Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Jillian Bearden, first female transgender cyclist to ride in a pro U.S. peloton(trunc)
https://303cycling.com ^ | 7/7/17 | JASON BLEVINS

Posted on 08/08/2017 5:45:11 PM PDT by 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.


TOPICS: Society; Sports; Weird Stuff
KEYWORDS: cyclist; jillianbearden; transgender
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-8081 next last
To: BBell
He may be "transgendered" but he is not transsexual. He is the future of women's sports. Second rate male athletes more and more declare themselves women and take over womens' sports. It will become all men dominating all sports.
Feminists support this which is a strong indication that they are mostly lesbians and that their aims do not relate substantially to anything about "womens'" rights" but rather about Power for the Elite of which they think they are a part.
41 posted on 08/08/2017 7:35:16 PM PDT by arthurus
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: a fool in paradise

Cool.


42 posted on 08/08/2017 7:36:16 PM PDT by GnuThere
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 31 | View Replies]

To: donna

“She” still has a di*k that gets in the way of her cycling seat.


43 posted on 08/08/2017 7:37:27 PM PDT by wetgundog (Mainstream Media, Lying Liars Lying.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Essie

Correct!

The “Y” doesn’t lie!

Will the Olympic Committee no longer check to see if the women participants have a Y chromosome? Will new world records be set by Tans who now call themselves women?

Only time will tell.


44 posted on 08/08/2017 7:39:21 PM PDT by Yulee (Village of Albion)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: rdcbn

Who knows what the long term effects of taking all those hormones will be?


45 posted on 08/08/2017 7:52:16 PM PDT by smokingfrog ( sleep with one eye open (<o> ---)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]

To: Freedom56v2
Stereotyping from either the right or left is not becoming.

Bang, bang. The voice of PC speaks.

46 posted on 08/08/2017 7:57:49 PM PDT by donna (Police State tactics are commonplace in authoritarian 3rd World dictatorships-and Mueller's office.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 35 | View Replies]

To: BBell

“Jillian Bearden, first female transgender cyclist”

sorry. not the first. the first has been well documented in the documentary “Tour de Pharmacy”:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5886510/


47 posted on 08/08/2017 8:22:35 PM PDT by catnipman ( Cat Nipman: Vote Republican in 2012 and only be called racist one more time!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: GnuThere

I want the transgendered to win every single thing they go for. It will eventually piss off the real males and females. It really will. At first they will be supportive but over time they will be furious. They are not going to work day in and day out to lose from the opposite sex. It won’t happen. These sports people are in it to win it and they are competitive as hell.


48 posted on 08/08/2017 8:24:28 PM PDT by napscoordinator (Trump/Hunter, jr for President/Vice President 2016)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: BBell

My nose runs and my feet smell.
When my nose runs, it isn’t snot.
It is pure excess testosterone.

My precious bodily fluids: WOULD YOU LIKE TO KNOW MORE?


49 posted on 08/08/2017 8:29:20 PM PDT by tumblindice (America's founding fathers: all armed conservatives)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: donna

Stereotyping from either the right or left is not becoming.

Bang, bang. The voice of PC speaks.


Great comeback LOL eh not.

PC? Yeah right. DO a history of my threads and posts. Frankly, with the exception of you, no one has ever called me PC. But then you do stereotype.

Stereotyping is just sloppy and lazy when people know little about that which they are discussing...it has nothing to do with PC except they are trying to control the debate by broad generalizations.

I don’t like being stereotyped as an uneducated racist because I voted for Trump—that is what left does...I would think most conservatives know better...I try not to stereotype groups of people—New Yorkers, Southerners, blacks, Asians, etc. Can’t say I never do, but it has nothing to do with Political Correctness...again...that is just sloppy.

Obviously you have not been a parent of a serious female athlete because if you had, you would not find this funny...Being a feminist has nothing to do with it. Hours and hours go into practice and training from an early age—that is good because it forms lots of good values and keeps kids off the streets, they make good quality friends, etc....Not to mention the money spent on trainers, teams, doctors etc. To go through all that and then have any chance of top honors taken by men taking hormones is anoutrageous traesty.

Even casual fans of various sports such as swimming, golf, ice skating, skiing etc. are going to be very disappointed when there are no women in top contention as all the slots went to hormon supplementing men with lipstick and long hair.

You, however, seem delighted that women sports are being damaged by Transgenders. Are you bitter for some reason?...Why? Did you get cut from the volleyball team?

As I said, stereotyping from either the right or left is unbecoming. Bang, bang, the voice of reason speaks.


