if if I you know all of those women should take a knee and and refuse to start because that or did that or did I not no I did it was like where you know uh Spectators wear a t-shirt that says woman how can you be canceled for wearing a t-shirt that says woman these days they believe me they can make up anything to cancel you like there's all new there's every day I mean it's I I think we all need like a real-time news feed of like this is the that you cannot do and so look by the way there's a lot of these things that or are right like we shouldn't do certain things or you shouldn't say other things I'm not sure that um saying pregnant woman I don't think I'm ever ever going to feel bad about saying pregnant woman but you're not supposed to say that anymore no you're not supposed to say woman you're you you're supposed to say pregnant people right or or yeah yeah it's pregnant birthing person or birthing person um I think that's that's what a way to control women is to continually change the language of what woman means we all know what a woman means it's an adult human female a descriptor of an ad human female would be you know that she can be pregnant it's a pregnant woman she can administrator a uterus Haber but we have now are being called by something that defines us uterus have menstruator pregnant person no those are descriptors of a woman but the main descriptor is I am a woman what do you think happens where do you think where do you think this all ends up where I think this all ends up is is we're already watching it play out in real time they have tried to silence people and is backfiring and people are getting fed up with this so like I like the statistics that you quote like was the last year with CNN 10 12 people felt that yeah I think it was yeah three three summers ago and I've quoted this this uh poll a lot and you know it was a Wall Street Journal poll that was that was republished or re or was aired on CNN um and and I would just on the politics side I would if that was a fox poll on this issue uh I'd probably I don't know if I'd totally believe it but you know I've watched more CNN than I watch Fox but the question was have we gone too far on accepting the transgender community three summers ago which isn't that long 15 said yes we've gone too far this is crazy two weeks ago 43 so that this is if I had to put myself in their shoes I look at that and I've talked a lot with other really small folks I'm like What's Happening Here there's something happening this is what I think is happening is the language has been changing but people aren't aware of it like what I just said about you you never heard that before that is in some of the books that that we're seeing right now in some of the literature and as with the women and a lot of people are not aware that this is happening they're just going on about their lives and they're reading you know stories about this but they're generally all pro-trans and then they start kind of looking at the fine print going hold on here just a second and it's starting to make news of what's happening with the children and the studies coming out and parents losing the rights of their children and what's going on at school and prisons and and the prisons and the and it's all of this information is starting to become more mainstream and all of us are sitting up going hey hold on here just a second that is going too far the the the material that they're giving to the children in school what we're seeing in sports what they said would never happen is starting to happen and if if I get back to sports like with the international Olympic Committee one of the reasons of this was passed was they said there is going to be so few people right and it's only men in their 40s who are transitioning that we are never going to see this at the elite level and this is one of the reasons why it got passed is like it's not their problem and I really think they had no idea of the trickle-down effect that happened at the top right and so now that it is happening and it is becoming more mainstream and where people are starting to have an awareness of this now they're going whoa hold on and I when I was I'm gonna go a little bit sideways here when I used to do a lot of investing investing in stocks I'd like listening to this one guy because he said the stocks that I know that I should invest into are the ones that the items that my children are interested in because they are the future and he did a lot of his investing basing based on I mean some of his invested based on what his children were doing because they were they're the future and this is what I'm seeing now when you because I follow this at all layers and levels you're now starting to see in mainstream media children being punished for speaking out against this they're starting at first the children were like yeah we have to be inclusive we have to you know be accepting and the children were very good now that you see a lot of the children pushing back making fun challenging the teachers they're not they're not teasing the other students they're they're outright challenging the teachers one of the the one that this one was about two weeks ago um this is the best example where one of the children in the classroom identified as a cat well that's called a furry yeah they call it the first generally speaking called furries which which I've also come to learn about and I can I'll tell you in a second about first but we can hold on to that one because we can go sideways on that one too um and so a couple of girls were challenging the teacher going she's not a cat she's a girl and then the teacher admonished them and then the girls kept pushing back and you can hear other students in the background pushing back and we're seeing that more and more where the students are pointing out facts and biology to a teacher and and to me that that is very indicative of I think where we're going with this is that as people become aware there's