Gender and pro cycling

[snapdragen]

LBTC - one of my favorite places in BC is the Kootenay Mtns, Nelson/Kaslo area. How far are you from there?

Ohh! Another cool place for a TE gathering!!!

[Melody]

I know, for me, I just accept people they way they are. Everyone has quirks or idiosynchroncies (sp?) that will drive other people nuts. I know I have 'em (I talk too much and repeat stories... over and over and over and ...) but these are what make people unique, not cookie cutter. I treasure my friends and their uniqueness, even if I don't understand or agree with them.

I was had two friends who were satanists, and being Roman Catholic, you'd think I'd be at odds. We never discussed religion. They just believed in a higher power that was different from the one I believed in. I didn't agree with their religion, but I did agree that they had the right to believe what they wanted. They were good people (bf & gf). They used to volunteer on a regular basis at various shelters. As someone once said, "Good done in the name of Evil is still Good, just as Evil done in the name of Good, is still Evil." Just our definition of Good & Evil were reversed. heh.

Mel

[Trek420]

snapdragen "Not that odd, I had a friend tell me the same thing! Maybe we're from the same planet? "

snap, I'm just reading this and looking at your bunny avatar and cracking up. Beam me up,Scottie I wanna go to *your* planet!

[LBTC]

spazz and snap...hmmmm. My brother told me he knew where all 4 of our siblings had been before this life, but me he didn't know. he thought I might be "new". doesn't really explain how many people I already knew the first time I met them, though, does it? I think buddhist monk thrown off a cliff....but I dunno...

anyway, we're a good 6 hours out of the kootenays / nelson area. pain in the rear to get to from here, actually, but gorgeous country. who knows? lots of our plans with other people seem to be unraveling this year. maybe we'll head that way this summer.....anyone from there on this board?

Namaste,
~T~

[DirtDiva]

O/T
Hi tlkiwi - yeh, last Monday was great - v.sunny. Are you over here for work or for hols?

Both: I'm yet another twenty-something Kiwi over here on a two-year working holiday visa.

[chelle]

Hi everyone, Michelle here.

I've been reading all of your responses to this thread and I must say that this is rare. What usually happens is people make a bunch of off base assumptions about me and then top it off by calling me "it" or "thing". I usually only respond when the thread is respectful and this has been.

As I'm sure you can imagine there is much more to any story than can be printed in a magazine. Even if you have seen the film "100percentwoman" you still don't know everything that went on over the two years that the film was made. I have received an incredible amount of support from people who share a similar history or from people who were just touched in some way. That being said there are many people out ther who wish that I would just go away. Intollerance is still prevellant even if most of us wish that it wasn't.

For the past couple of years it's been my role to not only be a professional athlete but to also be the "posterchild for trans athlete's". Balancing these has been very difficult and I always hope that I've made the right decision to be public. I'm not sure that I'll ever know.

I certainly do not expect everyone to agree with me being able to race but I do expect people to inform themselves before making any judgements. Most of what has been said here is correct. Loss of muscle mass, decrease in bone density, decrease in red blood cell production and changes in brain chemistry all contribute to my "case". If I thought that I had an unfair advantage I would never compete. In sport we all try to use our natural advantages. In my case I have several attributes that I feel make me a very good downhiller and probably not a good xc racer. Sport is never an equal playing field and the notion that there is a purity to sport is a dream. Everyone can ride a bike, many can compete but few will ever make it to the elite ranks. There ae many factors that make a great athlete, dedication, skill, natural ability, luck. There will always be some who excell is certain sports and others who do not. I am just very fortunate that I get to compete and one day I hope that having an athlete with a trans history in the field won't be a big deal.

Thanks to you all for this disscusion and your support.

Always smilin

Michelle Dumaresq

[Melody]

Hi Michelle! Wow. Never expected someone we were talking about to post here. That's pretty cool. Anyway, wanted to say Welcome to the TE Forums Taking a page out of CM's book, you should say hi and post in the "Getting to Know You" thread.

Mel

[slinkedog]

Michelle... very cool to have you here! Welcome to TE and we hope to hear more from you! Hang in there and follow your heart.

It's so very true about all of us being different and there not really being a level playing field. My husband is a great cyclist... has wonderful instincts, strong legs and the ability to keep going when he's in serious pain... but he has had really horrible VO2 max readings when he's been tested. His aerobic capacity is such that he was just not able to go past cat 1 status to pro level. So, you live with your body the way it is and get on with life, right?

