{"id":294325,"date":"2025-11-19T07:18:15","date_gmt":"2025-11-19T07:18:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/294325\/"},"modified":"2025-11-19T07:18:15","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T07:18:15","slug":"woman-refuses-cycling-uk-award-over-trans-women-being-left-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/294325\/","title":{"rendered":"Woman refuses Cycling UK award over trans women being left out"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Georgia Eadie and <\/p>\n<p>Tess de la Mare,Bristol<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/1762859290_651_grey-placeholder.png\" class=\"sc-5340b511-0 gUePlo hide-when-no-script\" aria-label=\"image unavailable\"\/><img decoding=\"async\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/902610a0-bfcd-11f0-b880-bdabe65471f0.jpg.webp.webp\" loading=\"eager\" alt=\"BBC Claire Sharpe wears a cycling helmet and pink jacket has taken a selfie whilst riding her bike through a rural area. She has blonde hair and is smiling. \" class=\"sc-5340b511-0 hLdNfA\"\/>BBC<\/p>\n<p>Claire Sharpe said she was &#8220;honoured&#8221; to be named in Cycling UK 100 women in Cycling but &#8220;decided to decline&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">A cycling influencer nominated for a list of top 100 women cyclists said she has declined the honour due to the decision not to include trans women.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Cycling UK, a charity promoting the sport, has compiled its 100 Women in Cycling list for the last nine years, but this year decided only to include biological women following the recent unanimous <a target=\"_self\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sport\/articles\/cy9vn8190wro\" class=\"sc-f9178328-0 iCaRzc\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">UK Supreme Court ruling<\/a> defining a &#8220;woman&#8221; and &#8220;sex&#8221; in law.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Claire Sharpe, a cycling guide and coach from Bristol, said: &#8220;If they don&#8217;t want to ride with all women, then it&#8217;s not the kind of ride I want to be part of&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Cycling UK said it remained committed to &#8220;including and supporting all those who cycle&#8221; while a women&#8217;s campaign group praised the list. <\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Faye McGinty of the Women&#8217;s Rights Network said she &#8220;welcomed&#8221; the charity&#8217;s decision to only honour biological women in this year&#8217;s list.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">&#8220;Upholding the Supreme Court ruling is not optional and we are pleased that Cycling UK is complying with the law,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/1762859290_651_grey-placeholder.png\" class=\"sc-5340b511-0 gUePlo hide-when-no-script\" aria-label=\"image unavailable\"\/><img decoding=\"async\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/c5ac1c70-bfcc-11f0-b880-bdabe65471f0.jpg.webp.webp\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"A women is standing with her bike at the edge of a large body of water and behind her you can see mountains. She is wearing cycling gear and a helmet and looking into the distance smiling. \" class=\"sc-5340b511-0 hLdNfA\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Claire Sharpe started cycling during the Covid-19 pandemic and is now a qualified coach<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Ms Sharpe said she is one of four Bristol riders who have declined to feature in the ranking.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Speaking to BBC Bristol, Ms Sharpe said: &#8220;[The list] was originally set up to celebrate women who inspire, encourage and empower people to experience the joy of cycling.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">&#8220;By excluding trans and non-binary people, it&#8217;s just not doing what I think it was set up to do. It excludes people that have helped create the community that I was nominated for.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Ms Sharpe said trans women were important players in the sport and urged them not to be disheartened by Cycling UK&#8217;s decision.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">&#8220;They&#8217;re not a reflection of the communities that we&#8217;ve built and certainly in Bristol, there are so many options to go out and ride with people who aren&#8217;t taking this stance. You&#8217;re very welcome,&#8221; she added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Sarah Mitchell, chief executive of Cycling UK, said the decision was based on legal advice in response to the unanimous court ruling that a woman <a target=\"_self\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/cvg7pqzk47zo\" class=\"sc-f9178328-0 iCaRzc\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">is defined by biological sex under equalities law.<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">&#8220;For our awards to comply with the law we have to limit who can be considered for an award to biological women only,&#8221; she explained.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">&#8220;This change to the awards doesn&#8217;t alter our strong commitment to including and supporting all those who cycle, including transgender and non-binary people. <\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">&#8220;We truly believe cycling is for all, and we&#8217;ll keep working towards that goal.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">However, Ms McGinty argued it is women who are &#8220;unfairly excluded&#8221; from this type of accolade when the nominations include trans women and non-binary people.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">&#8220;We would also like to see many of the UK sports National Governing Bodies that haven&#8217;t yet updated their unfair policies for both elite and grassroots participants follow suit,&#8221; she added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Georgia Eadie and Tess de la Mare,Bristol BBC Claire Sharpe said she was &#8220;honoured&#8221; to be named in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":294326,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-294325","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-cycling","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=294325"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294325\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/294326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}