Today we’re joined by Cynthia Monteleone, a world champion track athlete who, in 2018, competed against a transgender athlete from Colombia. A year and a half later, her high school daughter also found herself competing against a biological male in high school track. We discuss what it’s been like since Independent Women’s Forum shared her story, how she prepared her family to face the public on such a controversial issue, and where she sees the future of the fairness in women’s sports debate. As a metabolic practitioner, we also ask Monteleone for some post-pandemic health, parenting, and wellness advice.

Read her profile HERE, and tune in below.

TRANSCRIPT

Kelsey Bolar:

Hi, everyone. It’s Kelsey Bolar back, filling in for Beverly Hallberg on She Thinks. As Beverly is still off enjoying the last of her honeymoon. Big congratulations there. She Thinks is a podcast from Independent Women’s Forum, where we talk with women and sometimes men about the policy issues that impact you and the people you care most about. Today we are joined by Cynthia Monteleone, a World Champion Track athlete who specializes in the 400 meter. At the 2018 World Masters Athletic Championships in Spain, Cynthia actually competed against a transgender athlete from Columbia. She beat this athlete by a few tenths of a second to make it to the final round of the 200-meter race but at the 2019 April World Championship indoor meet in Poland, that same athlete won bronze in the 80-meter hurdles beating Cynthia’s teammate. When Cynthia tried to voice concerns over the fairness of a biological male competing against women, a USA Track and Field Administrator told her, “For your own safety, you might want to keep your mouth shut.”

Well, Cynthia didn’t follow that direction. Shortly thereafter, her 16-year-old daughter, a sophomore at St. Anthony School in Maui, Hawaii also found herself competing against the biological male in high school track. Her daughter placed second behind this transgender athlete and her first and only track mate of the season before COVID-19 hit. Cynthia is also a track coach and a metabolic practitioner. Cynthia, welcome to the show. We have lots to talk about today, and I’m very excited to catch up with you.

Cynthia Monteleone:

Aloha from Maui, Kelsey. It’s so great to talk to you again, and I’m so thankful that I have this opportunity to talk about strong women and how we can support them.

Kelsey Bolar:

Yeah. For our listeners’ background, Cynthia and I have now been, I guess, friends for quite a few months. I was doing work for Independent Women’s Forum, trying to find some of these personal stories of how girls and women are being impacted by being forced to compete with and against biological males in their sports.

I stumbled upon Cynthia’s story. I was just going to write this very short profile. And after chatting with you for just five minutes, I was like, “Cynthia, there’s a lot more we need to do.” And we actually spent a couple months really getting into the weeds of your story, understanding what happened both to you and your daughter. We put together a short documentary that’s available on iwf.org. Since then Cynthia, you’ve been all over the media, including on Tucker Carlson Tonight.

Cynthia Monteleone:

That’s right.

Kelsey Bolar:

Sharing your story, advocating for girls and women, fairness in sports. Tell me what it’s been like from your experience since we went public with your story.

Cynthia Monteleone:

Well, gosh, it’s just been really positive all around. I really can’t say that I’ve had too much pushback. I have had some, of course from, just like official type people who basically denying, office of civil rights complaints and things like that, who don’t want to get involved, which is really disheartening because they’re the ones who should get involved. But otherwise, I really feel that deep down, the majority percentage of the people are on board with our mission, which is to keep fairness in women’s sports. And it’s been awesome because I am not one to roll over and just obey whatever government executive order is coming out if I don’t feel like it’s right. And so I definitely believe in standing up for women and as a mother, but also as a track coach, I see the effects, the negative effects that these policies have had on our young girls. One girl that I coached, this is in our video we made, which tells a great story about our experience.

If anybody wants to go and watch that for the details. But one girl that I coached, she just does didn’t want to do track anymore. After racing this individual, she was a senior. She said, “What’s the point? I’m not going to win the conference championship. And then I might not go to states. And then I won’t be seen by a recruiter and I just wanted this last year of college, this last year to prove that I can maybe run track in college,” and she just wanted to quit. Now, of course, COVID hit and she didn’t get a chance to finish her season so that was the end of that story. But this is what’s happening to girls everywhere and you just won’t hear about it because the mainstream media won’t talk about it, which is why we are very appreciative also to Tucker Carlson for having us on.