also we're seeing people pushing back at the lower layers and levels and companies now not fighting it the way that they used to so I do have hope that this will turn around and that women's rights will be re-established some common sense I mean a lot of this just comes down to Common Sense when when I was young from the age I think about six to maybe 10 I was a horse I just wasn't any horse I was specifically Man of War I mean to the point that you know you identified as a horse oh God yeah I galloped everywhere I mean why I have knees I have no idea but I mean I wanted to eat off the floor my mom's like nope you're a young lady get to the table and that is just I call it the adult in the room and hope I hope that when it comes to women's sports that the adults will get back in the room and and when I look at the international Olympic Committee they're just cowards I mean they're scared and I don't know if they're they're controlled by a lot closer to Cluster this I don't know if they're you know controlled or you know the same fear but what is the money behind this right that would allow this to happen without consulting women I said I want to get back to Sports in here right it's what type of money and power and push in the background would they allow this to this ideology with with no science behind it to allow transgender women into women's sports without talking to the women and then let's get to the very beginning of this how did this happen and that's what needs to be questioned and what is the power and money behind that that is that is driving this whole agenda and I I just I have a lot of faith in people that Common Sense will come back well I was just curious about yeah I mean the forces at work here right it's it's obvious yeah but there are forces big forces at work and and I haven't figured it out you know you see quotes and you see um initiatives but you know whether it's the ACLU the American civil liberties Union or or if there's forces there's something think about the ACLU this last one with uh the prison I didn't see that I mean the prison thing just right quick for background folks that you know there there has been some and again and these These are examples they're not thousands of these examples but there's a yeah I don't know a few or or whatever um of male prisoners that don't like being in men prisons which I wouldn't like either that that are raising their hand and saying why identify as a woman so they go to the women's prison and you know bad things they're finding with that one that over 50 of the men that suddenly start identifying as women in prison are also sexual offenders which was the case with the Wii Spa in Los Angeles and and yeah and and boy I tell you uh I think for the trans community I I hate that if I you know if I put my you know my hat on of having a personal connection here I hate that for the community like this is it's it's the all of the transgender people that I speak with and I speak with a lot of them all the time this movement is not helping them they had more acceptance and more this is just not helping them because it's making is kind of trying to frame them as being these bad people and they're they're not these are all the transgender people that I know are wonderful people and they're people with gender dysphoria but here's what they would say the trans Community would say and and so I I can listen to both sides right what I heard you say and a lot of folks say that you know this is actually hurting their cause pushing on primarily you know specifically Sports the trans Community would say which I could also understand that the conservative right in this country is using the sports issue to drive a wedge to to then get get to get to a place where Health Care is denied and education is denied and all the the the the the you know rights and freedoms that we should have would be denied so you're you're getting a very similar message from different sides it's just inverted um which makes as I've gotten into it I mean it transgender rights are a human right and women's rights are a human right and when the rights of one tramples on the rights of the other that's when things go wrong are women women's humans rights need to be recognized our our rights to equal access equal opportunities since I'll get back into sports Title IX right and women's rights is that that we get Fair Fair opportunity in sports and I don't know if sports sports are actually not in human right I mean if you really kind of get into it like when you say you know Sports is a human right no this is something that we we compete to to be able to qualify in the classification that that we qualify so for me as a woman the first one is is I'm in the women's classification classification but then from there if I get into cycling I would start off as category five and then I would work my way up to four but if I never make it to Elite then I haven't made it there but sports are set up you know we've gone through this again for fairness is there some woman a a female politician I mean who's the most powerful one in the country I guess probably Kamala Harris right I don't I I just wonder if I'm hearing your side and and what you just said it I think really well is um you know when one said it rights tramples on another then that's crossing the line you would think uh on on the women's side there has to there would be an advocate there in on Capitol Hill or in the white house or whatever and I'm not sure there is I think no we we don't have The Advocates there I think the closest that we have right now is uh Tulsi gabbard and she has was a lifelong Democrat right and and started until she's switched over but she one of the things that drove her to switch over was the trampoline of women's rights that is going on with the left and and so when we talk about going too far I believe the left has has gone too far like I've been a lifelong Democrat but I feel like I haven't changed a whole lot