Video posted by Outside The Lines
"If anything, me competing against cisgender females is a disadvantage.."@FPUathletics track star CeCe Telfer talks about the physical challenges she faces while competing as a transgender woman.
Editor's note: The post originally quoted the article and was entiteld, "Transgender Track Star Claims He’s “Disadvantaged” Racing Against Girls" but we changed the title as Tefler refers to herself as a woman.
We particularly enjoyed the following response by "RunRagged."
RunRagged wrote:
If the ESPN interviewer in the full clip I just posted were not so intent on praising Telfer for being a "trailblazer" who has had to "endure" criticism Telfer has apparently never personally heard, he might've seen that the obvious, logical response to Telfer's complaints would be to ask questions along these lines:
1) Well, if suppressing testosterone has weakened & disadvantaged you to such a great extent, doesn't that mean that all the girls & women who've never for a moment had anywhere near male levels of T are really at a vastly worse disadvantage? If it's harder for you to build & retain muscle now that you've lowered your T a bit, can you imagine how much harder it is for those who've always had small to negligible amounts of T?
2) Also, do you really think you're the only one who has to train & work hard & sacrifice things to win? Don't the women you're competing with do all those things as well?
3) And if you're so disadvantaged by the "biochemical changes" your body is going through because of the hormones you're on, what about the women you're competing with, who experience many more hormonally-caused "biochemical changes" & bodily challenges in the course of a single menstrual cycle? Women have to perform athletically even with excruciating period cramps, heavy bleeding, bloating & severe breast tenderness; when they're ovulating, pregnant, worried they're pregnant, or they've recently had miscarriages or abortions; when they are at points in their monthly cycles that make them especially vulnerable to a wide array of injuries; & when they're dealing with gynecological problems like ovarian cysts, vaginal infections, pelvic inflammatory disease & PMS - how does what you've gone through compare to that?
Also, are you not aware that what you call the "hormone replacement therapy" you're on is the same as the birth control pills women throughout the world, including many athletes, take as a matter of course?
4) Since what you've said totally undermines the argument that testosterone does NOT give transwomen with intact testicles an advantage over biological women in sport, how do you think your statements will go down with all the trans rights activists who have been saying the exact opposite for years? After all, you've been allowed to compete in women's sports precisely because the NCAA & other sports bodies bought the idea that male-to-female trans people who keep their male genitals - as most transwomen nowadays do - are not advantaged by the testosterone their testicles produce because there's no "real proof" that testosterone confers benefits that matter in athletics. But now that you've been crowned a national women's champion your position is that it's all a lie - really?