Laurel Hubbard to go to Tokyo

Just read the new bbc article about it www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-57549653

It’s interesting they pit it as inclusion versus fairness. Surely fairness is what it should be about? Inclusion in sports like this makes no sense especially with the male and female categories. I don’t get to include myself in the Paralympics because it’d be more inclusive to have someone outside the original eligibility criteria.

I saw this morning. It is ridiculous

It looks like a Tongan woman called Kuinini Manumua is the woman to miss out, will not get to call herself an Olympian:

That poor woman. I am so angry.

Victory for inclusion? What a f#%%% joke.

‘Poor caster semenya’, I don’t think so. Has known they are a male for a long time, lives ‘as a man’ the rest of the time - google wedding pictures. I’m sure the initial shock of discovering that you have a dsd is awful but - life can be tough. Has benefited financially from competing in women’s sports having gone through male puberty.

Just looked, Tonga has only had a total of 43 Olympians EVER. How special would it have been if Manumua had been one too?

It looks like a Tongan woman called Kuinini Manumua is the woman to miss out, will not get to call herself an Olympian:

mobile.twitter.com/mar_vickers/status/1406769907258335234

Shame on all those involved.

It looks like it’s been confirmed they will compete in the women’s 87kg category.

www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/sportsnews/article-9707053/Olympics-Transgender-weightlifter-Laurel-Hubbard-selected-New-Zealands-team.html

So can a female competitor identifying as a trans women and inject herself with testosterone to increase levels but to just below the cut off allowed for men?

Though surely if TWAW they have to abide by female levels? Talk about having your cake and eating it!

GonadTheGaul

This year, Semenya won the South African 5000m event and is currently trying to set a qualifying time for the Tokyo Olympics. This is pretty much what I predicted would happen when the authorities simply stopped Semenya competing at the shorter events.
It is wrong, everyone knows it is wrong, but I really don't know how we can get this to change.

Caster Semenya is biologically male and has a disorder of sexual differentiation leading to appearing externally female at birth. It must be a horrible situation to grow up thinking you’re a girl and then, when you don’t develop normally for a girl at puberty, to discover as an older teen or young adult that you’re actually male. Semenya does get the benefit of testosterone’s effects in enhancing athletic performance and therefore should not be competing in the female category in my opinion. The sad thing is the huge number of women who have been displaced from medals and places in competitions by Semenya. The rules need to change to ensure fairness for women, and keep women’s competitions for females only. The sports governing bodies need to find a way for trans athletes and those with DSDs that give them an advantage to compete fairly in other categories.

But you betcha that tras have used the circumstances of intersex athletes as a wedge issue.

If CS succeeds in overturning the ruling that she should suppress her natural levels of testosterone then trans athletes will demand the same.

The rules for Semenya have (roughly) ended up the same as for transgender males - lowered testosterone is required.

Semenya has been challenging the need to lower testosterone.

Is it just me or does it seem unfair that poor caster semenya has to go through endless humiliating treatment, yet some transgender woman can get through and play on the women's team? Haven't rtft so correct me if I've got it wrong..

Hopefully more athletes will follow the example set by this brave woman and comment on the clear unfairness of this...

"When the qualifying process for Tokyo ends tomorrow Hubbard will be guaranteed a place.

Until now, none of Hubbard's rivals has spoken on the controversial rules that appear to give the New Zealander a huge and, to many, unfair advantage.

Athletes from the United States and Britain are potentially adversely affected but, understandably, they and their National Federations have shown no desire to comment on the controversy.

Anna Vanbellinghen of Belgium has broken the athletes' silence with a considered statement on Hubbard’s achievement."

www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1108399/anna-vanbellinghen-hubbard

Iain Dale radiating strokey beard ‘it’s been suggested women might be actual ppl but you know men’ vibes. He’s getting his arse handed to him

twitter.com/iaindale/status/1399293084962365441?s=21

www.standard.co.uk/sport/sport-olympics/transgender-weightlifter-laurel-hubbard-olympics-bad-joke-anna-vanbellinghen-b938073.html?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1622451852

Allowing transgender weightlifter Laurel Hubbard to compete at the Olympics is unfair and "like a bad joke", says rival Anna Vanbellinghen.

