"We surveyed female riders—93% said they didn't want trans women in women's sport"

A no-holds-barred conversation with Inga Thompson

I got hold of Inga Thompson when she was midway through an Oreo cookie, so she was pretty busy. This was a follow-up call to a lovely rant we’d previously enjoyed, so absurd in the details we’d howled with laughter. Except for the fact it’s so very real. 

Let me backtrack. Inga Thompson is a retired U.S. cyclist—three-time Olympian, ten-time National Champion, three-time World medalist, and more recently, tireless advocate for women’s only sport. This has earned her another title: transphobe.

“I have never protested against trans athletes; I have protested the policies in place that have allowed trans women to compete in the women's category,” she explained. “As the science evolved, the policy needed to be reevaluated.”  Warming to the topic of policy evolution, Thompson relayed the fascinating story of Canadian cyclist Kristen Worley, a man who transitioned around 2000. In 2003, the International Olympic Committee announced that trans women could compete in the women’s category if they had gender reassignment surgery, or in other words, a gonadectomy. Castration. Which Worley did. But she soon discovered her male body didn’t work very well without testosterone, so she asked the International Cycling Union (UCI) for a Therapeutic Use Exemption (TUE) to add testosterone back into her body. Let’s get this straight—Worley chose to cut off her balls, all parties apparently unaware this would have lifelong negative health consequences, so she asked for and received (!) permission to add the testosterone back (negating the need for the gonadectomy in the first place). So, a castrated doped male was competing in the female category and that was just fine with cycling’s rule-making organization.  

“It gets better,” Thompson said. “He sued the IOC, blaming the IOC and UCI for not properly educating him. He said ‘I followed your rules, but you didn’t tell me this would be really bad for my health.’ And he won! The UCI changed to self-ID [just declaring you’re a woman—no surgery]  because it’s so unhealthy to deprive males of testosterone in order to compete in the female category. Women cannot get a TUE if they need testosterone in order to be healthy. Even .5 nmol/liter, I can’t get it. But Kristen Worley can to compete with women. I thought, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me! How ludicrous is this! Our sport has to come back to just XX can compete with women.”

Thompson started getting loud about trans-identified males on women’s teams about five years ago. That was when she tried to get a seat at the table where the Olympic Committee made their policies about trans inclusion. As per usual, the IOC foisted the decision-making off on individual sports federations. 

In 2020, Emma Hilton, who works with Tommy Lundberg and Ross Tucker, all highly regarded biologists and sport scientists, submitted the science regarding trans women in sports.  Thompson’s group, Union Cycliste Feminine, also submitted a paper with five Olympians, Emma Hilton, and Cathy Devine, but UCI said it wasn’t submitted through the proper channels. 

“We surveyed female riders and 93% said they didn’t want trans women in women’s sport. UCI ignored that. They had zero intention of ever listening to women. Here it is four years later, and when Austin Killips won the Tour of the Gila, UCI initially stood by their [trans inclusion] policy. But I got loud and started talking about protesting, and by Thursday UCI said, ‘Hey we’re going to re-look at this policy.’ Which made me laugh. No women were contacted. They were just hoping I’d shut up. My attitude is, until they actually change the policy we will be protesting. It’s picking up steam. In Scotland for World Championships, they're already organized for an all-out protest. Being loud, that’s how women got the right to vote. I’m such a thorn in their side. I love it.”  

Since then, Katerina Nash, the Vice President at UCI said she was going to represent the athletes at the upcoming Management Committee meeting.  Katerina Nash, in a Zoom call with Thompson, stated she “couldn't see women's cycling without transgender women in it.  WTF!? She's going to speak for women while she ignores the 93% survey and advocates for trans women in women's sports?”  

The funny part of Thompson’s recent adventure in outspokenness is the unintended consequences. It’s been implied by cycling media that Thompson was ousted from women’s cycling team Cynisca’s board of directors because of her “anti-trans comments.” She remembers it differently. She says the top dogs of Cynisca, Jeff Jones and Chris Gutowsky, were well aware of her stance and her outspokenness when they asked her to be on the board at the beginning of 2023. In fact, they encouraged it as long as she didn’t tag Cynisca in her comments. Thompson said she stepped down from the board in March due to bullying of riders on the team, and to join a group called the Future of Cycling. 

“I had resigned quietly and that could have been the end of it, but then a couple weeks later they put out that statement that I was transphobic and damaging Cynisca’s reputation. They said cycling media wouldn’t cover the team because of my supposedly transphobic comments. I am just laughing because their efforts to smear me have backfired so badly. For four years, cycling media has tried to silence me, and it mostly worked. Now, this smear campaign is the best thing that ever happened to me. I’ve been given a voice, I can advocate for women even more.”

But she says, young women, currently competing riders who have sponsorships and team places to lose are still being silenced. A Cynisca rider recently told Thompson about a statement they’d received from Chris Gutowsky saying that at the next race the riders would be accompanied by “undercover bodyguards.” Whether this bizarre measure is to keep the riders from talking to the press, or the press from talking to the riders, it’s an indication of paranoia around the trans topic. And it underscores the reality that the majority of female athletes do not want trans women on women’s teams but are being bullied into silence.

I had to ask Thompson why cycling seems to have so many trans-identified males competing.

“Like surfing or skateboarding, it attracts kind of a cool hip crowd. These are not true trans women who just want to live their lives. These are AGP men who want to say FU to women. They can just say ‘I’m trans’ and get into women’s spaces, into women’s sports. Molly Cameron dresses like a man—

there is nothing female about Molly. He’s a grifter making money off of being “the most marginalized.”  I understand there are men with gender dysphoria and I have sympathy for them and their difficult journey, but it’s not women’s responsibility to fix it. I don’t have to give up my opportunities for someone’s gender dysphoria.”

In our this-can’t-be-real conversation, Thompson is totally willing to joke about her own reality—breast cancer.  Diagnosed in December of 2022, the surgeons recommended only removing one breast. “There was a shadow on the other one, so I said just give me a double mastectomy. They were arguing about it, so I said how about if ID as a trans man. Because I will go down that path.” She got the double mastectomy.