He called my daughter a hero for speaking up. And I truly believe that that’s right, that in this day and age, girls are told to keep their mouth shut. And how ironic is that, that here we are, the other side is trying to push a progressive agenda. When they’re really going back to the dark days of when we told women they can’t speak. And so same thing with that administrator who told me, perhaps for your own safety. Now, maybe he was really worried about my safety. It’s very possible, but also a lot of the top officials in certain organizations will tell you, just keep your mouth shut, just sweep it under the rug until it gets worked out, but it’s not getting worked out. It’s actually getting worse and all of our fears are coming true.

Whether it be my daughter losing her very first high school race after training for a year to an individual who trained only for track for two weeks, had never run track before. So clearly a male-bodied advantage there. But what I’m saying is, even in other aspects, our worst fears are coming true as far as individuals taking advantage of these policies. I think that you would probably agree with that with the latest news stories.

Kelsey Bolar:

Absolutely out of Loudoun county which is not far from where I’m from if you are listening. I’m sure you’ve heard about it, but it was published on Daily Wire and has not been picked up by very many mainstream outlets thus far. Hopefully, by the time this podcast publishes, that will change. But certainly what we’re talking about today encompasses far more than girls in women’s sports. I have to say when I first chatted with you and heard your story, I was like, “How has no reporter told this yet?”

Like, how am I so lucky to be the first one who really elevates Cynthia’s story on the national level? Because the participation of male athletes in female sports was being reported on and by every major media outlet and the dominant narrative on the left was, this isn’t really happening. It’s such a small issue. So few transgender athletes are playing women’s sports, that this is just being completely overblown by conservatives. And then come to find out both a mother and a daughter both had firsthand experience competing against biological men. I was just dumbfounded that nobody had jumped on that.

Cynthia Monteleone:

Well, yeah, right. They were just denying the story. Right. They’re purposely weren’t jumping on it. I actually had a reporter here in Hawaii, in Honolulu who wanted to run our story or actually just even my daughters and was told by his superiors that he couldn’t run the story. He would have to change it or make it from the opposite point of view.

So that’s what was happening is we were trying to tell our story, but nobody would listen. And again, that’s being silenced and where are we? We’re in the dark ages again, where women are being silenced by men? This is ridiculous. Everyone needs to have the courage to stand up and say what is fair and what is right. And I definitely encourage all of your listeners to do that in any way, shape, or form that’s available to them. Meaning even if it’s just filing a complaint if they see it happening. Now, if that complaint is not approved, that at least it’s still down, that there is a complaint. Or just speaking up and questioning, how about raising questions? How is this fair? That’s a good question because as your IWF came out with a great women’s report, that shows the evidence of why it’s not fair. So plenty of research there.

Kelsey Bolar:

Yes. And I want to get to that in one second, but before I do, I want to say the issue of fairness in girls and women’s sports is far from resolved, but the encouraging news out of our work with you is the fact that you can say after going public with your story, you’ve received an overwhelming positive response from the public. And I see this being replicated in all the parents who are becoming more brave to either stand up for fairness in women’s sports, stand up against transgender bathroom and locker policies they fear put their daughters at risk, stand up against critical race theory in school or mask mandates. Whatever it is, parents are finding their voice. And I think they’re realizing they’re not alone, but it really does take those first few individuals like yourself to go public, to be the face of this issue, and to show everyone else that you are not alone, I’m here with you.

Cynthia Monteleone:

Yes, that’s what my daughter and I… We had a long talk about it because it’s not a light decision. I discussed it with my whole family. They all said, “We stand behind both of you speaking up.” And for a freshman now, sophomore… I mean, sorry, she’s a junior now. Freshman, sophomore, basically, as this was unfolding in high school to go through this and to have the courage to speak up. Now I did set her up with some tools for that, which one was, she doesn’t have a phone and she doesn’t participate very much in social media. She has an Instagram account through mine. It’s private. So, she doesn’t put herself out there as a target in social media, but she was so eloquent when we were invited to speak to members of Congress in the Senate, they loved her charm and how she spoke from the heart.

The thing about us is that we’re not very extreme on one side or the other. We have compassion for all individuals involved and we recognize that everyone is a human being, but we also stand firm in that there needs to be fair competition. And so I think that we were well received because we are strong in our voice. We speak up, we raise questions, but we also have compassion. And that really comes out for my daughter. So I’m very proud of her as well for having the courage to speak up. And she has had great support from her peers and her teachers as well. She doesn’t go to public school. She goes to a Catholic school. So that probably matters in that realm, but just in general, amongst her peers, she’s had 100% support. So that’s encouraging, I think to all of your listeners too, that it’s not going to be this witch hunt that the media makes it out to be.

