35-time national cyclocross champion Hannah Arensmen was one of the top female cyclocross athletes in the world when she chose to walk away from her sport at the age of 25 after losing to a transgender competitor in the women’s championships last season. And now she’s speaking out against transgender athletes competing in women’s sports.
This week, Arensmen made her first public television comments since her retirement on Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom.” And she made her thoughts on transgender participation in sports very clear.
“Absolutely. Biologically, men and women are different,” Arensman said. “Men are born with the ability to produce more testosterone and because of that they can build bigger muscles, they have bigger skeletal structure, they will develop a bigger heart, bigger lungs and so when you can pump more blood through your body quicker – when you can get more air into your lungs and into your cells – that produces a lot of differences in power.”
Arensman said that she also believes others hold similar beliefs as she does, but are afraid to speak out.
“In the sport of cycling, right now, the media really wants to push guys racing in the women’s field and along with that, a lot of the sponsors seem to feel that if you say anything against that you are hurting their brand,” Arensman said. “If you decide to speak out, you’ll probably will lose sponsorship. You’ll probably will lose your spot on your team, and you’ll get a lot of backlash on media. You might lose your job. There’s some people who would love to speak out. They’re afraid they will lose their job. A lot of cyclists, they don’t make ends meet with cycling, they have to have a daytime job. Then they train before or after their fulltime job and then race on the weekends. It’s your whole livelihood at stake.”
[Fox News]
