The Wristbands Are All I Remember From Fayetteville Worlds
It's over a month after cyclocross worlds, and still one thing sticks out in my mind: the wristbands. Everywhere. In a place where the state government is actively working to deny trans kids healthcare (that’s a euphemism for trans kids dying), the trans pride flags and queer pride flags at the cyclocross worlds event in Fayetteville, Arkansas were everywhere.
I have been putting off this post because I keep waiting for a coherent, rational argument to come to me. But I don’t think it’s ever going to come. I’m not sure that it can come—I am not sure that the people pushing arguments denying the humanity of trans people, whether that be in health care or in schools or in cycling, are approaching it with anything like good faith or rationality.
But it is clear based on both the number of anti-trans incidents at bike races in 2021 and the number of states passing laws that endanger trans lives, this isn’t an issue that is going away, rational or not.
As a cis woman of 30 something years, I just have to say that nobody is going through the enormous pain in the ass of existing in this world as a woman unless they really are one. And trans women are discriminated against way above and beyond what cis women go through—nobody is doing it to win a bike race. Please.
Again, the point isn’t to have a rational conversation about gender. The point is to otherize people, to make them feel less than, to deny their humanity so that bullies can feel some sort of power. It’s not about science or womanhood or any of the other ways that the people trying to drive trans people out of sport use to palatably frame the ultimate goal of dehumanizing a group of already stigmatized people.
It’s important to me to keep that at the front of my mind when I think or speak or write about this issue, because there are so many ways to get manipulated into discussing the minutiae of biology when the fundamental disagreement here is “Are trans people (women, mostly) human beings who deserve the same amount of respect as everybody else?” It’s yes or no, and if it’s no I don’t really know what to say other than good luck being on the side of fewer human rights for people.
After I got back from worlds, I spent an hour on the phone with Molly Cameron, who seemed to be as omnipresent at the event as her organization’s wristbands. A few things stuck out: first, just how much work she personally did to make sure that the support for trans people I saw and felt at Worlds would happen. Second, how much that work seems to pull her away from what she really wants, which is just enjoying bike racing.
It stuck out to me when she told me that she didn’t want to get involved in politics, she just wants to focus on the bike racing. It hurts that someone who has given so much of their life to this sport feels that way, that small-minded people put up so many barriers for trans people (and women generally, and people of color, and…) that this person who loves this sport has to spend so much of their energy on the barriers rather than just the racing. It zaps energy that would otherwise go into training and racing and enjoying bikes.
When I spoke to Molly, I learned a few things that helped me to understand how my experience of Arkansas was shaped. Molly spent months advocating in Arkansas, making things happen. Most people paid lip service to supporting trans athletes but didn’t do much. However, the organization that actually put on the race, Experience Fayetteville, bought thousands of RIDE wristbands—those are the ones with the trans pride flag on them, that you probably saw everywhere if you were at the race. The wristbands, which fund RIDE’s work, were then available for free (or by donation) to volunteers and attendees at the event, able to be picked up a few places at the venue (including inside the Shimano tent across from the podium, which is where I grabbed one).
I also learned that Molly didn’t ask any of the Team USA athletes to wear the wristbands, but several of them chose to do so in warm up, in the race, and on the podium.
I walked away from Fayetteville feeling like I might just be part of a community that I can be proud of, despite the lengths certain states are going to completely dehumanize trans people around us. However, after speaking to Molly I realize that I only felt that way because RIDE worked for months to make me feel that way, and the promoter of the event stepped up to make it happen.
My takeaway from the event is that a lot more people in cycling are supportive of the trans community than are willing to vocally bully people, but, absent any actual action from our sport’s governing body* overwhelming support is necessary to drown out the bullies. And it’s not fair for trans cyclists to have to shoulder the burden of organizing their own support.
As we enter yet another season of bike racing—this one with more hateful laws in more states than we’ve seen in decades—I’m going to be thinking hard about what I can do to make sure that trans people not only are welcome but feel welcome at events I’m part of. I hope you will too.
*They can and they should and if anyone comes at me about free speech I am going to tell you to read a book because the First Amendment is not a thing in private organizations.
All images by Daghan Perker
