Emily Bridges is right about transgender cyclists

Transgender cyclist Emily Bridges doesn’t ‘want special treatment from anyone’. In an ITV interview, Bridges said: 

‘I just want the same opportunities as my fellow female athletes’.

As someone who transitioned a few years before Emily, I’d say Bridges is right: transgender people should not need special treatment. We are human beings, just like everyone else. In the UK, at least, trans people have specific and additional protections against discrimination and harassment. But these only become relevant if someone treats us less favourably because we are transgender. That has happened to me very rarely.

Yet in the debate about whether Bridges should be allowed to compete in women’s cycling races, one thing needs to be said: Bridges is not a female athlete. Female-ness is not a feeling in our heads; human beings are female if they are members of the sex that is characterised by ovaries and the production of ova.