Benjamin Ryan

SCOOP: Mamdani Identified as Asian and African American on College Application

🧵⬇️I report with @DanaRubinstein and @NPFandos for @NYTimes: Zohran Mamdani, the Democrat running for mayor of New York City, was born in Uganda. He doesn’t consider himself Black but said the application didn’t allow for the complexity of his background. @ZohranKMamdani

GIFT LINK: 
SCOOP: Mamdani Identified as Asian and African American on College Application

I report with @DanaRubinstein and @NPFandos for @NYTimes
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/03/nyregion/mamdani-columbia-black-application.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Tk8.dq-_.OgG4Ktak82Hp&smid=url-share

These are the questions @Columbia posed to applicants about race and ethnicity during the 2009-2010 application cycle when Zohran Mamdani applied. He indicated that he was both Black or African American and Asian. 

“Most college applications don’t have a box for Indian-Ugandans, so I checked multiple boxes trying to capture the fullness of my background,” said @ZohranKMamdani, a state lawmaker from Queens.

The archive of the application form:  https://web.archive.org/web/20100613131247/http://www.studentaffairs.columbia.edu/admissions/sites/admissions/files/webfm/firstyearapp.pdf

The @NYTimes article I co-reported on Mr. Mamdani's application to Columbia: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/03/nyregion/mamdani-columbia-black-application.html

Tennis legend @Martina Navratilova doesn't mince words, referring to trans women as "male athletes who 'identify as women'" and insists that even with hormonal treatment they maintain performance advantages in women's sports. 1/
https://genspect.org/martina-navratilova-five-years-later/

I'll post studies examining the competitiveness in sports of transgender women compared with cisgender women in the thread: "The 15–31% athletic advantage that transwomen displayed over their female counterparts prior to starting gender affirming hormones declined with feminising therapy. However, transwomen still had a 9% faster mean run speed after the 1 year period of testosterone suppression that is recommended by World Athletics for inclusion in women’s events." 2/ https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/55/11/577.full

"In contrast, despite significant decreases in muscle cross-sectional area, lean body mass and strength after 12–36 months of hormone therapy, values remain higher than that in cisgender women...It is possible that transwomen competing in sports may retain strength advantages over cisgender women, even after 3 years of hormone therapy.” 3/ https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/55/15/865

"After two years of both gender affirming hormone therapy and elite-level swimming training, swimming performance times by a transgender woman were slower by ∼5% across all measured swimming event distances. Despite slower performances, the transgender woman swimmer experienced improvements in performance relative to sex-specific NCAA rankings, including producing the best swimming times in the NCAA for two swimming events." 
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.12.28.21268483v1.full

4/
https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4850&context=lcp 

"Thus, the muscular advantage enjoyed by transgender women is only minimally reduced when testosterone is suppressed." 5/
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40279-020-01389-3

Keith Olbermann, meanwhile, approaches the question of fairness in transgender athletes' participation in competition like so: 
https://x.com/KeithOlbermann/status/1697059745142542540?s=20

@Riley_Gaines_, a former collegiate swimmer who competed against trans swimmer Lia Thomas and has become outspoken in her campaigning to exclude trans women from women's sports, celebrates a move in Nebraska to do so: https://x.com/TeamPillen/status/1697273240857505942?s=20