{"id":217056,"date":"2025-10-22T04:41:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T04:41:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/217056\/"},"modified":"2025-10-22T04:41:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T04:41:09","slug":"puberty-blockers-would-have-put-brakes-on-cycling-glory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/217056\/","title":{"rendered":"Puberty blockers would have put brakes on cycling glory"},"content":{"rendered":"

As Robert Millar, she was Scotland\u2019s most successful road cyclist, the King of the Mountains in the Tour de France.<\/p>\n

Now Pippa York, who transitioned a quarter of a century ago, has suggested her astonishing career as a male athlete would never have happened if she\u2019d had access to puberty blockers as a teenager.<\/p>\n

York, 67, is one of a small number of trans women who talks about her old identity, who \u201cdead names\u201d herself. That is because she was just too famous.<\/p>\n

She made clear to Kelly-Ann Woodland, the STV news presenter, that there would have been no Robert Millar if she could have had access to gender-affirming medical care when she was a child.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would have transitioned as a teenager. I wouldn\u2019t have been Robert Millar<\/a>, the cyclist. I would have been Pippa doing something else,\u201d she said. \u201cIf I was a young person nowadays, I would have been that teenager who was transitioning at the age of 13 to 14. I would be the person affected by the puberty blockers debate \u2026 and not able to access that medication.\u201d<\/p>\n

Millar competed in the Tour de France 11 times, finishing fourth in 1984 and becoming the first Scot to win the King of the Mountains title and the coveted polka-dot shirt.<\/p>\n

York told STV the shirt would not have come to Scotland if she had been able to transition when she was young. She knew she was different from a very young age, even when competing.<\/p>\n

\"Veteran<\/p>\n

Robert Millar was the first Scot to win the \u201cKing of the Mountains\u201d title<\/p>\n

COLIN MCPHERSON\/CORBIS VIA GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n

\u201cThere would be some days where it would be difficult, where I\u2019d have a lot of dysphoria,\u201d she said. \u201cBut in the competition world, you can bury it. You remove all emotions from your life. I put on my competition face and turned into this beast. I just tried to block it all out.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got to about the age of 25, 26, and became fully aware of what my issues were going to be. And I realised the world I was in. It wasn\u2019t going to happen. So I invested myself even more in my cycling. That way, when I finished, I had options where I didn\u2019t necessarily have to be a public figure any more.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou go from being someone everyone admires, to being at the bottom of the pile again. It\u2019s a fight for respect and dignity. It\u2019s quite a social shift.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022 My friend Pippa \u2014 who used to be one of Britain\u2019s best male cyclists<\/a><\/p>\n

Scotland has about 3,000 trans women, according to the last census. York stressed how rare they were and said she had never met another trans person in changing rooms or showers or toilets. The former athlete, who now lives in England, has no problems with trans people taking part in sport in their chosen gender.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are so few trans athletes, and they never win<\/a>. Remind me what the 100m record is for a trans person? There isn\u2019t one,\u201d she said. \u201cThe physical and mental effects of transitioning mean you\u2019re very unlikely to be competitive at an elite level. It\u2019s one in millions to make it to the top, and there just aren\u2019t millions of us.<\/p>\n

\u201cShow me where it\u2019s not fair. Three trans athletes have competed at the Olympics in 25 years. They didn\u2019t win. One came last.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople don\u2019t realise the level of women\u2019s sport. It\u2019s not easier. It\u2019s slightly slower in some events, but that doesn\u2019t make it less competitive or less difficult.<\/p>\n

\u201cYour hormonal system runs your health. After the transition, the system that repairs muscle with protein no longer works the same. You hurt yourself training and don\u2019t recover. And you lose that competitive edge that testosterone gives you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked about Scotland\u2019s Gender Recognition Act,<\/a> which was blocked by the UK government, York said: \u201cI don\u2019t know why they fiddled with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

She added: \u201cThe system was working well enough. Self-ID exists in other countries like Spain, Scottish people go there on holiday, and it\u2019s not an issue. It was a waste of time, a distraction. Is my existence an issue? Because to me, it\u2019s just not a thing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As Robert Millar, she was Scotland\u2019s most successful road cyclist, the King of the Mountains in the Tour…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":217057,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-217056","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-cycling","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217056"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217056\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/217057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}