Oliver Brown at the Telegraph talked to cyclist Hannah Arensman about being forced to compete against a man. Her passion for cycling

was a passion she channelled with distinction, wearing the colours of her country, winning national medals, even nurturing a dream of representing the United States at next summer’s Paris Olympics. And yet last December, at the age of 24, she simply walked away. The immediate trigger for that decision was not injury or dwindling form, but the fact that in her final race, at the US cyclocross championships in Connecticut, she lost out on a podium place to a biological male. “There are,” she says, “a million different levels where it hurts.”

Arensman was fourth on that Hartford winter’s day, two seconds adrift of Austin Killips, who this month sparked a global furore by becoming the first transgender cyclist to win a globally-sanctioned stage race, at the Tour of the Gila in New Mexico. 

He’s a man, competing against women. It’s grossly unfair.

And so today, she is finally speaking out, too scalded by the sense of injustice to choose the path of least resistance. It is a move of considerable courage, given the febrile climate in which sport’s trans debate is conducted. The fear of being denounced as transphobic is so acute that at the elite level, no active female athletes dare put their names to their disquiet over fairness. Only last week, Inga Thompson, a retired three-time US Olympian, found herself accused by cycling team Cynisca of “affecting its brand and reputation” for opposing the presence of post-puberty males in female sport.

But Arensman is breaking the omerta, conscious that the fight is no longer hers alone and that, ultimately, the sanctity and integrity of the female category are at stake. “I realised that if an opportunity presented itself to say something on behalf of other women, then I would take it,” she says. “This has gone on long enough, it has gone far enough. It should never have reached this point, it should never have been allowed. Someone has to take responsibility. This is not fair sport, and the governing bodies, who should have made the rules at the beginning, need to realise it. The very people who should be protecting our sport are not doing so.”

And what does that tell us? That women don’t matter. That what men want matters, and what women want doesn’t matter. That women are just some fluffy nuisance off to the side, useful for fucking purposes but otherwise tiresome Karens who must be ignored.

It’s just a tad embittering.

At times, the fury would consume her. “I had no desire to be anywhere near Killips,” she admits. “It became more and more difficult for me to hang around at the finish line to congratulate my rivals, because Killips would be there, parading around in front of the cameras. It was sickening. What are you celebrating? You just beat women, and there’s a clear unfair advantage.”

Another Rhys McKinnon. It is sickening.

The angrier Arensman grew, the more threats there were for her to acquiesce. On Dec 11, the day of what would be her last race, members of the John Brown Gun Club (a Left-leaning group that claims guns are a necessary protection against armed Right-wingers) mobilised at the course, holding up transgender pride flags and wearing balaclavas to conceal their identities. “Sounds like a weird thing for gun clubs to do,” the Connecticut chapter tweeted, “until you realise there’s a massive TERF [trans-exclusionary radical feminist] problem in cycling.” The same extremists later celebrated Arensman’s retirement, writing: “Hope we helped her find the door. She won’t be missed.”

Thanks for not shooting her, I guess.

Reminded of the intimidation, Arensman can only despair of the toxic backlash that any attempt to discuss the transgender controversy attracts. “It just adds to the complete disrespect,” she says. “When you have to use physical violence to keep other people in check, so you can do whatever you want, there’s something seriously wrong. It’s a form of tyranny.”

And of open, proud, self-congratulatory bullying.