trans athlete

Warning: This piece may contain traces of satire


A 27-year-old man from Great Britain, who identifies as an 8-year-old boy, has become the first Transage winner of a gold medal at the World Cross Country Championship. Brian Potts, a fitness instructor from Hull, won the under-10s 6 kilometre race in a time of 17 minutes and 21 seconds, over four minutes ahead of his nearest rival.

Potts, representing Great Britain for the first time, celebrated his victory on Twitter, writing:
"First Transage world champion ... ever."
Allowing adults who self-identify as children to compete in junior sports events has been a controversial subject, as critics have argued that it puts their opponents at an inherent disadvantage. However, Potts was quoted in the Hull Gazette earlier this year, arguing that banning Transagers from competing with children would be discriminatory:
"As a society, we cannot have adults identifying as transage, and it not be recognised in sports," Potts told the Gazette. "Focusing on performance advantage is largely irrelevant because this is actually a rights issue. We shouldn't be worried about transagers taking over the Olympics. What we should be concentrating on is things like fairness and human rights instead."
To those who have questioned his win, and whether it was fair to allow a 27-year-old to compete with boys nearly 20 years younger than him, Potts went onto Twitter to vent his frustration with what he sees as an attitude born of prejudice, and which belongs firmly in the past:
"I can't believe we're still having this discussion in the 21st century," he wrote. "This is much bigger than sports. It's about human rights. And catering to the Transage-o-phobes only furthers the oppression of those who only seek to be the age they feel. People, I won. Get over it."
Not everyone sees it that way, though. After the race, the silver medal winner, 9-year-old Daniel Song from Canada, and bronze medal winner, 8-year-old Manuel López from Spain, lodged a complaint with the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), alleging that Potts had an unfair advantage and should not have been allowed to compete in the under-10s.

However, this approach may well have backfired, with latest reports suggesting that they could find themselves stripped of their medals, and sent to a Transageist re-education camp before being allowed to compete again.