I really feel like they have twisted the narrative on this where most people, even the democratic party when they pulled them, the majority, large majority, I believe above 80% agreed that male-bodied athletes should not compete in female sports. So you are not alone. Even amongst those who don’t agree with you on other things, you’re not alone.

Kelsey Bolar:

I have to sidetrack for a moment and ask how you made the decision to not allow your high school daughter to have a cellphone and how practically that has played out because I’m sure a lot of other moms would love to follow a suit but don’t quite know how to execute that.

Cynthia Monteleone:

Yes. So my daughter is where she’s supposed to be. And if she’s at school and something happens and she needs to call me, she goes to the office and uses the phone.

If she’s at the mall with her friends and we need to meet, we agree on a time and place to meet and that’s where she is. If there were an emergency, there are plent she knows my phone number. There are plenty of people everywhere who have phones, just like in the olden days when we had landlines, so she can use their phone and call. So really it comes down to active parenting and making that decision and standing firm. She feels, if you ask her, she’ll tell you that sometimes her friends make fun of her. Like tease her a little bit about it, but she feels that she’s better off without it. That’s what her quote is. “I’m better off without it. Why do I need it?” So she does have a computer and things like that, but she just really feels like she really saw her friends going through some bad drama via Instagram, like comments that people would make.

And they would be crying at school. And she felt bad for her friend because she’s crying over something that’s not even real, like some mean comment that somebody said on social media. And so firsthand… And then she also told me that the pressure to have an eating disorder was rampant on the social media platforms. And she saw her friends having access to that and was worried about that. So I think that she’s always been mature for her age, but she’d rather read a book or she does photography. She’d rather do that. She’s just really not that interested in the fake type world that social media creates.

Kelsey Bolar:

That is so interesting. I feel like I need to do a whole separate follow-up video on that because of course, so many parents are concerned about the role social media has on their children, specifically their daughters in these very vulnerable high school years. So I’m not surprised hearing that. Having met her, she is so brave and mature as you said. So I’m a little ways away from that with my own little two-year-old, but I might have to follow suit.

Cynthia Monteleone:

Right. And it starts with the iPads. Not giving them the iPads at a restaurant. My kids have tablets for traveling. My boys who are seven and eight, they have tablets for traveling in case the airplane doesn’t have movies or whatever, that sort of thing. Or when we took our long road trip, I did allow them to have them in the car for my own peace of mind for a little while, but in a restaurant, why do you really need to give your child an iPad at age three or whatever it is that they’re giving them iPad now, when in fact, we can get into it.

My job as a metabolic practitioner, my mentor was Charles Poliquin who is one of the world’s best strength coaches and nutrition experts. And he basically uncovered the research that when you put your children in front of electronics, computers, or iPads, specifically that close, the electromagnetic frequencies will actually disrupt the thyroid development and cause all kinds of physical, emotional, and mental problems as they get older. He actually recommended not putting your child in front of a screen until age 12 when they’ve gone through puberty, which is very hard with computers in this day and age and the learning style. But I guess for my family, I learned that and I tried and I saw the research and I try my best to just encourage other forms of activity.

Kelsey Bolar:

That’s great and very interesting. I know a little off-topic, but I’m glad we touched on it.

Cynthia Monteleone:

Yeah. Well, it all goes into that why I’ve made this decision about standing up for women’s sports. And that’s because I study science all day long. I mean, my doctor actually asked me for research for things when he doesn’t have time to research it. Research medical journal articles and things like that. So, I probably read at least 50 medical journal articles a day and when I read things like myonuclei and cells create muscle mass for men that women can’t possibly reach that potential, this sort of thing, I’m reading the science. And I see, “Oh, here are the facts that yes, our intuition is correct that men are stronger and faster and that they will always be stronger and faster even after gender reassignment and hormone therapy and things like this.” It’s because I read the science for my job for my clients.

Kelsey Bolar:

Absolutely. And that brings me to the report that IWF published called ” Competition Title IX, Male-Bodied Athletes and the Threat to Women’s Sports.” And this aims to help athletic associations, policymakers and courts understand the threat to female athletes in women’s sports much in part by featuring this exact type of research you are mentioning. And if you go through that research, which we spent months doing, as we compiled this report, it very clearly concludes that in most sports allowing biological males to compete with and against females puts women and girls at a significant disadvantage. Male puberty confers a significant and lasting athletic advantage. I’m curious how this type of data has translated to your real-life experience.

