Sorry y’all, I feel down a rabbit hole for the last 30 minutes. Here’s another transgendered athlete that was subpar as a male runner but has dominated the women’s.
An Athlete Who Ran NCAA Track As A Man For 3 Years Just Won An NCAA Women’s Title
By Robert Johnson
May 28, 2019
Over Memorial Day weekend, everyone who cares about the future of women’s sport saw their worst fears become a reality.
Transgender woman
CeCe Telfer, who was born and raised as
Craig Telfer and competed on the Franklin Pierce University men’s track and field team during her first three years of college, won the women’s 400-meter hurdles national title at the 2019 NCAA Division II Outdoor Track & Field Championships. Telfer dominated the competition, winning in 57.53 as second place was way back in 59.21.
Prior to joining the women’s team this season, Telfer was a mediocre DII athlete who never came close to making it to nationals in the men’s category. In 2016 and 2017, Telfer ranked 200th and 390th, respectively, among DII men in the 400 hurdles (Telfer didn’t run outdoor track in 2018 as either a man or woman). Now she’s the national champion in the event simply because she switched her gender (Telfer’s coach told us that even though she competed on the men’s team her first three years, her gender fluidity was present from her freshman year).
The fact that Telfer can change her gender and immediately become a national champion is proof positive as to why women’s sports needs protection. Telfer ran slightly faster in the 400 hurdles competing as a man (57.34) than as a woman (57.53), even though the men’s hurdles are six inches taller than the women’s hurdles. Yet when Telfer ran 57.34 as a man, she didn’t even score at her conference meet — she was just 10th at the Northeast-10 Outdoor Track and Field Championships in 2016. Now she’s the national champion.
Ostensibly, the NCAA has a policy in place to protect cisgender women athletes and prevent male-to-female transgender athletes from dominating the women’s category. The NCAA
transgender handbook states that an MTF transgender athlete must take “one calendar year of testosterone suppression treatment” in order to compete in the women’s category, but the vagueness of that statement is remarkable. There is no mention of a minimum testosterone level that must be achieved or a minimum level of medication that must be taken, nor how those levels are to be monitored. Contrast that to the International Olympic Committee, which requires that an MTF transgender athlete “must demonstrate that her total testosterone level in serum has been below 10nmol/L for at least 12 months prior to her first competition.”
We reached out to the NCAA to ask for specifics on their transgender policy, and whether it is actually enforced with testing. They referred us to the the transgender handbook mentioned above and said we could expect a more detailed response on Wednesday.
Twitter photo via @NCAADII
Medical physicist
Joanna Harper, who has served as an adviser to the IOC on transgender issues and has made the transition from male to female herself, said the NCAA doesn’t have a set limit for testosterone for trans women, nor does she believe there is consistent verification of T levels. “The NCAA has not set a maximum T level for trans women, and I don’t believe that they do any independent verification of hormone levels,” said Harper.
The theory goes that if one greatly reduces their testosterone, their performances in sport should decline significantly. Harper told me one would expect roughly a 10% decrease in performance for flat events (she wasn’t sure it would be the great in the hurdles due to the difference in hurdle heights). Yet Telfer is actually running faster in a few flat events as a woman as compared to what she ran as a man. Her 60-meter personal best as a man was 7.67. As a woman, it’s 7.63. Her flat 400-meter pb was 55.77 as a man and it’s 54.41 as a woman.
However, her coach
Zach Emerson said that anyone looking only at Telfer’s times to try to see if the NCAA’s rules on testosterone suppression for MTF transgender athletes is effective would be making a mistake. He said that the difference between Telfer’s work ethic this year compared to her first three was vast.
“She’s been been incredibly motivated this year and I think the transition one million percent had something to do with that. It’s like night and day as far as what she was willing to do as an athlete and how committed she was,” said Emerson, who indicated that while Telfer always had a large presence on the team, she often only showed up to practice a couple of times a week until this year. As a coach, he said she wasn’t an athlete that he could rely on. “You couldn’t look at her during her first three years and say that’s an athlete doing their best. As a coach, I could not do that.”
Frustrated by the fact that track meets were the only place in her life where she was referred to a man, Telfer quit the team in January 2018 before coming back out for the women’s team in October with renewed motivation. Since coming back out for the women’s team, Emerson said Telfer has been a “model athlete” who has not missed a single day of practice, one who hit the weight room for the first time, one who stayed on top of her studies and one who made sure she got ample sleep.
Video of Telfer from earlier in the year
“She did phenomenally well [in doing all that we asked her this year] and has been a completely different, motivated athlete,” said Emerson. “It’s only worth doing if she does her best. She made that very, very clear at the start of this year — that she wants to do this because she loves the sport, she wants to do well, and she wants to be genuine to herself. And we held her accountable, saying, ‘You have to be an example for everybody else on our team — let alone everybody else [that is paying attention].’”
