How can a male win 2 silver medals in a women’s World Championship event

[bambambini]

Laurel Hubbard from New Zealand has just won 2 silver medals in the women's events in the Weightlifting World Championships in the US. Laurel at 39yrs old is much older than the other female competitors and has only really excelled in the sport to this level in the past few years for some reason.

www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=11954269

I'm at the stage where I wish women would not buy into this. I do understand it's their life and career and that's important - and yet the other 1/2 of my brain screams "you are so fucking docile about this". IABU I guess, as any stance against this nonsense means they'll be accused of discrimination.

But I want women to wholesale refuse to compete, if they are pitched against men. It's cheating. I absolutely refuse to call Laurel a woman. Laurel is a male cheat. & will continue to gain money and medals via cheating.

If women withdrew en masse, how appealing would womens' athletics be to audiences and sponsors if the sport were populated by men "transitioning", I wonder? I suppose the risk would be that it would very quickly become a norm, and women would lose out.

But they'll lose out anyway if this thievery is allowed to continue so, what odds. What's the actual point in a woman training to her peak, if the odds are mightily stacked against her from the start? She'll lose against someone who was born a male and in these instances, is still male.

There are lots of people out there who think these cases are isolated, it won't be widespread. But one day it will, and I don't think trans trenders will be acceptable in the particular ways they/ trans activists seem to think they will be.

This is nothing more than stealing.

Tell the men that women's beach volleyball could involve a different sort of balls altogether. That'll get their attention.

I just find it funny that 'she' had an absolutely enormous advantage over everyone else and yet still couldn't win

All that pony tail growing was for nought really.

I don't think anyone on MN would wish ill on Laurel Hubbard as an individual. We're a fairly tolerant bunch - Laurel can call herself what she likes, dress how she likes, live as she wants. I'm even happy to respect Laurel's wishes and use the "she" pronoun.

But Laurel cannot rewrite biology - Laurel is biologically male and that will not change. Laurel is a transwoman, not a woman. Laurel should not be competing in a women's competition. If that makes Laurel unhappy well that's all very sad, but Laurel's rights do not trump the rights of all other women.

Yeah what changebags said

Actually I don't think it is any more disrespectful to call a man "he" when he wants to be known as "she" than it is to insist that this man can now dismiss my experiences and essentially who am by assuming my sex as his.

I am a woman. I have lived as a woman. I went through all the difficult stuff that men don't have to - and you didn't - and now YOU want to PRETEND that you are LIKE ME!!!!!

I agree luna

Re Hubbard placing 2nd; clearly Hubbard and coach are aware of the opposition and resentment to Hubbard (and likely outrage if Hubbard won), and it occurred to me that this could be a psychological and/or strategic factor in Hubbard not lifting enough to win.

It would be smart of a transwoman in Hubbard's position to do just enough to place well/ medal but not too much so as to not to rock the boat too hard, therefore making their advantage appear ambiguous.

This could be easy to achieve in a sport like weightlifting where depending on your turn, you might know how much you need to lift to win or lose. Much harder to judge in a sport that needed a timed lap for example and not knowing how fast your competitors were going.

Not saying this happened... just that it would be a smart tactic to employ in the face of some opposition.

I think silver medal is pretty bloody amazing for a 39 year-old - anyone would think they'd have to have had some sort of unfair advantage to have done so well, given the stats:

Olympic Medalists' ages for weightlifting:

Men
56kg: 28 / 22 / 19
62kg: 26 / 26 / 27
69kg: 26 / 24 / 22
77kg: 26 / 27 / 25
85kg: 24 / 24 / 22
94kg: 24 / 23 / 20
105kg: 26 / 24 / 20
105+kg: 30 / 29 / 25

Women
48kg: 22 / 25 / 23
53kg: 24 / 24 / 24
58kg: 24 / 25 / 29
63kg: 24 / 22 / 23
69kg: 22 / 22 / 23
75kg: 24 / 23 / 24
75+kg: 23 / 22 / 24

The world has gone mad. I just watched an interview with him. He looks like a man, he sounds like a man, he is the shape of a man but yet he is not a man? And we have to say that he is a woman?

In 1984 Orwell wrote "Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows." We are heading into a world where we have to agree that two and two make five.

Murals those stats are staggering

Laurel Hubbard is now competing in the Commonwealth Games:

www.bbc.co.uk/sport/commonwealth-games/43688627

I didn't want to start a new thread. But I agree there is still an unfair advantage and don't see why this should be allowed to happen.