Cynthia Monteleone:

As well, we can just see it firsthand. When I talk about my clients, I have the lady next door as a client, but I also have Olympians are my main clients. Olympians and professional athletes, and they have to make decisions Kelsey like as female athletes, how do I train around my cycle? How do I make sure I have the nutrients because women are deficient in iron because of their menstrual cycle. How do I have enough of these nutrients to get through my training, my hard training? What about birth control? What’s going to be the least affecting on my performance as an Olympian, or if I don’t take birth control, what if I become pregnant and then I can’t go to the Olympics because I’m pregnant? So, these are all things that male-bodied athletes do not have to think about.

So not only the physical advantage, that’s very clear in all of the research, even after all of the therapies and reassignment, but male-bodied athletes will never have to think about these things that female-bodied athletes do. And so, like I said, I firsthand see my clients having to make these decisions and the males that they race against not. And I like that you all use the term male-bodied athletes. I’m just going to say right here because another topic that’s not discussed very much is the DSD athletes, which is like a sexual disorder development, development of sexual disorders, disorder of sexual development. I think that’s what it is. Yeah. DSD. So these are male-bodied athletes who are assigned the gender female at birth because their testees are undescended. Okay? So they still have all the male parts. They have the male hormones, but they’re assigned female sex.

And they’re usually in third-world countries, not always, but usually. And there was a DSD athlete who beat one of our USA girls in the 200. One silver in the 200 had already been denied, being classified as a female for the 400 meters because of the rules for the Olympics, the committee roles. So how is this individual not meeting qualifications to be a female in the 400, but then can drop to the 200 and then compete as a female, still female-bodied athlete? So I really like that you use that term because it encompasses all of these other situations where females like Gabby Thomas, who got third should have gotten the silver medal in my opinion. So there’s a lot to study in this, in sports.

Kelsey Bolar:

Yeah. And in talking about the science, of course, we have to keep in mind, we’re talking about individuals and often when it comes to the transgender population, very vulnerable individuals.

And I’m curious in your own life, and since we threw you to the media to talk about this issue publicly, how you balance having compassion for these individuals who in some cases just want to participate in high school sports and in other cases are actually trying to compete in elite levels, such as the Olympics?

Cynthia Monteleone:

Okay. I think there’s. that’s a good point. I actually have a friend who is transgender male to female. Alery is in their, I believe 40’s and has actually gone back and forth a couple of times deciding, has recently had surgery. So it’s pretty much solidified that decision. But I thought I had a long talk with Alery and Alery said something really interesting to me. And that was that one voice does not speak for all of the voices in that community.

And Alery felt that as a person who is identifying as female, they would never ever enter a race where their male dominance would dominate a female. Alery said this is not what being female is about. If you know that your male body, which yes is still has an advantage is going to dominate a female. Then you shouldn’t be entering that race. So I thought that this is an individual who also has compassion and also sees the issue, but is just trying to be themselves. And I think there are a couple of categories of… Like I said, one person does not speak for everyone. So the extremists on the internet do not speak for the whole transgender community. And so that being said, we just have to see everyone as human and also recognize that as humans, there are some not-so-good humans.

And there are those who will take advantage of these rules. And that’s why we have separate bathrooms and separate locker rooms. And we have opportunities for girls to earn scholarships because there are some not-so-good, intended individuals who will take advantage of these prizes, money. I mean, think about all of the money to be won with an Olympic silver medal or the scholarship that can be won by advancing to the state championship, being seen by a recruiter and getting recruited, and getting that scholarship that could have gone to a girl. That’s the whole purpose of Title IX. We have to recognize that there are differences, allow people to express themselves and be themselves, but not take opportunities away from girls and women that we’ve fought so hard and so long for if that makes sense.

Kelsey Bolar:

Absolutely. And the diversity of voices within the transgender community itself is so important to highlight. And it’s actually something that we did in the women’s sports report, where some listeners might be surprised. There are a number of transgender athletes who actually support fairness in women’s sports and protecting women’s sports in these ways. So you can hear their stories along with Cynthia and her daughters and many others. You can read those alongside the science and the research in Independent Women’s Forums Competition Report, which can be found on iwf.org/competition. And before I let you go, Cynthia, you’re such a wealth of information. I have to ask as a metabolic practitioner some advice for those of us who maybe fell off the saddle a little bit during the COVID pandemic, haven’t been working out, or eating as great as we should. What is a good way to kickstart a healthy lifestyle? And what’s your words of encouragement to inspire us to do it?

Because I can tell you I’m… Well, in my defense, I’m seven and a half months pregnant, but I am not as active as I should be.