While Emerson admitted he doesn’t know how he would have reacted if he were a rival coach, he said he’s very proud of what Telfer has accomplished. “People can have opinions on that all they want, but at the end of the day as a coach, I have to be proud of someone that works their ass off and does the things that I ask and is a good teammate. You have to be proud of those things.”
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Another article where she says that being transgendered actually puts her at a disadvantage
NCAA champion CeCe Telfer says ‘I have no benefit’ by being trans
1
The Franklin Pierce University graduate breaks her silence to respond to detractors who claim she has a physical advantage over other women.
By
Dawn Ennis Jun 3, 2019, 10:05am PDT
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CeCe Telfer
Screengrab via Twitter/
NCAA Division II
Picture the scene: the outdoor track at Javelina Stadium on the campus of Texas A&M University in Kingsville, Tex. It was 79 degrees, just before 6 p.m. on Saturday, May 25, 2019.
To the athletes competing in that night’s NCAA Division II National Championships, it was sweltering, and strong breezes didn’t cool them, they provided an additional hindrance to the fierce competition on this Southeast Texas night.
As he stood among his athletes, Franklin Pierce University track coach Zach Emerson watched senior CeCe Telfer prepare for the two events she was scheduled to run, the 100 and 400 meter hurdles.
Before the night was done, Telfer would beat her closest competitor by a second and a half, and then heft a trophy high above her head, to begin her reign as 2019 Division II national champion in the 400m. As far as we know, she is the first publicly out trans woman to win an NCAA track & field title.
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However, at that moment, Emerson said he expected her to lose.
Caster Semenya of South Africa, to suppress her naturally high levels to be allowed to compete — unless she overturns that decision on appeal.
Emerson notes he’s seen the difference testosterone suppression has had on Telfer’s performance as an athlete, in the nearly two years since she’s been on hormones.
“She has lost muscle, she lost some weight,” he said. “She is not as explosive or as fast. A lot of her lifting numbers have gone down, so strength-wise, that has gone down quite a bit. Last year, her time slowed down considerably over the previous year’s, as her muscle mass decreased.” Telfer’s old records can be viewed
here and compared to
her current record.
“I wish people would understand what testosterone is, and what it can do for your body, and how when you’re suppressing that, how hard it is to to go through certain challenges,” like trying to compete on that hot Texas night after losing the 100m.
Getting into the groove
Telfer said she didn’t hear the boos some spectators hurled at her, as she steeled herself for the 400.
“When I’m in the block, and I’m on the track, I don’t listen for anything else but positive vibes and people yelling ‘Go CeCe!’” said Telfer. “Pretty much anything that is is attached to me finishing strong in a race.”
Emerson said the heckling has actually lessened since the very first meet in which she competed as a woman, the UMass Boston Indoor Open at the Reggie Lewis Center in Roxbury, MA., on December 1, 2018.
At that point, it had been more than a year since Telfer began her medical transition; she had been undergoing prescribed hormone therapy since the start of her junior year, in the fall of 2017.
Via Twitter
“That first meet she ran, there were some audible gasps, and boos,” Emerson recalled. “I remember my legs going numb. It just felt like a dream. But it has gotten a whole lot better.”
At Telfer’s first meet as CeCe, she placed first in the 60m hurdles, both in the preliminaries and the final, finishing with a time of 8.40. She came in 6th in the high jump.
Telfer cleaned up at the Elm City Challenge in Southern Connecticut, winning 1st place in both the 55m hurdles and the Pentathlon. A 2nd place finish at Middlebury in January was the last time she’d lose a race that month.
And it wasn’t long before all those victories caught the eye of the news media, starting with her hometown paper,
The Keene Sentinel: “Senior Cece Telfer ranks first in the country in the 60-meter hurdles (personal-best 8.33 seconds), second in the pentathlon (3735 points), sixth in the 60-meter dash (7.57) and is tied for 17th in the high jump (1.65 meters).“
Telfer’s scores helped propel the FPU Ravens women’s track and field team to earn its first-ever ranking in the national top 25 by the United States Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association. She also won
individual titles in the 60M, 200M and 60M hurdles at the Northeast-10 Championships.
But as she racked up wins, the buzz surrounding Telfer spread to conservative right-wing and anti-LGBTQ fundamentalist Christian sites, with nasty headlines screaming about Telfer being “born a man” who “switched to female,” and is “destroying women’s sports.”
She did so well, in fact, that Donald Trump, Jr., took notice.
Via Twitter
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The negative press spawned a wave of hate and transphobia across social media that has continued unabated for months. Much of it is misgendering, memes that deny Telfer’s authentic gender identity and accuse her of being a mediocre athlete who only competes as a girl to win.
“There is no other word for it other than ‘complete ********,’” said an exasperated Coach Emerson, who said he “turns into a mama grizzly bear” if he hears someone at a meet refer to Telfer by the wrong pronouns. He also takes the time to respond to the false claims that have spread across the internet.