50 posted on 08/08/2017 8:29:31 PM PDT by Freedom56v2 (Inside Every Liberal is a Totalitarian Screaming to Get Out - D. Horowitz)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 46 | View Replies]

To: smokingfrog

Lol


51 posted on 08/08/2017 8:30:49 PM PDT by dasboot (Nuanced foreign relations is the germ of international misunderstanding.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 38 | View Replies]

To: Freedom56v2
Title IX and feminism, I know. It's your right and you use the federal government to get what is yours.

How do you like it now?

52 posted on 08/08/2017 9:03:52 PM PDT by donna (Police State tactics are commonplace in authoritarian 3rd World dictatorships-and Mueller's office.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 50 | View Replies]

To: donna

You did not answer my questions...weak...

So we have gone from me being PC to me being a feminist... . So if my daughter played sports, then she is a feminist? If I allow her, I am a feminist?...weak.

Would you prefer that women be banned from participating in any sports beyond intramural and club? Would you prefer that all facilities should be reserved for men? Would you prefer that no scholarship money be available for women?

I did not have anything to do with Title IX. I don’t have a horse in this race now.

How do I like it now? Like it? Like it?! Why would anyone in their right mind like it?!!! I don’t like men with lipstick and long hair taking hormones participating in women’s sports, taking top slots, and showering in the same space...I don’t think any conservative supporting traditional family values would—except for some twisted bitter people and liberals.

Frankly, I don’t think the federal government had anything to do with the US Pro cycling rules—my sons’ and daughter’s sports had their own governing bodies...nothing to do with the federal government and as you say “using the federal government to get what is yours” weak..

Bitter much?

For some reason you are really delighted that women sports are being damaged by Transgenders. Are you bitter for some reason?...Why? Ah perhaps it is not that you did not make the team...maybe you had boys whose sports were cut due to Title 9. Whatever, you clearly have a bee in your bonnet and I am being very polite...

Stereotyping from either the right or left is very, very ugly.

Bang, bang, the voice of conservative family values speaks.

Done Donna!

Time for me to go figure out how to “use the federal government to get what is mine.”;( /BIG SARC


53 posted on 08/08/2017 9:37:25 PM PDT by Freedom56v2 (Inside Every Liberal is a Totalitarian Screaming to Get Out - D. Horowitz)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 52 | View Replies]

To: antidemoncrat

Trying not to laugh


54 posted on 08/08/2017 9:51:29 PM PDT by Patrick Henry Dichotomy
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: BBell

>>”I was like holy … Testosterone gives you this drive, this oomph, and I didn’t have that push.

Yeah, that would be why it a BANNED Performance Enhancing Drug, Butchtard.


55 posted on 08/08/2017 9:52:11 PM PDT by HLPhat (It takes a Republic TO SECURE THESE RIGHTS - not a populist Tyranny of the Majority)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: rdcbn

Interesting information on the degree of physical fitness degradation that occurs when “ transitioning”

I applaud JIllians careful and scientific documentation of the steep drop off in physical performance between the “ he” and “ she” selves

I’m sure it will be of much interest in the transsexuals in the military debate :-)

I can hardly wait for the next tranny in the military thread


Maybe she can send her research to the Coast Guard Commandant who has stated they will support Coastie trannies..


56 posted on 08/08/2017 9:59:34 PM PDT by Freedom56v2 (Inside Every Liberal is a Totalitarian Screaming to Get Out - D. Horowitz)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]

To: BBell

“I won!” against a field of women. Whataguy. Every morning he wakes up and spends an hour or more trying to hide from the world who he really is. A woman wakes up and she’s a woman, no lying necessary.


57 posted on 08/09/2017 6:49:49 AM PDT by blueplum ( ("...this moment is your moment: it belongs to you... " President Donald J. Trump, Jan 20, 2017))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: blueplum; flaglady47; Maine Mariner; pax_et_bonum; Seattle Conservative; Freedom56v2; danamco; ...
Why don't pro or amateur women athletes organize their brains and withdraw from or boycott all athletic competitions that allow transgender men to compete?

This would put an end to this nonsense quickly.

Till they do that, I don't feel sorry for them.

Leni

58 posted on 08/09/2017 7:05:34 AM PDT by MinuteGal (GO TRUMP !!!.......GO PENCE !!!......USA !!! USA !!! USA !!!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 57 | View Replies]

To: BBell

IT IS NOT A HER! (No, I’m not shouting, I’m SCREAMING!)


59 posted on 08/09/2017 7:32:44 AM PDT by JimRed ( TERM LIMITS, NOW!“At 9 a.m. this morning a shipbo Building the Wall! TRUTH is the new HATE SPEECH)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: donna

You ever been an athlete?


60 posted on 08/09/2017 7:47:36 AM PDT by HLPhat (It takes a Republic TO SECURE THESE RIGHTS - not a populist Tyranny of the Majority)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-8081 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson