Sunday, June 03, 2007

Trans athlete follow-up

The other day when I wrote briefly about trans athletes and gender norms I forgot to mention that there is a documentary about mountain biker Michelle Dumaresq called 100% Woman. It follows Dumaresq's early career in the sport and the issues she faced when people, competitors specifically, found out she "used to be a man." Though she very easily got a license to race from the Canadian cycling body, her participation and wins were contested by competitors who appear and speak candidly in the documentary. It was filmed before the infamous winners' podium event where another biker wore a t-shirt, given to her by her boyfriend, that said 100% Pure Woman Champ 2006, so there is no footage of that event, that included taunts from the crowd, and how Dumaresq and others reacted to it.
You can see most of the documentary at logoonline.com. (I had problems loading some of the parts but even what I was able to see was very good.) There's a very good piece showing Dumaresq chatting with with U.S. mountain biker Missy Giove who is openly gay and was one of the best bikers in the world before her 2003 retirement.

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