Vanbellinghen, who competes in the same +87kg division as Hubbard, said she fully supported the transgender community but the principle of inclusion should not be "at the expense of others"

[quote EmbarrassingAdmissions]

She says the thinking was that "if you lower an athlete's testosterone levels (of someone) who was XY chromosome that somehow that is going to match somebody who is XX. No, you're making that XY chromosome person completely unwell, long term in sport and to end of life, thinking that's going to somehow assimilate to somebody who is XX chromosome (who doesn't need testosterone to stay well)."

(Now) Veronica Ivy claimed it was a violation of human rights for any suppression or medical intervention to be deemed necessary.

McKinnon believes subjecting trans women to testosterone blocking violates their human rights.

eu.usatoday.com/story/sports/olympics/2018/01/11/these-transgender-cyclists-have-olympian-disagreement-how-define-fairness/995434001/[/quote]
I don't disagree. Just rewrite that more clearly with 'male' and 'female' instead of 'XY person' and 'XX person' , and accept that it's wrong to allow (not 'subject' - no one is forcing them) males to compete in the female category, and then move on to find a better solution rather than persisting on a route which is unfair and unsafe for women.

It does seem so there Sparticus.

How can we say to future athletes, “Sorry, but you do understand that you have lost this competition before you even leave the dressing room .”

Well by the ideology we should apparently be explaining to them that they should be proud and happy to be merely providing a nice, affirming context by their presence for more important people than them to be celebrated and to achieve. #servicehuman

I heard that Hubbard had had a 'career ruining' elbow injury and was thought to be unlikely to compete again.



She says the thinking was that "if you lower an athlete's testosterone levels (of someone) who was XY chromosome that somehow that is going to match somebody who is XX. No, you're making that XY chromosome person completely unwell, long term in sport and to end of life, thinking that's going to somehow assimilate to somebody who is XX chromosome (who doesn't need testosterone to stay well)."

(Now) Veronica Ivy claimed it was a violation of human rights for any suppression or medical intervention to be deemed necessary.

McKinnon believes subjecting trans women to testosterone blocking violates their human rights.

eu.usatoday.com/story/sports/olympics/2018/01/11/these-transgender-cyclists-have-olympian-disagreement-how-define-fairness/995434001/

@trancepants it seems like madness to go ahead with the Olympics. It will be interesting to see whether New Zealand take part should they go ahead.

A decent get out for them.

I was watching an item on the news the other night about whether or not the Olympics should go ahead in Japan due to rising Covid cases. It included speculation that NZ may not attend as it will cost lives and potentially hurt their zero Covid strategy. And all I was thinking was that I bet NZ would absolutely love for the games to be cancelled because of Hubbard. It would give them 3 years to potentially get off the hook and have the IOC make decisions that would save them from possibly being front an centre of this debate.

I've posted this elsewhere. Here it is again.

This article is amazing. A former trans athlete claims that the tests they underwent before being allowed to compete were 'violations' and that 'the Olympics' are not set up to properly accommodate trans athletes. 



“Transgender rules changed in 2015 and Worley says progress has been made to ensure that Hubbard is not subjected to the same "violations" she suffered.



But Worley worries there will be serious health and wellbeing consequences for Hubbard in meeting the anti-doping requirements at these games."

The gist seems to be that this person believes that the testosterone requirements are too rigid.



"Worley explains to The Detail why she believes the Olympics are not ready for Hubbard. She thinks the system is still failing her, due to the strict testosterone limits which put Hubbard's health at risk.



"It’s like taking the gas out of the car," says Worley. "When you lose testosterone in your physiology it’s like the car starts to shake when you take the petrol out of it. Certain functions of the body decrease or even stop functioning altogether."



Further, 

" "Everybody needs hormones, it’s just that we need different types of hormones depending on chromosome type you are. And that's the problem, we've tried to homogenise gender, and we've tried to compare apples with oranges.



She says the thinking was that "if you lower an athlete's testosterone levels (of someone) who was XY chromosome that somehow that is going to match somebody who is XX. No, you're making that XY chromosome person completely unwell, long term in sport and to end of life, thinking that's going to somehow assimilate to somebody who is XX chromosome (who doesn't need testosterone to stay well)."



So there are sex-based biological differences and when it comes to those born as males needing testosterone these need to be acknowledged ... but when it comes to the advantages in weight-lifting that males have over females they need to be ignored.

www.stuff.co.nz/sport/women-in-sport/300309941/the-detail-kiwi-athlete-laurel-hubbard-set-to-be-first-transgender-olympian-but-why-did-it-take-so-long