Linda Blade is a Canadian athlete, coach, and anti-transgender extremist. Blade considers transgender athletes “almost an existential threat to our sport.”
Background
Linda Blade was born on May 26, 1962 in Bolivia. Blade and spouse moved to Nigeria in the 1990s. They returned to Canada after they had a child.
Blade competed in track and field. Blade earned a doctorate from Simon Fraser University in 1994. In 1997, Blade began work as a sports performance coach.
In 2014, Blade was elected as president of the board for Athletics Alberta and was involved in shaping Canadian sport policy. Blade is president of the Edmonton Track Council, and is responsible for overseeing athletics programs across Alberta, including at Kinsmen Field House.
Anti-transgender activism
Blade is a frequent collaborator with Raine McLeod of AB Radical Feminists.
According to a 2021 report by The Canadian Anti-Hate Network, “Blade’s staff bio at the Royal Glenora Club, an Edmonton-based private fitness and social club, describes her ‘struggle to preserve sports for biological females’ as ‘the hill I am prepared to die on.’”
Blade and Barbara Kay wrote the 2021 book Unsporting: How Trans Activism and Science Denial are Destroying Sport.
Blade is involved in anti-trans organization Independent Council on Women’s Sports and maintains anti-trans website N=8. According to Blade, this equation “denotes the number of male born runners it took to change the rules of sport for ALL female athletes in the world across ALL sports.”
Blade was announced as a speaker at a 2023 anti-trans conference by Genspect.
References
Staff report (August 19, 2021). “The hill I am prepared to die on”: The fight against trans women in Alberta. The Canadian Anti-Hate Network https://www.antihate.ca/the_fight_against_trans_women_in_alberta
Yamauchi, Mara (July 2, 2022). Dr Linda Blade and a life in athletics. World Athletics https://worldathletics.org/personal-best/lifestyle/linda-blade-life-in-athletics
Media
WDI (July 7, 2021). Linda Blade about her book, Unsporting: How Trans Activism and Science Denial are Destroying Sport. Women’s Declaration International (WDI) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGIOp-nSB64
(Oct 15, 2022) Linda Blade on the History of Women’s Sports Policy. ICONS – Independent Council on Women’s Sports https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xZNKI5XFic
Stella O’Malley and Sasha Ayad (November 3, 2023) EP 139 – Sex, Politics, and Double-Standards:Trans Athletes in Women’s Sports w/ Coach Linda Blade. Gender: A Wider Lens https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XN0WKGUor_U
Resources
Unsporting (unsporting.com)
N=8 (nequals8.com)
Twitter (twitter.com)