Fighting Old Fears

Reigning World Masters sprint champion Rachel McKinnon is hitting back at critics who allege that her transgender physiology confers unfair advantages

- David Bradford

When Rachel McKinnon, 36, won the 35-44 sprint at the UCI Masters Track Cycling World Championships in Los Angeles last October, she became the first transgender woman to win a track world title. Naturally, the story made headlines across the globe, many of them highlighting critical reaction and citing claims that trans women have unfair physical advantages.

Since winning the title, McKinnon — who is a Canadian citizen but now lives in Charleston, South Carolina, where she lectures in philosophy — has received tens of thousands of hostile messages on social media. Meanwhile, high-profile athletes including Paula Radcliffe, Sharron Davies and Martina Navratilova have voiced their concerns about trans women’s inclusion in women’s sport. How does McKinnon respond to such comments? “It has become clear that their concerns are based only on fear, not fact,” says the Canadian. “In her Sunday Times op-ed, Martina [Navratilova] explicitly calls me a cheat — even though I follow every single rule under the strictest of scrutiny.”

Navratilova has since apologised for claiming that trans women athletes were “cheating”, but for McKinnon no apology can mitigate what she regards as “transphobia”; that is, prejudice against trans people rooted in irrational fears.

The concern most often raised over rules allowing trans women to compete — first implemented in 2003, and since overhauled — is that they allow unscrupulous men to undergo gender reassignment purposely to “infiltrate” women’s sport. McKinnon believes this fear is unfounded.