but I feel like they have just gone way far left to the point that it's detrimental to women and I know I have my times here being a Democrat and belief in my rights to body and autonomy and being able to whatever goes on with me reproductively that it should be my choice and and and here the right has taken that away from us and it's like what is a bigger threat to being a woman right now is it the loss of the to my body autonomy with abortion or is it the left issue with having our rights walked on by by this movement and I'm going to say that a bigger threat to my rights is is this movement that's trampling women's rights and transgender they should have rights but their rights don't supersede women's rights we should be equal and when and it comes down to biology right and that's where I do I I think you know and I know you mentioned 22 peer-reviewed studies you know the I think if everybody got in that same room and said okay and and let's do sort of the mother of all as I alluded to earlier the mother of all the studies peer reviewed with I don't know like the Einstein of all these things um using the right pool of athletes right you'll hear from from the trans community that there are stuff out there are studies out there that that just haven't used Elite Level Trans females in the studies and again I'm not a scientist I'm not a researcher I don't know I just listen um but you and maybe we never get to that place where there's a definitive answer or maybe you know or or maybe there's just conflict here I'd like what Ross Tucker said he says we almost don't need to do any studies because we're watching it play out in real time you you can look at cycling where it's not just Austin Phillips but we have 55 I think we're up at 55 now that our Podium on the podium consistently at Women's events like you can look at just about any women's race right now and it'll have a transgender racer um that will be on there and then and the commons God it's just so much about common sense here um keep going I had an idea here and I somebody wanted to say and I just I just lost it was along the lines of uh Ross Tucker and well his stuff I mean he's yeah look [Music] um you know the these these views and opinion there's just everything about this issue has been very polarizing as I'm as I've come to learn I mean it's um I remember what it was one of the latest studies that came out showed that that they're not doing it at the elite level but the little bit that they have done it at the elite level and this was I remember why we covered this in the car driving over here is the studies were done on people transgender women that were not athletes and they did lose quite a bit but they still showed a 10 to 45 percent retained advantage um and but the athletes had had lost even less it was only like a couple of percent because they had continued to train and and well and so another way to look at this is like when you're in sports if you get caught doping with steroids the first time around it's like what two to four year ban but the second time you get caught taking steroids is a lifetime ban and the reason why they do this is like if I'm able to train at this level and I start taking testosterone I can now train it this level and if I stop using testosterone I come down to here and I always have this Legacy Advantage I I was naturally here but I am now here even though I'm not taking testosterone and so and and this is as a woman so now as a and if I'm only taking it for a short amount of time for like a year or two but now you have a male who has been bathed in testosterone his whole life and so I'm here and he's here and he's been bathed in testosterone his whole life but we know as men and women I'm here you're here you always are going to have a 10 to 45 advantage over me we take away all your testosterone as an elite man you're going to come to here because even right now at this point in your life you have less testosterone because you're I'm sorry you're an aging male well you've said a lot of really yeah mean things to me Canda you called me no no you're right no that's that's yeah you will come down because of Aging right no I I believe you I'm well aware and I've had other complications there over the course of my life yeah haven't we all and and then you look at me as like an aging female am I test talking to you that way I never said that I sure do but you know so I think when I was racing I was at 0.9 nanomoles per liter when I raced so low yeah I was like and so when they talk about um when the ioc says that you uh test that there's no perceived Advantage with testosterone that was a slightly misleading statement because within women higher lower testosterone didn't really differentiate us and with men higher lower testosterone naturally didn't really differentiate it so a lot of women so I'm sitting there racing at a point nine animals per liter but I can still beat the woman that might be racing at 1.5 or 2. I mean there's right that's all over yeah everybody there were several women that were and everybody has different strengths and weaknesses and whatever I could still beat them right and so um but once those women that I knew started doping they went up to here some of them I could be some of them I could not be depending on there I mean one that I could never touch was was long ago um used to be able to beat her but anyway um different story we're aging ourselves Genie Longo and let me let me let's let's because this all this stuff is yeah it's it's so messy um what do you do next what what what's your plan and I know you were at Pro you know U.S Nationals the pro event and had a peaceful protest and Riley yanes was there which yeah um of course she's been very outspoken and and I think really built a platform for herself and this yeah cause what comes what do you do now I think we just keep we just keep pushing and one of the reasons that it wasn't just me like there's a huge protest planned um at the