An.

Amateur cycling race with two transgender women on the podium, once again, producing outrage on social media and new arguments over the policies affecting transgender athletes. Criticism coming from the likes of pierce Morgan, Megan Kelly, and Martina Nevratilovah. But you know who wasn't outraged? The woman who finished third.

I think that it would be ridiculous to say that my life is being ruined by getting third in this. It would be ridiculous to sacrifice other people getting to have fun in a sport that they love on the weekends so that I could say I was the state champion.

Kristen Chaumir finished third to Tessa Johnson and Casey Williamson, both transgender at the Illinois State Cyclocross championships. Chaumir described the event as a warm-up race.

Yeah, I had a great race, and it would have been more boring if it had been a smaller field without such strong competitors in it.

She wants critics to know the three-podium finishers, all friends. It was an amateur race with only five competitors, not an elite race. There were lots of events these championships that were not won by transgender women, too. In fact, Kristen says she penned a letter with many of her fellow cisgender counterparts supporting the inclusion of their transgender teammates and competitors. But the outrage illustrates the challenging path forward for top sports federations as they try to balance inclusion and fairness.

It's a really emotional issue for a lot of people that garners a lot.

Of attention. Katie Barnes wrote a book on the issue and reports for ESPN.

It's worth noting that of the people that I spoke to who were at the event over the weekend, they talked about a really supportive environment for these transgender competitors.

Just like the world rugby, aquatics, and track federations have done recently, the International Cycling Body, UCI, revamped its policies this summer, mostly barring those who started puberty before their male to female transition from competing in women's races. But lower level, more casual cycling races like the Illinois event fall under USA cycling rules, which provide for more inclusion.

Frankly, there isn't a ton of science on the topic in the way that we would hope that there would be to generate evidence-based policy.

That doesn't stop the 24 states from adopting new laws and regulations restricting transgender youth from participating on the school sports teams consistently. Distant with their gender identities. But to this third place finisher who says she only competes for fun while she pursues her medical degree, building community is more important than taking home a medal.

The cycling community is making a really strong statement that we care about inclusion and our sport is better when we include everyone.

Noopareansky joins us now. I'm so glad you reported and filed this story. So interesting, especially with all the noise online. You don't know that the Biden administration announced a plan this past spring to regulate how trans athletes are treated in sports. Why haven't we heard anything about that?

Those were proposed rules. The final were supposed to come out this fall, but they received 134,000 comments during the comment period. They said they're taking their time to go through every comment to make sure their final language is perfect. The issue here, the proposal, they basically said they're.

Going to bar.

Blanket bands of youth athletes who happen to be trans, but they will allow it for specific cases when the issue of fairness or safety is on the line. So it'll basically be up. You can't have the state rules, but you will have.

Local.

Leagues and local school districts able to make their own rules. They say, again, getting this perfect is so important because there are so many people counting on this rule.

Of course. All right, Noah, thanks so much.

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