In yet another setback for real girls and women, a 29-year-old biological male, who identifies as female, won a women’s skateboarding competition, The Boardr Open at New York City.
Ricci Tres, who also goes by the name Ricci And Tres, served in the Navy and is the father of three children. Tres was the oldest contestant in the event, beating second place finisher Shiloh Catori, age 13.
Catori has a global ranking of 133, while Tres is ranked 838. Taking third was 16-year-old Jordan Pascale, and 28-year-old Chrissy Brown placed 4th.
According to DailyMail.com, Tres attempted to enter the Women’s Street USA Skateboarding National Championships in 2021, to gain points to qualify for the Olympics, but he was rejected because of testosterone levels that were too high.
USA Skateboarding reported that before being disqualified in that championship, Tres “qualified first in the Open Qualifiers and would have moved on to the Quarterfinals.”
In a video interview at USA Skateboarding, Tres said he didn’t want to increase estrogen levels or lower testosterone any further, in order to qualify for the next Olympics. He cited the health risks that come with these medical interventions, such as strokes, heart attacks and blood clots.
Lowering testosterone levels to Olympic standards would “compromise my health very much,” Tres explained, also saying that surgery would be necessary to achieve qualifying levels.
“I just don’t see how that’s possible, you know, you’re asking this human being to … you’re asking them to like mutilate themselves and then … you’re asking a professional athlete to compromise their health, by like trying to reach this like unobtainable low level of testosterone.”
Tres said he’s not an activist but would like to see the Olympics reconsider their hormone standards for competitors.
Tres acknowledges, “I know that I’ll never be a woman, because women are miraculous, you know, they have babies and create life and do all that awesome stuff. I’ll never have that ability, but I feel like I am a woman.”
The skateboarder seems to view “being a woman” as an image of some sort, saying, “I’ll try to fill that image as much as I can for myself, and that pretty much involves being as cute as I can be.”
Taylor Silverman is a female skateboarder who doesn’t think there’s anything cute about men entering women’s competitions and taking victories and prize money, however they may feel on the inside.
She posted on Instagram in May about taking second to another “transgender” skateboarders:
My name is Taylor Silverman. I am a female athlete. I have been skateboarding for eleven years and competing for several years. I have been in three different contests with trans women [i.e., male-born athletes], two of which I placed second. At the last contest series I did for Redbull [sic], I placed second.
Silverman said the transgender-identified competitor took “$5,000 of the prize money meant for the female athletes.”
She wrote an email to the contest organizer at Red Bull, complaining, “A biological man with a clear advantage won the women’s division, best trick, and also won multiple qualifiers. This took away the opportunity that was meant for women to place and earn money.”
The message was ignored by the energy drink company that sponsors skateboarding and other extreme sports events, but Silverman is correct about those “clear advantages” that men have in skateboarding.
On average, men have bigger hearts and lungs, narrower hips, a higher center of gravity, and greater overall physical strength. They also have, on average, “80% more muscle in their upper body and 50% more muscle in their legs than women.”
Silverman spoke out against men taking victories from women at the recent Our Bodies Our Sports rally, describing the response to her Instagram post (18:36):
The post immediately went viral. I received tens of thousands of supportive messages from athletes, parents and even transgender people who recognize the unfairness and wanted me to know that these athletes were not an accurate representation of most of their community.
I also received many unsupportive messages, from name-calling to death threats and everything in between. And because I happen to be Jewish, I have been targeted by a massive amount of anti-Semitism online.
I had no idea what would happen when I spoke up for myself, I simply wanted to do the right thing. I didn’t know my story would become international news or that I’d be speaking here today, but I do know how painful it is to go through this, and it’s important to me that it doesn’t happen to more female athletes in any sports on any level.
She concluded, “We need to keep women’s sports female, so we keep women’s sports fair.”
From his interview at USA Skateboarding, it’s easy to see some of the factors that may have influenced Tres’ sexual identity confusion. These include a distorted view of what it means to be a man or a woman; early sexual experimentation with another boy; and shame, fear and hiding over his childhood exploration of gender roles.
As a man created to reflect God’s image and likeness, Tres deserves compassion and respect from Christians. We can, and should, pray for his healing – and for the children he is raising.
But that doesn’t mean we must agree with his sexual identity confusion, and we can support healing and change for those with sexual identity confusion. We should support prayer, counseling and spiritual support that affirms a person’s true masculinity or femininity, which grows from their bodily male or femaleness.
While demonstrating concern for individuals, Christians can also proclaim the scientific and biblical truth – that humanity consists of males and females, and individuals are one or the other.
We must also stand against gender ideology, which is growing and affecting more and more children, adolescents and teens. We must continue to stand against the damaging drugs, hormones and surgeries that destroy bodies and lives.
And we can stand up for girls and women, opposing the incursion on their privacy, safety, and sex-segregated activities by biological males.
Related articles and resources:
Focus on the Family:
Helping Children with Gender Identity Confusion
The Journey Back to My True Identity (Part Oneand Part Two)
Transgender Resources
Daily Citizen:
Louisiana Is Now the 18th State to Save Girls and Women’s Sports
On 50th Anniversary of Title IX, Groups Fight to Protect Women’s Sports
President Signs ‘LGBTQI+ Pride Month’ Executive Order
#SaveGirlsSports – New Campaign Launched by Family Policy Alliance
Photo from TheBoard.
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