World Championships coming up and and the reasons why is if you put forth a survey that says 93 of professional women cyclists don't want to have transgender women in their Sports and we're putting forth the science again and again and again and it's being ignored downplayed um you know when you look at Xavier bigard putting you know doing his paper in May of uh 2023 so a month ago quoting all of these scientific papers showing that there is a retained advantage and summarizing it with inclusion is more important than fairness you know that they have no intention of actually looking at the science they've had the science this was all put in without adequate science what should happen is it should be reset back to what we used to do when I was racing is it was a cotton swab on the inside of the cheek of your mouth and you had if you had XX chromosomes you were able to race with the women and it kept it a fair playing feel it kept out like Caster semina she's a 46 XY she's XY DSD she is not a a woman that doesn't have a uterus she's XY with internal gonads and this is why so you know higher testosterone because she has internal gonads um she should be competing with the men because she's XY but what needs to happen is we need to go back to the way that it was just x y and then it should be proven that it's fair to be in there with the women not the other way around and I know a lot of some of these women's organizations are start starting to talk about just bypass the man altogether bypass the ioc bypass the international federations and just start their own I mean we've seen this happen with women's tennis and with women's golf where the rules are not being implemented fairly so they just completely step away and I would imagine if the rules don't if the policy doesn't get looked at and brought back to a Level Playing Field that is fair for women it'll take a while but I think the women will just completely walk away and start their own organizations well that would be something yeah it's those are all those are always hard when you have when you have sports like a sport like cycling that is so beholden to the Olympic movement right so everything and we've you know even even in my situation right I mean you know cycling is an Olympic sport even if it feels more like a professional almost like F1 or the NFL because you have the tour and that's really not it these sports are still beholden to the Odyssey and the usoc yeah and all of the all of the things that go with those agencies but your sleep I call it you're seeing a slow boil going on right is that women are speaking out more and more and more and so the ability to cancel us shame us it it's losing I call it like the boy that cried wolf it's losing its Effectiveness you know the first time I was called Turf for transphobic it really hurt and now it just like is that the best you got because I know that was Martinez quote in the New York Times yeah Ross Tucker he has because he's been so outspoken on on this and I'm just curious I'm not actually not really sure who he's aligned with if it's a university or I wonder if he's had any blowback on a professional level or maybe he's out on his I'd I should know this but yeah he's been so outspoken um like a lot of the folks that we've referenced that that have suffered real life consequences and not just being called names but but losing jobs and losing positions and losing stature and losing tenure and losing all these things it's that that I really struggle with that yeah we all should struggle with that because I agree when they start trying to silence yeah and change the science or or have the science fit an ideology that is just wrong right we have to hold on to science and we have to hold on to reality and and truth and and when we start allowing a lie to happen I I don't mean to quite phrase it this way but at what point Society has to have some type of consistency some type of of a basis and that basis has to be based on truth and so if I have the ability to say um right now we can say okay I can identify as a man now I'm a man okay well we know that's an ideology that's not true and then if I decide to identify as the Queen of England or do I identify as a Sovereign Nation and I don't have to pay taxes or if I tell you that I'm a giraffe or or a cat I mean at what point does a society fall apart if we can't have a basis of truth in our language and to be able to follow science at what point does it go too far that we can't say things that are honest and truthful I'm going to leave that one with the people I mean that's that is the question right and this is for anybody listening or watching or weighing in um I think we should just think about that I mean it's a it's a real question I know it can sound extreme and the others I could view it is Extreme or but that's a real question it could be anything yeah I I think we have to hold on to truth in our lives and base our lives off of that while still taking care of people and being kind but it can't be at the point that we that we lie about things being a thank you thank you for allowing me let's not make it let's not have another 30 years go by before we hang out gotta think about that in 30 years I don't even want to think about what's going on with you and I in 30 years you know what I'm just I never mind no it it's a little scary I know because 30 years I tell people all the time 30 years feels like yesterday 30 years ago it feels like yesterday that means tomorrow is or 30 years from now is going to feel like tomorrow which goes fast well I'm about to turn 60 and I'm like that 30 years disappeared so quickly I don't want to talk about it I don't want to talk about it thanks for doing this [Music]

Channel: WEDŪ

Views: 41,904

Keywords: The Forward, Podcast, Inga Thompson, Trans in Sports, Transgender Athletes, Transgender, WEDU, Lance Armstrong

Id: qAYjvWW8wU8

Length: 88min 9sec (5289 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 02 2023