“It’s unfair to ‘real girls’”
Emerson gets this argument most often from parents of cisgender girls, who argue transgender girls cost their daughters college scholarships and other opportunities. As a straight, cisgender father of daughters himself, he concedes he struggles with the question of how he would feel and what he would tell his girls if they lost to a transgender athlete. Ultimately, though, it comes down to a life lesson, he said.
“I would tell them, ‘Nothing that anyone else is doing can take away from the tools that you were learning by you personally getting better. And that’s why you should be doing this sport, as opposed to if you’re doing this just for trophies.“
A 16-year-old cis girl who lost to two transgender girls in a state competition in Connecticut
posted a video to YouTube about their “unfair advantage,” and calling on Congress to reject the
Equality Act, which would allow trans students nationwide to compete according to their gender identity. Her mother
organized a petition to change the rules allowing trans athletes to compete, after those two transgender girls —
Andraya Yearwood and
Terry Miller — came in first and second place in state races.
“The reason why parents can be very difficult sometimes dealing with their two most important things in their entire life is usually their kids and their money,” Emerson said. “Sports overlap both of them. And so you know I would never say that what she feels is wrong. It’s your child, the most important thing in the world to you. And, money, whether it’s how much money you spent on that child to become a better athlete, or opportunities for college, emotions are going to run high. And I don’t think she’s wrong for having those emotions. But at the same time, as a college coach, I think if you asked any college coach about that argument they would laugh at that. We look at paper, we don’t look at finishes; we don’t look at who’s a state champ, we look at what their time was.”
“The race is already over”
CeCe Telfer, center, as seen moments prior to the start of the 60M hurdles.
Screengrab/NCAA
“Couldn’t cut it as a male athlete. That man should not be running women’s races”
That’s what the
assistant coach at the College of Staten Island tweeted after Telfer’s victory in the 400m. Emerson took exception, called his remarks “unacceptable,” and tweeted a promise to follow up with the coach’s administration. Emerson vigorously refutes the claim Telfer was a mediocre male athlete.
CeCe struggles
Her gender dysphoria manifested itself at every meet in which she competed against men, Telfer told Outsports.
Early in 2018, Telfer decided she was done with track. She informed Emerson, who is also the assistant athletic director at Franklin Pierce, that she had begun her transition from male to female. “She had decided she no longer wanted to be a male athlete,” he recalled, and admits he didn’t recognize the mental anguish she was going through, and only focused on what Telfer was walking away from.
“I felt like that was a bad move for her because she was going to lose a lot of accountability and social time,” he said. “I had no idea that there were NCAA rules put in place that would allow her to participate on the women’s side. I would have suggested that immediately.”
By September 2018, Telfer returned, and promised Emerson that she would not quit. He promised in return that the coaches and teammates would support her every step of the way.
“I thought she might be a little naive to what sort of negative attention might be lurking around the corner when she does start performing,” said Emerson.
“I was in a really dark place”
CeCe Telfer
Franklin Pierce University
Telfer said her coaches and teammates have acted as online bodyguards, blocking haters and keeping her social media on lockdown after the first wave of hate earlier this year.
“When I saw all of it, it was rough, and I was in a really dark place,” Telfer said, Fortunately her thoughts have never drifted toward self-harm, but she admits, “It’s part of a constant struggle.”
The haters who use news of her achievements as a catapult to launch attacks upon other transgender athletes and trans youth are of special concern to Telfer, especially those whose families have abandoned them. Three hours after graduation, Telfer came out to her mother.
“I’m basically shunned,” she revealed. “I don’t really have family members or anybody to be there for me.”
CeCe Telfer
Screengrab via Twitter
NCAA
Her mother and those other relatives were not there for Telfer on May 25,
when she won her national championship title. She led the pack across the finish line by more than a second, in a personal collegiate-best time of 57.53 seconds, according to
the university website. Her finish was two seconds shy of the NCAA Division II record. And even without family there to cheer her on, she said her track family made it special, and winning that trophy was still a thrill. “So that was pretty, pretty awesome,” she said.
“Don’t you kinda wish you could do this again?” Emerson recalled asking her. He said she told him, “‘I don’t really feel much different.’ But she was happy. She just was not disappointed for the first time in quite a while.” Which is what Telfer has become accustomed to, given her family’s rejection.
“I’ve prepared for this my whole life, basically because I knew that my my family was never accepting and I knew that I had to do what I had to do.”
And what she does now, she said, is reach out to trans youth through social media, to offer them the support she wished she had when she was younger.
Emerson concedes that he set his expectations too low for his national champion. “I didn’t give her the respect her strength deserved,” he said. “She was so much stronger through this entire last year than I was ever possible of giving her credit for. She deserves all the freaking credit in the world.”
This Friday, June 7, CeCe Telfer will join transgender women athletes
Andraya Yearwood, Chloe Psyche Anderson and Athena Del Rosario in Los Angeles for a panel moderated by Outsports managing editor Dawn Ennis at Outsports Pride.