Laurel Hubbard to go to Tokyo

It’s in the Times too but I’m not a subscriber...

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/transgender-weightlifter-laurel-hubbard-set-to-make-olympic-history-6jzlhm3vn

Telegraph telling it like it is...

www.telegraph.co.uk/olympics/2021/05/07/laurel-hubbards-olympic-games-spot-affront-fairness/amp/

My experience of most coaches is that they will do anything to win. NZ is a country that is both sport and winning at sport obsessed. Unless people in power start to speak out and the women competitors start to show they won't put up with it, I honestly believe we will see more and more of this especially from countries such as China and Russia.

I compete in a different strength sport (powerlifting), and Hubbard has obviously been discussed a lot on related forums.

It is really heartening that, aside from a couple of (male) voices, most competitors in my sport are very clear in their comments that while trans athletes should be able to somehow compete, it shouldn't be at the detriment of women.

It gave me hope 😊

[quote lionheart]www.reuters.com/lifestyle/sports/females-told-be-quiet-transgender-issue-ex-weightlifter-2021-05-07/[/quote]
That's a pretty good, factual report.

Females need to refuse to be silenced - and good men also, should not do nothing. Whoever is doing this silencing needs to learn to listen.

This wouldn’t be an issue in woman’s gymnastics though

Power to weight ratio is everything in gymnastics - it's why some countries allegedly gave puberty blockers to their female gymnasts to retain the prepubertal ratio and not be troubled by the centre of gravity and body fat changes of puberty.

Female snowboarders have come a huge way in a short time because so many of them weren't told that they couldn't do [X]. It's still unlikely that they'd ever manage to avoid training injuries or have the strength and stamina to do the effortless pipe work etc. that even mediocre men do.

Composition of muscle fibres matter - men's is fantastic for this fast twitch stuff like snowboarding and gymnastics.

www.reuters.com/lifestyle/sports/females-told-be-quiet-transgender-issue-ex-weightlifter-2021-05-07/

This wouldn’t be an issue in woman’s gymnastics though.

Did you miss this video being discussed here the other day?

Not with the skimpy ‘uniforms’ they wear

• Problem with power lifting is, it’s a bit niche. If it was a TW gymnast they’d be A LOT of world wide interest.*

I'm cynically inclined to think many men wouldn't care much unless it was beach volleyball.

This wouldn’t be an issue in woman’s gymnastics though. Can you imagine this even being an issue on the floor disciplines (sorry - don’t know what it’s called but I love to watch and the men’s is very different than the womans).

You don’t need the brute strength (as in weightlifting or like in the shootout) but a flexibility and ‘lightness’ (I know that doesn’t make sense but if you think of a male gymnasts solid muscle then look at a tiny wee female gymnast who looks small and light but has amazing strength plus flexibility - jumping and sailing through the air like a bird).

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again (and again).

We need male competitors from the big money sports to come forward.

Ex players who now sit comfortably on the commentary sofas to discover their femininity.

Tennis, golf, F1 & football - all high TV profile, big prize money sports.

Come on; these people have trained and competed, have kids, know what’s going on in the sporting world. Understand the issues. They can’t just be sitting there in the green room going, “yeh, that Sharron Davis she’s a right terf. What the fuck does she know about sport.”

Problem with power lifting is, it’s a bit niche.
If it was a TW gymnast they’d be A LOT of world wide interest.

It’s death by a thousand cuts / gradual colonisation from the periphery.

I was looking to see if the cowardly BBC had put their article on their Facebook page so I could comment. They haven’t. But I came across this article:

www.bbc.co.uk/sport/canoeing/56912858

It highlights the sexism that still needs to be overcome in many sports at the Olympics, and sport in general, yet here we are with Hubbard, the IOC and weightlifting setting that back. It’s also noticeable regarding sexism how the article on Hubbard was prominent on the BBC Sport website but this article about a woman overcoming sexism was buried on the site .

@Mollyollydolly and @colouringindoors yup, I post this stuff on Facebook too, with zero engagement. And I always write a full explanation above the shared article. So no scope for my friends misunderstanding why I'm sharing it!

But I'm not stopping. I know that a lot of folks don't want Facebook to be for politics. They want it for ... Well I don't know actually. We are all much too old for baby photos. But to me, this isn't politics... It's such a deep unfairness & misogyny. I just won't be quiet.

The Fail covered this story yesterday (www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9550329/Transgender-weightlifter-Laurel-Hubbard-set-Tokyo-2020-qualifying-rules-change.html)

The few comments they’ve let through are overwhelmingly negative.

So the best angle I can come up with currently, feeling raged, to my vv woke dd is that you are too young and immature for me to begin to describe even a fraction of what I have experienced (not good things) as a result of being a woman.

And maybe the whole pyramud of girls and women at whose apex is the olympic candidate, who in this case is a male. You're putting this "transwomans" feelings over ALL of them??????????

Currently in NZ. The news coverage on the main TV channel wasn't as celebratory as I expected - there is a clear appreciation of the issues. They interviewed a female ex-weightlifter who said she was really disappointed that a female lifter was missing out on the spot and that she was all for equality in sport, but that 'right now equality is being taken away from us'. She said that other female lifters were asking her what they could do, because it wasn't fair, and the answer was nothing, because every time they tried to speak up they were told to be quiet. The report then had a brief quote from a 'Gender Minorities' person saying that it was encouraging, because trans people faced a lot of barriers to getting involved in sport. It then cut to the NZ Olympic coach who just said that under the current rules, Hubbard met the criteria, so that's how they would be moving forward. The item finished with the female reporter saying that while some would see it as ground-breaking, others would see it as little more than cheating.

Not what I expected at all, but I guess NZ is a very sporty country and strong ideas of fair play are going to come into the debate here, at least in sport.

Even my 10 year old gets it. They did a cross country race recently and the boys and girls ran together. Top 5 boys and top 5 girls go through to the next round. He isn’t particularly a runner (although is generally sporty) and came 30th overall (out of about 190). Only 4 girls finished ahead of him. When I chatted to him about why girls and boys might do sport separately even he could see that it wouldn’t be fair for boys and girls to compete together as “hardly any girls would get through”.

Samantha Bee commenting on the "anti trans" sports legislation going on in the United States:

Ideology makes people stupid I guess. If the roles were reversed, and Republicans were on the trans-women in female sports side, no doubt liberals would be able to see it as anti-scientific nonsense in a second. They would be mocking them like crazy.

But because it's being packaged as "diversity" and "inclusion" and their thought-leaders are going along with it...

Even Caitlyn Jenner recently said that this situation isn't fair.

The comment about puberty conferring an advantage is true. Testosterone hardens bones permanently in a way that is impossible for a natal woman.

I feel awful for the women competing and the woman who placed 3rd and failed to qualify but I really hope Hubbard wins. If Hubbard loses, the pro transwoman-athletes-should-compete-in-the-women's-category brigade will not bother with key factors such as them being way past their prime, them not making their mark in the men's category back when they competed there etc and focus instead on how a woman can beat a transwoman so it's all fair play.

Sunlight on this issue is great, but shit for the women there, losing out because of male cheating. It will be interesting to hear the commentary on this.

So, unless your GC friends already know you are also GC, they may not have commented or liked the post because they assume they won't agree with it.