Team USA Runner Says She Was Told to ‘Keep Her Mouth Shut’ About Trans Athletes

Top Team USA runner Cynthia Monteleone revealed that she was told to “keep her mouth shut” about her qualms over transgender athletes and says, “It’s the end of women’s sports unless it stops.”

The 45-year-old Masters’ Track and Field star, a world champion in the 400m, revealed that her team told her not to go public with her concerns about allowing men claiming to be transgender women to compete in women’s sports.

Monteleone said that in the 2018 World Championships held in Malaga, Spain, she was set to race against a trans from Colombia. She worried that being pitted against a biological man was “grossly unfair,” the Daily Mail wrote.

While Monteleone still defeated the trans opponent that year, she said that she was warned “for your own safety, you should probably keep your mouth shut” about her problems with transgender athletes.

“Words can’t describe how I felt walking up to that starting line in Spain next to a biological male-bodied athlete,” the Hawaii-based runner told Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn) during a Facebook live stream ahead of National Girls and Women in Sports Day.

(Bill O’Leary-Pool/Getty Images)

“I don’t believe in keeping quiet about something that is so grossly unfair. With the policies that have been given, they are excluding female athletes — biological females,” she added.

Monteleone described how crestfallen her daughter was when she was forced to run against a biological man during her first official race for school.

“She had to line up for her very first race, after training all year, along a biological male,” Monteleone said, adding that the boy “blew everybody away in the first 100 meters” despite having trained for only two weeks before the school track meet.

“So she came in second,” Monteleone explained. “And you know what’s at stake are things that are important: prize money, scholarships, awards.”

“She deserved to win. She put in the work. But she had no chance because of the biological advantage of this male-bodied athlete,” Monteleone said of her daughter’s experience.

Monteleone also accused Colombian trans runner Yanelle Del Mar Zape took a medal away from a real woman on Team USA in 2019 at a World Indoor Championship meet.

“We’ve warned of this — this is the end of female sports,” Monteleone said. “Unfortunately, the current administration is putting a nail in the coffin.”

“Let’s have compassion for everyone,” Monteleone continued. “But with the policies that have been given, they are excluding female athletes — biological females.”

“I would encourage all females to stand up and think about that word brave. Have that courage and focus on what’s at stake for the future,” she concluded. “The bottom line is female-bodied athletes deserve their chance for accolades and awards and scholarships.”

Monteleone and her daughter also provided a video to the Independent Women’s Forum and the Save Women’s Sports group to advocate for tighter rules on trans athletes:

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