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Cycling Time Trials Limited (“CTT”) the governing body for time trialling in England, Scotland and Wales today announces a new policy for transgender competitors.
From today, transgender women (that is those who have transitioned from male to female) will no longer be eligible to ride in female competitions.
We have taken this decision after other Sports Governing Bodies, including British Cycling, have done the same because we are convinced that transgender woman can retain the physical advantages gained by a male when going through male puberty.
CTT’s purpose is to facilitate and run time trials – where each competitor rides alone “against the clock” for a set distance or time – by its nature time trialling is a “gender affected sport” in which the strength, stamina and physique of the average competitor of one gender is different from another.
The law (the Equality Act 2010 and the Gender Recognition Act 2004) expressly permits our action today. We realise that this will be upsetting for those transgender women who take part in time trials as women but we consider it is essential to provide fairness for the other women with whom they compete.
We emphasise that all transgender persons and non-binary persons are welcome to take part in competitive time trialling and we have renamed the male category to “Open” for that reason.
We also emphasise that all such persons are welcome to take part in the non-competitive activities of CTT such as organising events, marshalling or time keeping, or taking part in the extensive democratic structure of CTT through it Districts and National bodies.
Our new policy will mean those competing in the female category are able to satisfy all the following requirements:-
The Board of CTT will create a new body (a Gender Tribunal) to decide gender eligibility issues and give sympathetic guidance to those affected by this policy. That body will have power to grant an exemption from the first requirement but not the second or third. This power is to allow for the (very rare) situations where it is can be established that a person was mistakenly assigned the sex of male at birth. Such a person would still need to satisfy the second and third requirement.
Non-binary persons (persons who affirm that they are neither male nor female) shall be required to compete in the Open
category.
Andrea Parish
CTT Chair