First they voted support for her, then they reversed course, demanding her resignation.
Former Olympic cyclist Inga Thompson today resigned from the Oregon Bicycle Racing Association board of directors.
A petition for Thompson to be removed from the board was circulated in October by Portland bike shop owner Rachel Cameron who accused Thompson of “pervasive transphobia” and launched a 478-signature petition to have her removed from the OBRA board.
This after Thompson proposed that a separate racing category be created for transgender bicycle racing entrants. Thompson was interviewed in an article on a website called Save Women’s Sports, in which authors wrote, “This is the beginning of the end for women’s sports. We cannot allow this abuse of female athletes and mockery of women’s sports to continue. It is not bigotry to defend biology, and it is not hate speech to defend your rights.”
On Dec. 9, OBRA responded with an announcement that it would not be removing Thompson from the board. But today, just three days later, OBRA’s executive director Chuck Kenlan announced that Thompson had resigned from the board.
Thompson tells WW she was asked to resign from the board because of an interview she gave to BikePortland, in which she said the board’s decision to keep her on “validates her proposal” to create a separate category for transgender cyclists.
In a Dec. 11 email to Thompson obtained by WW, Kenlan wrote that due to statements made to BikePortland and on Twitter—Thompson tweeted “So excited that the board unanimously voted to keep me on the board and see the value of more inclusion of transgender women”—the board determined that Thompson “violated the confidentiality of the executive session.”
Kenlan said the board voted to remove Thompson.
Editor's note: This thread was iniitally entitled. 3-time Olympian transphobe Inga Thompson RESIGNS from Oregon Bicycle Racing board over Anti-Trans stance in women's cycling. We changed the title as we don't think simply because someone doesn't think it's fair for a transgender athlete to compete in the male or female category that they should be laballed as a transphobe.