A female skateboarder has publicly bashed Red Bull for having her compete with a transgender man at the Red Stone Cornerstone event where she placed second.
In an Instagram post, skateboarder Taylor Silverman said she has unfairly been placing second at several events in which she has competed against biological males. In the case of the Red Bull Cornerstone event, she lost to Lilian Gallagher, who took home the cherished prize money.
“I am a female athlete. I have been skateboarding for eleven years and competing for several years,” she said in her Instagram post. ” I have been in three different contests with trans women, two of which I placed second. At the last contest series I did for Redbull, I placed second.
“The trans competitor who won took $1000 dollars in qualifiers, $3000 in finals, and $1000 in best trick. This totaled to $5000 of the prize money meant for the female athletes,” she added. “I took $1000 in qualifiers and $1750 for second place, so $2750 in total. The girl who took third received $750. The girl who deserved $1000 for best trick took nothing along with whoever would have placed third.
“I deserve to place first, be acknowledged for my win, and get paid. I reached out to Redbull and was ignored. I am sick of being bullied into silence,” she concluded.
Taylor Silverman also posted a screenshot of the email she sent to Red Bull’s Senior Sports Marketing Manager Erich Dumme, which she claims he ignored.
“This took away the opportunity that was meant for women to place and earn money,” said Taylor. “What happened was unfair and, at the time, I was too uncomfortable to speak up. I understand that in today’s society even some women think this is acceptable, but I believe in doing the right thing, even if it’s not the popular thing. I now realize it’s really important for me to speak up and I’d like to schedule a time to talk.”
Taylor’s hit against Red Bull follows a lengthy op-ed from British cyclist Nicole Cooke arguing for transgender athletes to have their own category of competition separate from women’s sports.
“Sport is about competition among equals. Boxing has weight limits because there would be no contest putting a nine-stone man up against the largest man on the planet,” wrote Cooke. “Women’s sport is segregated because, in many disciplines, the larger average form of the male body confers an advantage.”
Cooke’s recommendation followed that of tennis icon Martina Navratilova, who said there should be “an open category for everyone, and then for biological females.”
“So trans women can compete, but they’ll compete against men. And trans men have a choice,” she said.
Even more surprisingly, famed transgender golfer Mianne Bagger, who made history by competing in the Women’s Australian Open after transitioning in 1995, also argued that biological men should be barred from women’s sports.