A transgender cyclist defended her world-title win after Donald Trump Jr. called it 'BS'

• The transgender cyclist Rachel McKinnon defended her win at the Masters Track Cycling World Championships after criticism from Donald Trump Jr.
• Trump Jr.tweeted that "this BS will destroy women's sports" and that he was "sorry to all female athletes who spent their lives mastering their games."
• McKinnon cited the tweet as a reason for several hateful messages she received, adding: "Y'all don't have a problem with testosterone levels, you have a problem with trans women period."
• The Canadian rider has been competing in women's events for several years.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The transgender cyclist Rachel McKinnon defended her win at the Masters Track Cycling World Championships on Saturday after Donald Trump Jr. said that "this BS will destroy women's sports."

McKinnon, a 37-year-old Canadian, won gold for the second straight year in the women's 35-39 age category sprint and set a record in qualifying, making it around the 200-meter course in just 11.649 seconds.

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Trump Jr. lashed out at McKinnon on Twitter after her victory, saying on Monday: "This BS will destroy women's sports and everything so many amazing female athletes have worked their entire lives to achieve. I couldn't care less how you identify, but this isn't right."

Trump Jr. later tweeted that he was "sorry to all female athletes who spent their lives mastering their games."

McKinnon responded by quoting Trump Jr.'s second tweet with the caption: "Oh THIS explains the explosion of hate messages I'm getting!!"

She followed up with tweets in which she defended her right to compete as a woman, which she has been doing for several years.

"I was competing prior to the IOC's 2015 update to their trans policy,"McKinnon said, referring to the International Olympic Committee's latest guidelines for transgender athletes. "I met the older, more restrictive 2003 policy.

"Y'all don't have a problem with testosterone levels, you have a problem with trans women period."

She said in an earlier tweet: "I'm just going to come out and say it: My body doesn't produce testosterone anymore. And it hasn't for nearly a decade. Draw your own conclusions."

She added in another: "We are either full and equal women, or not. We are."

McKinnon has also come under scrutiny from fellow athletes

McKinnon meets the criteria to compete in women's events, but that hasn't stopped fellow athletes from criticizing her and her achievements.

Read more:The biggest thing critics continually get wrong about transgender athletes competing in women's sports

Sharron Davies, the swimmer who won silver for Great Britain in the 400-meter individual medley at the 1980 Moscow Olympics, said on Twitter on Sunday that "female rights are being eroded every single day."

The cyclist Victoria Hood said, according to the BBC, that while "it is a human right to participate in sport," she doesn't "think it's a human right to identify into whichever category you choose."

The 18-time Grand Slam tennis champion Martina Navratilova has also criticized McKinnon, saying in The Sunday Times in February: "A man can decide to be female, take hormones if required by whatever sporting organisation is concerned, win everything in sight, earn a small fortune, and then reverse his decision and go back to making babies if he desired."

McKinnon told Business Insider at the time that such criticism was transphobic and demeaning of her human rights.

"We should never deny people's rights because a select few, in theory, could commit fraud," McKinnon said.

"The idea we should ban all immigrants because one or two might be terrorists is the height of racism, bigotry, and xenophobia. So their argument is the very definition of an irrational fear of trans women, the dictionary definition of transphobia."

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