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As if it were not galling enough to see the men’s world championship road race halted by protesters gluing themselves to a Scottish country lane, there was the added torment of listening to one protagonist’s harebrained explanation for this moronic act. “As a trans woman, I’ve been told I’m not welcome on the cycling track by the UCI,” said Rebecca Kerr. “At the same time, they allow a petrochemical company to field a team, showing they have no real care for people. I take to the track to point out this hypocrisy and take a stand for a better future.”
Kerr is 28 years old, but the standard of argument here would be laughable even in student politics. Indeed, the justification for this latest piece of sporting sabotage, which held up the men’s peloton for almost an hour while five zealots were prised from the tarmac, achieved the unenviable distinction of being doubly illogical. Firstly, the suggestion of there being a ban on trans women is wrong, given that Kerr would, if fast enough, be perfectly at liberty to compete in the men’s category. Secondly, the notion of targeting cycling, which serves only to promote eco-friendly transport, is so ludicrous as to highlight a vacuum of common sense.
Not content with revealing themselves as attention-seekers, the protesters have added reality-deniers into the bargain. Quite the feat, all told. The world championships in Glasgow were always likely to be targeted by the trans lobby, as the first global event held since the UCI’s ruling that women’s races should be restricted to those born female, but the message was still stubbornly tin-eared. “Not welcome,” declared Kerr. Not true. Far from being banned, trans cyclists such as Britain’s Emily Bridges have simply been compelled to race on the basis of immutable biology.
This should not be a controversial position. In the past five months, cycling, rowing, athletics and swimming have all been forced to roll back the corrosive effects of ideological capture, rewriting policies to ensure that the integrity of women’s sport is protected. But the noisy drumbeat of trans activists persists in the background. Their tactic now, to judge by the disruption in Scotland, is to project their message under the cloak of environmental campaigning. The rationale is that this joining of forces helps amplify their grievances. In truth, it just makes them look even more hopelessly confused.
All that this stunt has achieved, by conflating the rhetoric of Just Stop Oil and Trans Women Are Women, is to make public hostility towards such actions even more implacable. Besides putting cyclists in danger, the protestors on that rural road in the Carron Valley did not even attract the publicity they craved. The only footage was of the riders and support vehicles coming to a halt, with an announcement on commentary: “We’ve got some kind of blockage.” The sight of the five people affixed to the road surface was never shown. So what purpose, if the power of the protest lay in its visual impact, were they fulfilling?
With Scottish pressure group This Is Rigged claiming responsibility, the argument was that they wanted to express opposition to Ineos, the petrochemical giant that owns the vast Grangemouth industrial complex and also sponsors the Ineos Grenadiers cycling team. Except there is nobody advertising Ineos in Glasgow, with athletes riding for themselves and the countries they represent. It was not as if the men’s race could be blamed for contributing to carbon emissions either, with several road closures enforced to make way for the cyclists. On just about every level you care to look at, the protesters’ crusade collapses under the weight of its own contradictions.
You wondered why it took 50 minutes for them to be removed so that the event could continue. The policing is not always so indulgent elsewhere, with senior officials at the Tour de France last July dragging climate activists from Derniere Renovation off the road and into a ditch to avoid any accidents. When Raul Semmler, a former German soap actor, used sand and superglue to bind himself to a street in Mainz last year, police used a jackhammer to cut around his fingers, sending him home with a chunk of asphalt stuck to his hand.
It is tempting to consider similar responses here. As if law-abiding citizens are not sick enough of missing family funerals or hospital appointments because of some deluded road warriors, major sporting occasions are now at risk. Trans militants and eco-agitators together? It appears, listening to the language of Rebecca Kerr, as if they are all now merging into one united front of absurdity.
Trans activists and eco-zealots are merging into one united front of absurdity
Cyclists in the men’s world championship road race was forced to wait for nearly an hour after protesters glued themselves to the road