Cynthia Monteleone:

Yeah. You should be gaining weight Kelsey, that’s good. But yeah, a lot of people they were mentally challenged during COVID and they just fell into a rut because I mean, how depressing that you have to stay in your house and quarantine and all this stress that’s going on can make you gain weight. And I think that there are a lot of different ways. I talk a lot about champion mentality because not only am I a world champion, but like I said, my clients are Olympic and national champions. So I tell them what to eat and what supplements to take for optimal health and performance. So, I guess I’m going to try to nutshell this because there are a lot of different things.

I give advice every day on my Instagram, which is fastover40, @fastover the number 40. And I also have a book that’s very concise in giving some workouts and things like that too and information. But I would say start with protein. A lot of people don’t get enough protein. There are as just as we question the mainstream media about other things, we sometimes have to question where is our nutritional information coming? So I do my own research on nutrition. I have found that the best way to get yourself back in the swing of things is to aim for 1.5 grams of protein per your ideal body weight. So I’m 158 pounds, 5’10, I get minimum 200 grams of protein a day. I exercise three times a week running, I strength train four times a week. You can start by walking up hills.

That’s what I recommend, walking up a hill, maybe 10 times. Time yourself, maybe it takes you about two minutes and 30 seconds to walk up the hill. Eventually, if you feel like you can jog it, that would be awesome. Of course, check with your physician before changing diet, exercise, supplement, all that stuff. But I found that that’s a really key success increasing protein and start moving. So it can start with a walk or you can walk or run hills, but high intensity seems to be better than long slow distance for aging, especially. So when you turn 40, don’t train for a marathon, train for sprinting, it’d be much better for you for oxidative stress and all kinds of things, but just basically get moving. If I were to take one supplement to recommend it would probably be fish oil, omega threes.

It’s got to be a high-quality fish oil, not just one from Walmart or Costco, but I would say that actually in research has caused or has changed people from being depressed and having anxiety to not. So it does a lot of different things. It helps you lose body fat, but yeah, omega-3 or eat some sardines, eat some salmon, fishes that are high in omega-3s. There’s a lot more I could tell you, but that’s a good start.

Kelsey Bolar:

Well, on the front of getting more protein, I certainly hope the Biden administration is able to calm down all this inflation we’re seeing because our steak and meat are not coming cheap these days. And as you pointed out, they are very important to having a balanced diet. So, let’s hope they were able to resolve that.

Cynthia Monteleone:

Yes, right. I’m a very big red meat advocate. In fact, if you look at any of their latest research, anything that’s linked to cancer or anything like that has been debunked. That is not true. Red meat is actually very healthy for you, but there’s an assault on red meat right now because if you start looking into the plant protein business, the current administration is actually pushing that, whether it be in the name of climate change or something else, like whatever their agenda is so that these millionaires like James Cameron, who is the director who created the latest documentary on plant protein.

It was called Game Changers. A lot of people went vegan because of that, but really he just invested so many millions in P-protein, $2 million in P-protein. So it was his commercial for selling P-protein. So always question where that advice is coming from because the whole impossible burger movement is coming from people that want to market their P-protein because it’s cheap to make, it’s cheap to push. And therefore not the quality of protein that you need. It’s cheap in your body too. It’s not going to give you the same effect as beef. So let’s stand up for red meat as well, in my opinion.

Kelsey Bolar:

Well, Cynthia, thank you so much for joining us. Again, if you want to read IWF women’s sports report, which features Cynthia’s story alongside a bunch of science and research on this issue, you can go to iwf.org/competition-report or just Google IWF Women’s Sports Report.

You will find it. Cynthia, for those listening who want to follow you, maybe get some more of these health tips. They probably weren’t expecting to pick up on this podcast today. How can they do that?

Cynthia Monteleone:

The best way is through Instagram @fastover the number 40, fastover40, or my website is very easy to remember. It’s mam M-A-M808.com. mam808.com or mam808.com.

Kelsey Bolar:

Awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate your time.

Cynthia Monteleone:

Mahalo. I appreciate it, Kelsey.

Kelsey Bolar:

We hope you take away something from today’s conversation. And if you enjoyed this episode of She Thinks, or like the podcast in general, we would love it if you could take a moment to leave us a rating or review on iTunes. This helps ensure our message reaches as many Americans as possible. Share this episode and let your friends know. They can find more She Thinks episodes on iTunes, iHeartRadio, TuneIn, Spotify, and all their favorite podcast apps. This is Kelsey Bolar signing off on another edition of She Thinks.