What pro cyclist Austin Killips told Knox News about handling protesters targeting her as openly trans woman
Austin Killips remembered why she loves cycling Friday night.
She had some apprehension about her trip to Knoxville for Sunday's USA Cycling Pro Road championships, but seeing her friends in the cycling community and enjoying the atmosphere downtown was a reminder for Killips.
"It was nice to have this experience with others that sort of refuted my anxieties and reminded me that this is a really great and wonderful sport filled with people that I love dearly," Killips told Knox News on Saturday.
It was a brief escape from the controversy that has been building over the past several months and reached a crescendo after the 27-year-old Killips won the Tour of the Gila in New Mexico on April 30. She became the first transgender woman to win a UCI 2.2-registered stage racing event.
She was there racing with the Amy D Foundation team. It was a joyous moment for Killips' team, but her win sparked backlash she wasn't prepared for.
"I feel like the toolbox I've had has felt a little shallow with sort of current state of things," Killips said. "There are just certain things that will forever remain out of my control, and you just have to make peace with that reality. It can be difficult and frustrating at times, but at the end of the day, just trying to imbue the experiences and moments that bring you joy and holding on to those."
On Sunday, Killips raced for nice bikes, a nonprofit cycling team created to support LGBTQ+ athletes. She finished 9th in the Women's Elite Pro Road event with an unofficial time of 3:02:36 in the 109.4-kilometer race that started and finished in downtown Knoxville and wound through South Knox. Chloe Dygert, racing with Canyon-SRAM, won the race, followed by Coryn Labecki, with Team Jumbo-Visma, and Skylar Schneider, with L39ION of Los Angeles.
What UCI said about Austin Killips
The Union Cycliste Internationale, the sport's international governing body, allows transgender athletes to compete, and the governing body defended Killips after the victory.
"The UCI rules are based on the latest scientific knowledge and have been applied in a consistent manner," it said in a statement. "The UCI continues to follow the evolution of scientific findings and may change its rules in the future as scientific knowledge evolves."
The UCI requires transgender women to suppress their testosterone levels to 2.5 nmol/L for a 24-month period prior to competing in women's events.
Earlier this month, after its meeting in Cagliari, Italy, the organization said it would discuss again its competition rules for transgender athletes at its August meeting in Glasgow, Scotland, taking into account the evolution of our society and scientific knowledge, the desire of transgender athletes to compete and "the voices of female athletes and their concerns about an equal playing field for competitors."
On Sunday, a protest against Killips' participation took place just over a mile from the finish line on the University of Tennessee campus.
With the rise in anti-transgender rhetoric and legislation in many states, Killips has concerns about her future in the sport. Groups like the Independent Women’s Forum, which organized Sunday's protest, have latched on to Killips' win at Tour of the Gila and used it as an example to prevent transgender athletes from competing.
"It's certainly concerning that the nature of the discourse, the amount of energy that has gone into building this narrative would lead you to believe that there's this massive number of trans athletes participating in sports and winning all the time, when the reality is that we're statistically underrepresented," Killips said. "By the number, some of us do well, a lot of us do just fine, are just normal competitors.
"If the rules say trans people can play, then it doesn't mean that we can't win."
Killips also won the Belgian Waffle Ride in North Carolina, which was the fourth of seven stops in the multisurface endurance series. She won the 131-mile race by four minutes, sparking more controversy despite the fact that the cisgender winner of the women's California leg of the BWR prevailed by 25 minutes last year.
Transgender women are not new to cycling. Natalie van Gogh won UCI events twice in 2015, and placed fourth at the national road championships that season.
"I do think there is this nature of when trans people do well at something, it's like, 'Oh, man, this is the first time this has ever happened," Killips said. "Historically, we've been around for quite a while and we have been doing things. I guess it is the first full stage race, but it's not an unprecedented thing for a trans person to win a UCI-level event."
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Killips has been training and racing full-time only since last summer. When Killips started entering pro races in 2021, she was still working full time before switching to a part-time remote job that winter.
If she was competing 10 years in the past or future, Killips believes things would be different. But right now, transgender people are facing a historic amount of legislation targeting their health – 20 states have laws or policies banning gender-affirming care – or their ability to participate in sports. In 2021, a record 117 anti-transgender bills were introduced in state legislatures and 45 states have proposed anti-trans bills in 2023.
"Sport has always been a place for community and connection for me and I've been very fortunate that that has remained at the center of the experience, even as I've progressed into the pro ranks," Killips said.
"We're all here in good faith looking to enjoy sports at any different level, from amateur to elite level. Sports are many things to many different people, but in a lot of ways I think we're just humans who exist who are trying to share the world with others."
This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Austin Killips talks about protests against her as pro trans cyclist