[DirtDiva]

Thanks to you all for this disscusion and your support.

You're welcome, and it's great to see you here.

[spazzdog]

Keep on pedalin' Michelle... and keep on winning. Folks will either raise their game (which I'm certain they can if they put their mind/body to it) or they'll quit... and I don't get the impression that at your level of competition there are a lot of quitters out there.

Stick around grrl! This is a great place to hang out.

spazzdog

[CorsairMac]

welcome to the board chelle!......isn't this a great place to come "home" to?....I have yet to see anything here that I thought was disrespectful or narrow-minded or cruel....and I've seen that on other boards. It's why I'd rather hang here than do my job! I hope we hear more from you - I'm betting you've got tons of advice you can share with us!

[MightyMitre]

Great to hear from you Chelle and thanks for posting.

I echo CorsairMac - this really is a special place to visit. I was looking on another board the yesterday and the abuse and personal insults were just beyond belief! There was a TEN page thread which started out as a debate about whether helmets should be made compusory in the UK, but by 3 pages in it had degenerated into personal insults, sexism, aggressive language...I actually said to my BF - 'Never in a million years would you see anything like this on TE.'

Looking forward to getting to know you. Great to have you here

[Irulan]

spazz and snap...hmmmm. My brother told me he knew where all 4 of our siblings had been before this life, but me he didn't know. he thought I might be "new". doesn't really explain how many people I already knew the first time I met them, though, does it? I think buddhist monk thrown off a cliff....but I dunno...

anyway, we're a good 6 hours out of the kootenays / nelson area. pain in the rear to get to from here, actually, but gorgeous country. who knows? lots of our plans with other people seem to be unraveling this year. maybe we'll head that way this summer.....anyone from there on this board?

Namaste,
~T~

LOL, I"m closer to Nelson, and I'm still in the states. British Columbia is really, really big. Really big.

Irulan

[fixedgeargirl]

Welcome to TE, chelle!! I think you'll find that your presence, insight and experience will always be welcome and RESPECTED here. Thanks for joining us!


I'm late to the discussion, but LBTC makes an interesting point here:

however, on the bike, it took *years* for me to gain the ability to see the "lines" the guys see, to feel comfortable pulling a wheelie (still not good at it), to feel no fear flinging myself through a rough patch or a steep area (and that's still not as often as the guys do). I've always attributed this primarily to my lack of history on the bike. As a kid I didn't get the opportunity to ride my bike as often or in the same conditions as the boys (seriously, I was forbidden from riding it in the trees!!)

The article had a lot of references to her boyhood, the amount of time she spent on her bike, the type of riding she did as a boy...I think that's an advantage for her. But it's not something that a girl couldn't have done, so it really has nothing to do with the issue, right? I've known young girls who are out there just as much as the neighbourhood boys, so, just because I missed out on making fearless biking as natural as breathing, doesn't mean that all women would have to.

LBTC was forbidden to ride in the trees!!!! How many times did we who were *born and raised* girls hear "be careful, don't get hurt, don't get dirty, and another good one for mtb'ers: don't fall"!! As if!!! Like getting hurt, bleeding, crying would just be the end of the world? Researchers have found that parents give these words of caution to girls much more often than they do to boys, delicate maidens that we are .

Point being, Michelle's activities as a boy most likely do factor into her riding, the way her psyche handles these situations. But that's a function of nurture, not nature. Like the girls LBTC sees doing tricks with the boys, like the 8 year old girls I've seen skiing the double blacks, it's all about what you are allowed/expected to do. Those early, repeated messages sink in deep, and can be hard to shake.

Keep winning, Michelle!! Maybe you are here to serve a bigger purpose in your role (chosen or not) as the "posterchild" for the trans-gender community. That can't be easy. But it is important. These issues must be discussed, hashed out, studied, whatever. Kudos to you for standing up and standing out !!!!

[chelle]

It's true, of course that as a kid I had the experiences and expectations of a boy but that's not to say some other women didn't have the same experience. Missy Giove grew up in Brooklyn playing with all the boys. Anne Caroline Chausson was a bmx champ at 7. These women had the encouragement at an early age to "play like the boys" and they went on to achieve great things. I'm so happy when I see a parent encourage their little girl to do things the boys traditionally do like get dirty. Times are changing. I've said jokingly "don't blame me, blame your parents" All through my youth my parents bought my siblings and I what ever sporting equiptment we wanted. They said that they would rather buy us a bike or a hockey stick than have us wandering bored and getting into trouble.