The Future Of British Cycling, isn’t British Cycling

The New Forest Off Road Club intentionally doesn’t get involved in racing. We centre community not competition, for some of us, just existing in the cycling world can be exhausting enough without getting involved in competition. That’s not to say we don’t encourage people to enter races. A handful of us entered the downhill MTB race Vee organised back in November (which was a hoot) and our Leah won the Bournemouth Club Winter series doncha know. 

However, we can’t ignore British Cycling’s decision, made on the 8th April to ban transgender and non binary people from competing in cycling competitions. Once more for people at the back, a group of people have been banned from competing in a sport based on a protected characteristic. 

A reminder of British Cycling's mission statement. 

“Our mission in life is to deliver international sporting success, grow and effectively govern cyclesport and inspire and support people to cycle regularly.”

May we suggest an edit?

“Our mission in life is to deliver international sporting success for cis gendered people, grow and effectively limit participation in cyclesport and inspire and support cis gendered people to cycle regularly.”

Directors of British Cycling. It’s in moments like this that you get to demonstrate true leadership. Transgender people, non binary people exist. They have always existed and will continue to do so. Whatever you fear by letting transgender and non binary people compete, is not comparable to the psychological damage of being banned from participating in something because of who you are. 

British Cycling. It's 2022. Look alive. If you choose to stand by your recent ban, and more broadly, continue to display an outdated attitude towards human rights, you will become redundant.

We will leave it to @prideoutuk, and @veloicposse to continue their excellent work in bringing awareness to this issue and holding British Cycling to account. 

We look to the fantastic Mermaids charity for guidance and support. We thoroughly recommend their resources. 

If you’ve made it to the end of this blog post, please sign the petition to end conversion therapy for the transgender community.

We have done our best to make sure the language and terminology used in this blog post is correct. However, our privileges lend us unearned power and will inevitably impact our perspective, our limitations and our delivery. As anyone with unearned, unmerited power we are prone to inaccuracy. We take full responsibility for our errors and invite suggestions for edits.