Mick Hartley

I posted about Inga Thompson last week: she's the former women's cycling champion who left Cynisca Cycling, a France-based, American pro women's cycling team, after expressing her view that trans women shouldn't be competing in women's cycling events. It didn't go down well with Cynisca bosses, who see the future of women's cycling as a brave new world where men pretending to be women can happily compete and win.

Jean Hatchet at The Critic:

Cynisca proudly states that it is “committed to advancing women in the sport of cycling both on and off the bike”. Inga is dedicated to advancing the interests of young female cyclists, and she was delighted to be joining what she saw as an innovative team. Her experience was not as smooth as she expected, though, and Inga decided to resign from the board in April. She endured a rough ride this week as the team at Cynisca behaved in a shocking way towards her for expressing her political views.

When Inga sent an email politely resigning her post on the board of Cynisca for a new role with Future of Cycling, she would never have expected to receive not a courteous acceptance but a cold and deliberate character assassination of the highest order. The email, widely distributed in the media as the team’s official statement on the matter, blithely waves a hand at Inga’s exceptional value as a board member before proceeding to make some bold claims about her.

Chris Gutowsky, the founder and general manager, distributed the following statement:

Ms. Thompson was invited to the board because of her impressive palmarés and a wealth of knowledge on international race strategy, tactics and training. If shared in the absence of politics, her knowledge and experience would benefit many and advance cycling for everyone. However, she has decided to dedicate her time to excluding people that are otherwise currently eligible to compete in UCI events. She has also attempted to use our team as a platform for her political activity.

It is quite extraordinary of Gutowsky to state that Inga would be valuable if she could keep her mouth shut about her beliefs. Her views, at least in UK law, have been established as worthy of respect in a democratic society. Gutowsky continued:

Ms. Thompson’s social media presence include dehumanisation of transgender people, spreading misinformation, demagoguery, and personal attacks on anyone who opposes her views.

Inga Thompson is astounded to be smeared in this way by her former boss. Her own letter of resignation shows a desire to protect Cynisca’s reputation, with deliberate sensitivity and care for the success of the team. Gutowsky, by return, seems not only peeved but determined to drag her reputation through the mud. His attitude was embraced with seeming glee by former competitive cyclist Anne-Marije Rook, as she poured it into a hit piece for Cycling Weekly. Inga was offered no right to reply but was instead blocked by Rook on social media. It is distressing to see Inga treated this way, knowing that young female cyclists are watching and will see it as a cautionary tale against speaking up for women’s right to female only sport. Inga is right, however — those women must take courage from the example she is setting for them, or they are going to have to fight for their podium places so much harder down the line.

The cynicism  is breath-taking: Cynisca boasting about their mission to advance opportunities for women when in fact they happily include men and then smear those who point this out as being guilty of the "dehumanisation of transgender people".

It looks, even from the outside, as though Cynisca is cleansing the team of the political view that men should not compete in women’s sport. In leading the Board in this direction, Gutowsky is not fostering an environment where women will win, but one where men will beat them, and women will be expected to be quiet about it.

Nothing could send a surer signal to young female cyclists than the treatment of Inga Thompson. If you object to men in your cycle races, then you will have your reputation dragged through the dirt of the cycling media.

Is Inga Thompson scared by what has happened to her? Not at all. She told me, “I will do anything to protect women’s sports and to honour the women who came before me who fought to have women’s rights and for women’s rights in sport. If being bullied so badly and defamed so badly gets women’s sport the attention it needs, then being bullied is worth it.”