A transgender skateboarder who beat a 13-year-old girl to win an event has defended her victory, saying “I’m not buff or anything”.
Ricci Tres, 29, started taking hormones to transition as a woman after feeling “guilty” about cross-dressing as a child.
Tres, formally known as Richard Batres, was married to a woman and has three kids.
Last week, she won a skateboarding final in the female category at the Boardr Open in New York, beating Shiloh Catori, 13, to the title.
Ricci Tres
Instagram
Tres won an open skateboarding competition in New York last week
John Walton
The competition invited children and adults to complete against each other.
The 29-year-old has been slammed for beating children to the title, but Tres doesn’t see the problem.
She said: “I’m not going to go and be easy on them because they’re kids.
“It’s funny it’s what I am getting beat up over the most, people saying ‘you’re beating little kids, little girls’.
“I didn’t intend to do that. This is the first one I’ve been to that I actually wanted to win....the age thing doesn’t really count.”
Speaking about why she began her transition, Tres told the Daily Mail: “It was the thought of the fact that I’ve lived 27 years with these little guilt over random things that I didn’t give myself time to understand like cross-dressing...finally I just came to the realisation that I am female, have a lot of female energy and that is what I prefer to be.”
She added: “I don't think I have physical advantage. Look at me. I'm not buff or anything.
“I don't work out really, I just skateboard. And I don't think skateboarding has anything to do with physicality, especially when you look at kids these days.”
