Trans Cyclist Wins Women’s Category in Tour of the Gila Race in New Mexico

DAVID PINTENS_BELGA MAG_AFP via Getty Images
DAVID PINTENS/BELGA MAG/AFP via Getty Images
Warner Todd Huston

Austin Killips, a biological man, has been awarded first place in the women’s category in New Mexico’s Tour of the Gila cycling race, renewing calls to ban trans “women” from cycling, Fox News reported.

Killips had been a topic of controversy in the weeks leading up to the race, with many questioning the propriety of having a man racing as a woman. Indeed, after he won the race in the women’s category, race officials congratulated him on Twitter but turned off the comments to prevent anyone from being able to reply to the tweet.

Many saw the act of turning off the comments as an admission of guilt.

The rise of Killips in the cycling circuit spurred champion Hannah Arensman, 25, to retire from the sport. Arensman insisted that men claiming to be women have an “unfair advantage” in the sport.

“I was born into a family of athletes. Encouraged by my parents and siblings, I competed in sports from a young age, and I followed in my sister’s footsteps, climbing the ranks to become an elite cyclocross racer,” Arensman said in her statement in March. “Over the past few years, I have had to race directly with male cyclists in women’s events. As this has become more of a reality, it has become increasingly discouraging to train as hard as I do only to have to lose to a man with the unfair advantage of an androgenized body that intrinsically gives him an obvious advantage over me, no matter how hard I train.”

“I have decided to end my cycling career. At my last race at the recent UCI Cyclocross National Championships in the elite women’s category in December 2022, I came in 4th place, flanked on either side by male riders awarded 3rd and 5th places. My sister and family sobbed as they watched a man finish in front of me, having witnessed several physical interactions with him throughout the race,” she continued.

“Additionally, it is difficult for me to think about the very real possibility I was overlooked for an international selection on the US team at Cyclocross Worlds in February 2023 because of a male competitor,” she lamented.

Arenasman also signed onto a brief filed in the West Virginia legislature to support the state’s Save Women’s Sports legislation filed in March.

Killips’ controversial win brought many to Twitter to criticize the race:

Others congratulated the biological woman who came in second and proclaimed her the actual winner:

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