A transgender cyclist is facing backlash after she won a female category of a grueling gravel race and then posted on social media about other competitors bailing before the medal celebration.
Lesley Mumford, who transitioned in 2017 while a Colorado SWAT team leader, shared a lonesome photo after winning her age group in the female category of Sunday’s 100-mile Desert Gravel Co2Ut.
“I have no idea why so many people bailed before the podiums, but they did,” wrote Mumford, 46, while posing alone with her arms aloft in victory.
“I swear I wasn’t the only one in my age group,” she wrote of the 43 female competitors who finished after her in the 40-49 category.
Mumford also came in sixth overall in the female category of the race, beating 35 other cyclists. The event has a non-binary category, which she did not enter.
She easily won her age group, beating second-place racer Lindsey Kriete by 17 minutes and third-place rider Michelle Van Sickle by more than 30.
Neither of those women riders has spoken about being a no-show on the podium, but critics celebrated what they assume was a “silent protest.”
“The silent protests are starting!” tweeted Inga Thompson, a three-time Olympian, 10-time National Champion and medalist at the Tour de France.
“The women are refusing to stand on the podium with the man! Well done!!!”
“Enough is enough!” agreed Riley Gaines, the swimmer who became an outspoken critic of trans athletes competing against biological women after losing events to Lia Thomas.
Megyn Kelly also highlighted Mumford’s win on her Sirius XM show Thursday, saying that “there’s a story every other day now about a trans person winning a women’s cycling event.”
“Women’s cycling is all but gone to us — I mean it’s worse, I think, than women’s swimming,” she said of the sport first sparking controversy after Thomas dominated events.
Of Mumford, Kelly said she was a male sheriff’s deputy “until two minutes ago.”
“Now he says he’s Leslie Mumford and has won in the women’s” race, she said, refusing to use Mumford’s preferred female pronouns.
“He suddenly decides he’s a woman, and goes and steals all their medals. No wonder [female athletes] are quitting,” she said.
One of her guests, activist Britt Mayer, suggested it was proof that women were “waking up” and starting to fight back after having “been polite for so long.”
“We thought that being polite was going to somehow make this all go away. But it’s getting worse,” said the co-founder of The Battle Cry, a group fighting to keep trans athletes out of women’s sports.
“But as it gets worse. I think that women are becoming a lot stronger in their convictions and realizing what’s at stake.”
Mayer insisted that if women don’t speak out, it is “going to become this tidal wave that absolutely destroyed women’s sports.”
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