Professional mountain biker Payson McElveen sits down with some of the biggest names in sports and adventure to get an inside look at what sets them apart. With no script, the casual conversations are as diverse as the guests, with topics ranging from harrowing tales of survival, to debates on current events, to everyday tips and tricks and everything in between. As Payson travels the world for his two-wheeled day job, listen in as he rubs shoulders with and learns from some of the most inspiring athletes, entrepreneurs, academics, and others as they chase and inspire greatness.
Molly Cameron, professional cyclocross racer and transgender athlete
For over two decades, Molly Cameron has been advocating for LGBTQ+ rights within cycling. In her career as a racer, she was banned early on from racing in the women's category, and was forced to race with the men. In 2015, she was briefly banned from racing in the men's cyclocross national championship when the rules were changed to require a person's gender to correlate with the gender on their driver's license.
In this interview, she talks with Payson about being thrown into the spotlight after the outdoor community's reckoning with social justice issues in 2020 and 2021, after decades of advocating in relative anonymity. She talks about why she continues to fight for trans rights after so many years, what brings her hope, and how she plans to focus her mission in the coming years through her organization, Riders Inspiring Diversity and Equality (RIDE). She and Payson also talk about the controversy surrounding USA Cycling's decision not to remove anti-trans protestors as Cyclocross Nationals last month, and why the conversation surrounding trans women in sport cannot be limited to scientific data points.
Link to International Olympic Committee guidelines on transgender athletes: https://olympics.com/ioc/documents/athletes/ioc-framework-on-fairness-inclusion-and-non-discrimination-on-the-basis-of-gender-identity-and-sex-variations
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