A transgender cyclist is facing backlash after she won a female category of a grueling gravel race and then posted on social media about other competitors bailing before the medal celebration.
Lesley Mumford, who transitioned in 2017 while a Colorado SWAT team leader, shared a lonesome photo after winning her age group in the female category of Sunday’s 100-mile Desert Gravel Co2Ut.
“I have no idea why so many people bailed before the podiums, but they did,” wrote Mumford, 46, while posing alone with her arms aloft in victory.
“I swear I wasn’t the only one in my age group,” she wrote of the 43 female competitors who finished after her in the 40-49 category.
Mumford also came in sixth overall in the female category of the race, beating 35 other cyclists. The event has a non-binary category, which she did not enter.
She easily won her age group, beating second-place racer Lindsey Kriete by 17 minutes and third-place rider Michelle Van Sickle by more than 30.
Neither of those women riders has spoken about being a no-show on the podium, but critics celebrated what they assume was a “silent protest.”
“The silent protests are starting!” tweeted Inga Thompson, a three-time Olympian, 10-time National Champion and medalist at the Tour de France.
“The women are refusing to stand on the podium with the man! Well done!!!”
“Enough is enough!” agreed Riley Gaines, the swimmer who became an outspoken critic of trans athletes competing against biological women after losing events to Lia Thomas.
“Empty podium except for the male who naturally finished atop all the women in the women’s category. Despite there being a non-binary/trans category he easily could have competed in. Keep it up girls!” she wrote, with a “#SaveWomensSports” hashtag.
Megyn Kelly also highlighted Mumford’s win on her Sirius XM show Thursday, saying that “there’s a story every other day now about a trans person winning a women’s cycling event.”
“Women’s cycling is all but gone to us — I mean it’s worse, I think, than women’s swimming,” she said of the sport first sparking controversy after Thomas dominated events.
Of Mumford, Kelly said she was a male sheriff’s deputy “until two minutes ago.”
“Now he says he’s Leslie Mumford and has won in the women’s” race, she said, refusing to use Mumford’s preferred female pronouns.
“He suddenly decides he’s a woman, and goes and steals all their medals. No wonder [female athletes] are quitting,” she said.
One of her guests, activist Britt Mayer, suggested it was proof that women were “waking up” and starting to fight back after having “been polite for so long.”
“We thought that being polite was going to somehow make this all go away. But it’s getting worse,” said the co-founder of The Battle Cry, a group fighting to keep trans athletes out of women’s sports.
“But as it gets worse. I think that women are becoming a lot stronger in their convictions and realizing what’s at stake.”
Mayer insisted that if women don’t speak out, it is “going to become this tidal wave that absolutely destroyed women’s sports.”
Fellow Battle Cry co-founder Carrie Prejean Boller joked about how she “loves that women are getting the balls to stand up and say, ‘No more.'”
“You will not erase us women. You will not replace us. No! We’re taking a stand,” she said. “If we stand together, we will win.”
Mumford was a 17-year law enforcement veteran when she transitioned in 2017. CBS News said at the time that she was believed to be the first known transgender command-level law enforcement officer to transition.
Mumford recalled in an interview at the time that the whole of the Summit County Sheriff’s Office was called to a mandatory staff-wide meeting — with her young son being the one to break the news to them.
“The sheriff asked everyone, ‘Hey, I’ve heard there are some rumors about why we’re here today, does anybody want to share one?’” Mumford, who was then also the sheriff’s operations commander, told Summit Daily.
“Devin, my 7-year-old-son, raises his hand, stands up on his chair and says, ‘Because my mom’s going to tell you she’s transgender.’”
Mumford said she had the full support of her then-wife of 12 years, Sarah, as well as Summit Sheriff Jaime FitzSimons, who said he was “humbled that she had such courage to do that and honored that she wanted to do it on my watch.”
“The response from our staff was incredible,” the sheriff said at the time.
Mumford told CBS that she “didn’t go into this wanting to be a trailblazer or a role model for other people who may be struggling with their gender identity.”
“But if my story can help others realize it’s okay, I’m totally fine with that,” she said.
Mumford did not immediately respond to messages through social media on Friday.
Earlier this year, champion cyclocross rider Hannah Arensman said she had “decided to end my cycling career” after losing to transgender riders.
She said that it “has become increasingly discouraging to train as hard as I do only to have to lose to a man with the unfair advantage of an androgenized body that intrinsically gives him an obvious advantage over me, no matter how hard I train.”
