Petition to strip Caitlyn Jenner of Olympic gold medal

Jenner victorious after winning 1500m race at the Montreal Olympics.

A controversial petition urging the International Olympic Committee to "revoke" Caitlyn Jenner's gold medal has been launched on Change.org.

The petition, written in the style of an open letter to the IOC, has already gained almost 9000 signatures.

Jenner, 65, won the medal for the decathlon at the 1976 Montreal Olympics.

She revealed her new name as "Caitlyn" earlier this week in a Vanity Fair article, in which the former athlete explained that she'd always known she was female.

The petition claims that Jenner's victory was therefore "in violation" of "committee rules". Supporters on social media claim that Jenner "cheated" her way to the gold.

Its author, a Jennifer Bradford from Texas, writes:

Dear International Olympic Committee,

It has recently come to light that gold medallist Bruce Jenner is in fact transgender, and therefore, identifies as a woman. We congratulate Ms Jenner on these new developments and wish her the best. However, this creates somewhat of a problem as Ms Jenner (as talented as she is) claims that she has always believed herself to be truly female, and therefore, was in violation of committee rules regarding women competing in men's sports and vice versa.

Therefore, it is with a heavy heart that we must ask whether or not it is proper that Ms Jenner should retain her Olympic records in light of this, as we must now either claim that Bruce Jenner and Caitlyn Jenner are two entirely different people (which we know is not true), or that Bruce Jenner was, in fact, a woman participating in a men's event.

It is only fair to all involved that women receive their credit as champions of the decathlon and that the men racing Ms Jenner are not expected to compete with a superior, streamlined being such as herself.

She goes on to urge that Jenner "support the transgender community by giving up the medals earned by competing against the wrong gender" and ends with the hashtag #givebackthegold.

The petition has caused outrage on social media and sparked the hashtag #dontgivebackthegold.

I'll make this real simple. If you support the #givebackthegold campaign in any way then you're basically the worst sort of human.

— Christopher Turner (@Turnstylin) June 3, 2015

Not a judge in this world would honour the #givebackthegold campaign, completely illogical and just fuelled by hatred and ignorance

— Cherise🌿 (@CheriseConroy) June 3, 2015

These viscous trans phobes who want @Caitlyn_Jenner to #givebackthegold are pathetic. Put that energy into making world better instead.

— Victoria Young (@toriyoung22) June 3, 2015

Some reports suggest that the petition may have been started by trolls on online forum 4chan, which was allegedly responsible for the #Cut4Zayn trend earlier this year.