Jillian Bearden, first female transgender cyclist to ride in a pro U.S. peloton(trunc)

https://303cycling.com ^ | 7/7/17 | JASON BLEVINS

[BBell]

Jillian Bearden, first female transgender cyclist to ride in a pro U.S. peloton, emerges as beacon for other trans athletes

303Cycling’s Nicole Odell caught up with Jillian Bearden last year, telling her story as a transgendered athlete. Read those stories here:

SALIDA — Less than three years into her transition from Jonathan to Jillian, pro cyclist Jillian Bearden has once again found serenity on her bike. Now, using studies and stats collected during her long career, she’s helping prove that transgender athletes change more than their names, they change their biology.

Bearden has watched her performance ebb since beginning hormone-replacement therapy in 2015. As testosterone fades and estrogen grows, her fastest times on favorite climbs have slipped into what she calls “the gutter.”

It was tough realizing her hard-earned power, developed over more than a decade of elite-level bike racing, was waning.

“I went from 16 minutes to 26, 27, 28 minutes,” she said of her times on her those climbs. “I was like holy … Testosterone gives you this drive, this oomph, and I didn’t have that push. My muscles looked fairly big, but I did not have that push to drive that extra energy. I had good days and really, really bad days. But at the end of it all, I always know that I won the biggest race of all. I am here on planet Earth with my family and it doesn’t really matter how slow I am. I’ve already won.”

On Thursday, when Bearden saddles up with the world’s best female cyclists for the Colorado Classic in her hometown of Colorado Springs, she will be the first transwoman to race with a pro peloton in the United States. Thanks to recently relaxed International Olympic Committee rules governing transgender athletes, and USA Cycling’s embrace of those new rules, Bearden has become a beacon for transathletes across the globe.

Bearden is basking in a light that saved her life. In late 2014, she was driving in the dark and pushed her car to 90 mph. She turned up her favorite tune and prepared to whip the steering wheel and end it all. The darkness was all-consuming, eclipsing all the outward trimmings of success: a family, a home, a job and elite-level talent on a bike.

But just before that fateful yank, Bearden said she felt “an angelic light” penetrate her overwhelming misery. Maybe it was from her mom. Or her brother, who had taken his life almost a decade earlier.

“Whatever it was, that presence brought me out and the message to me was ‘Tell your mom. Just tell your mom,’ ” Jillian said.

Jillian told her mom. Then she told her spouse. And her kids. And now she’s telling the world, that since her birth, despite the misplaced hardware and the name Jonathan, she is a woman. It’s not just that she always wanted to be a woman. She is a woman.

[suthener]

I think if they say “transgender female” that’s a man. Or I could have it backwards,, but it’s definitely one or the other. I hope that helps.

[Pollster1]

There are going to be a lot of men pretending to be women who sweep women’s sports. It’s sad too. No one will bother watching once it’s mostly mutilated men who win.

[exDemMom]

Meanwhile, women are being marginalized.

No longer do we need to hear the whining about the fact that more men choose STEM careers than women. If some of those men are willing to call themselves women, the imbalance will disappear overnight. There can be complete gender parity in the STEM careers... and in every other venue that still fails to attract women.

Real women need not apply. I guess we can just go back to the kitchen where we belonged all along.

[Secret Agent Man]

Men and women are not equal. Testosterone. Skeletal and muscle mass strength differences. Larger brain. Larger lungs.

[Charles Martel]

And now one man/woman steps in and steals the prize . . . and the poor women are not allowed to say anything due to political correctness.
It's the perfect torment, lol.

Hoist with their own petard. Truly, sometimes we get to see cosmic justice play out; this is definitely such a glimpse. Just in time, too - my Hillary-schlonged-again Schadenfreude was beginning to wear thin.

[Secret Agent Man]

Women are not in stem careers because women DO NOT WANT to be in stem careers.

I have never met a woman who wished she went through what I did, if they had not decided to enroll in engineering themselves. Lots dropped out after first year too.

They ratherm decide to marry a man who has a stem career.

[a fool in paradise]

Will he be riding in the pole position?

[FewsOrange]

“despite the misplaced hardware”

I suspect that the hardware is placed just where you would expect for someone with an XY chromosome.

[CaptainK]

All the women should refuse to compete against him.

Let him ride alone.

[a fool in paradise]

Will he be riding a boy’s bike or a girl’s bike?

[a fool in paradise]

>>Haha - toward the end, I think Michael’s arms were airbrushed whenever possible. Too much rich (free) food.

Use the Liquify filter

https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/liquify-filter.html

Liquify filter overview

The Liquify filter lets you push, pull, rotate, reflect, pucker, and bloat any area of an image. The distortions you create can be subtle or drastic, which makes the Liquify command a powerful tool for retouching images as well as creating artistic effects. The Liquify filter can be applied to 8‑bits per-channel or 16‑bits per-channel images.

https://gadgetwise.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/25/3-easy-ways-to-slim-down-in-photoshop/

3 Easy Ways to Slim Down in Photoshop
BY RIK FAIRLIE AUGUST 25, 2009 6:13 PM

[Brilliant]

I think that the increasing domination of women’s sports by transgendered is the straw that will ultimately break the camels back for the transgender movement.

[ChildOfThe60s]

[Fred Hayek]

The end of women’s sports.

[Freedom56v2]

The women have fought for years to make their sport just as important as the men’s sport. And now one man/woman steps in and steals the prize . . . and the poor women are not allowed to say anything due to political correctness.

It’s the perfect torment, lol.

---

With all due respect, not all women athletes are liberal. Stereotyping from either the right or left is not becoming.

This is blatant cheating—there are still many other anatomical factors that are not impacted by hormones that put women at a disadvantage to men in track and field.

As parent of a former collegiate athlete, I don’t find this funny at all

[exDemMom]

Women are not in stem careers because women DO NOT WANT to be in stem careers.

I'm fairly certain that I am in a STEM career.

The thing is, women gravitate towards careers that allow them to express their nurturing side. A career in physics... engineering... nothing is alive there, those careers impact human lives but not directly. Biology and medicine, however, directly impact human lives. There are plenty of women who are life scientists where I work. There are more female veterinarians than male at work. Women have the same opportunities as men, but choose differently. One woman PhD scientist does work in the lab, but spends a great deal of time managing the internship program and mentoring students.

[CodeToad]

Women have got to be pissed that a cross-dressing homosexual male is allowed to compete in women’s athletics.

[smokingfrog]

I’d like to get on that Brazil Team, but they won’t let me. :(

[fungoking]

On the bright side, the trans trend will mean the death of Title IX.
On the brighter side, there may soon be widespread dunking in the WNBA.

[BeauBo]

Reading the article, “she” worked with the governing bodies of the sport to change their rules.

Before, a male athlete had to have surgical alteration to compete as a female. No more. Now they just have to beat the hormone monitoring tests for a year.

So this athlete has apparently kept his testicles, and stayed married to his wife, while he now gets to compete against women.

Now that “she” (at age 36) is suddenly starting to win, (against girls), some people have the gall to “irked by her talent”.

What a sham.