A transgender skateboarder resigned from representing the United States on the women’s skateboarding team so she could continue her gender transition from female to male.
Earlier this month, Leo Baker, a seven-time X Games medalist formerly known as Lacey Baker, told Time magazine why the athlete quit the women’s team just before the Tokyo Olympics.
“Going to the Olympics and competing in women’s skateboarding would have represented a step back from what Baker described as their current state of ‘gender euphoria,’” SBNation summarized. Baker “made the decision that no professional achievement was worth putting themselves through that.”
The skateboarded recently underwent so-called “top surgery,” wherein Baker’s breasts were removed. The surgery would have interfered with Olympic regulations, according to Baker.
“I couldn’t be on hormones if I was going to compete in a women’s event, and it was hard to schedule the surgery because my competing meant I wouldn’t be able to have the time to recover,” the athlete said, adding, “I couldn’t keep putting myself on hold.”
Baker noted that she doesn’t “care about winning.”
“When I’m skating in competition, I feel like I need to do a certain thing,” Baker told the magazine. “Whereas if I showed up to the skate park, I would be thinking more creatively. I don’t care about winning. Sure, it feels super good to win in the moment, but I don’t need to do it again. I just want to skate.”
Sparking much controversy, transgender athletes have been allowed to compete with others in accordance with the gender they identify with, as opposed to their biological sex. Americans of all stripes have spoken out about, specifically, biological male athletes being allowed to compete against women, noting the biological advantages males generally have over females athletically.
Most Democrats and Republicans agree that transgender athletes should compete against those of the same biological sex.
An Axios/Momentive poll released Monday “seems to indicate a consensus among Americans that transgender athletes, most often biological males, should not compete according to the gender with which they identify if that gender is different from the biological sex they were assigned at birth,” The Daily Wire’s Emily Zanotti reported. “There does not appear to be a consensus, however, on who athletes who identify as transgender should compete against.”
“Around 40% of respondents said transgender athletes should compete against others of their biological gender,” Zanotti outlined. “Republicans were the most likely to favor this arrangement, with 60% of GOP members supporting. Independents were unsure. Although most believe transgender athletes should not select which gender they compete against, they were evenly divided between ‘biological gender’ and ‘do not know.’”
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Source: Dailywire
