First Korean Transgender Athlete Wins Women’s Cycling Competition and Delivers a Shocking Message to the World
Last month, Korean cyclist Na Hwa-rin competed at the Gangwon Sports Festival in Gangwon Province. The 37 year-old transgender athlete underwent gender-affirming surgery in Seoul in 2022 and received a new birth certificate that expressed their gender as “female”. Na was able to compete in the competition because there are no gender specific regulations for athletes to qualify.
The athlete knew that competing would stir controversy, but “Na’s biggest concern, however, was the possibility of her revelation not causing enough of a stir to initiate discourse and change in Korea’s sports scene.”
After watching the United States and other countries disregard the sanctity of women’s sports, such as Lia Thomas, a fully-intact male, competing against biological females, winning a collegiate national championship and being nominated for “woman of the year”,
