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

Ridiculous. One consolation is he must have been mortified to have a Woman beat him.

Men don't have more power.

This has to be the stupidest thing ive ever read on mumsnet and I've been here a long time.

Can I just ask.
The testosterone level thing. I read earlier that the males who are transituining need to gave a level of under 10 for a year. But that naturally a woman would never have thus level..
If a woman did have that level would they be allowed to compete? Or would it onlu be achivable wiyh drugs?

"equal" is the word you're after

Like the word I used in my post you mean.

I've long been involved with the provision of female opportunity in a traditionally male sport. I haven't done that to have the spaces we have created to be infiltrated by men at a physical risk to those of us who are natal women

Do people really think that she went through all the trouble of transitioning just so that she could have an advantage in her sport?

Hubbard's dad, as well as bankrolling the new weightlifting association, is a Christian with form for opposing same sex marriage.

In places where being gay is seen as unacceptable (or even criminal) there appears to be more acceptance of trans individuals - see, for example, the Iranian women's football team. Similarly, there appears to be a strong correlation between senior family members with firm homophobic views and trans individuals - see, for example, Cass Carmon, the author of "Toni the Tampon", a children's book to teach that it's not only women and girls who menstruate

I'm not saying that this is the case with Laurel Hubbard, but worth pondering

@Wibblywobblyfoo it would be extremely extremely unusual for a woman to have that much testosterone naturally, so it would be picked up on a drugs test and be an issue. If you could show you had a medical condition that meant you produced that much testosterone then I think you'd be allowed to compete, like Caster Semenya/

Only just worked out that Laurel's Dad is Dick Hubbard. They made some delicious cereals.

So a serial money earner? Interesting.

(I was tempted to say cereal money earner, but can’t have my razor sharp insight diluted by levity).

Sad for the actual born-as-women competitors, who no doubt were afraid to complain about unfairness as they would be labelled intolerant and worse. They should have refused to participate until a separate 'transgender' category was created, but as we know, transgender males would not accept this ....

Can I just ask? The people who think using the wrong pronouns is hurtful, disrespectful and unnecessary.

If I used the right pronouns but still maintained you can’t change sex and women should be able to legally retain their sex based protections, would you still have a problem?

Is it that the debate can’t get off the ground because you feel as though it is starting from a position of disrespect?

I have a dd and there is no point whatsoever in her pursuing sport competitively as there is now no category for the likes of her. She will never be able to successfully compete against men.

I started as a proper pronouns, tw are women, you’re all a bunch of bigots trans ally. The sports issue, Jenner, Madigan, rapists and murdered being sent to women’s prisons started to make me uneasy and question. It was a journey of switching to them/their - still never misgendering - now I don’t want to be forced, manipulated to being forced to using language i think is wrong- that I’m being forced to use, forced to think, to beilieve.

This article on the director of the Bridget Jones trilogy (Sharon Mcguire) was one of the things that really made me sit up. Originally it was written to congratulate McGuire for being the only woman to have directed a Trilogy- especially such a successful one. Then TAs jumped on it and complained- and it was changed to this.

www.bustle.com/articles/183525-bridget-joness-baby-is-the-second-movie-trilogy-with-all-female-directors-but-thats-just-one

And I’d like to apologise for my enthusiasm in slipping in a few too many “forceds” into my rant above. 😳

It's all such double talk. The Matrix was directed by siblings who were publicly known as the Wachowski brothers and used their birth names Larry and Andy on their credits for the movies. They were considered by everyone to be male and treated as men. The trilogy was therefore directed by men. Men who some years later decided that they were women, yes. That doesn't mean that they were women when the Matrix movies were made. They weren't even transwomen then. Bridget Jones is therefore the first trilogy directed by a woman.

When did 'don't discriminate against trans' become 'believe and publicly be forced to state untruths'? I'm more than happy with the first, but I'm an atheist and just as I don't believe I should be discriminated against because of my lack of belief in god I also don't believe I should be discriminated against because I'm gender critical. I don't believe in gender identity. I'm OK with accepting that other people do believe, but they have no right to demand I join in.

Dear old India Willoughby peak-transed me by talking total bollocks on Woman's Hour about the universal female desire for shaved legs or some such stuff. Well done, Willoughby.

When did 'don't discriminate against trans' become 'believe and publicly be forced to state untruths'?

I think we should just paste that on every Twitter thread out there.

This is such a disturbing development and I am so angry about it. I will start using ‘they/them’ for transsexuals now as I haven’t felt comfortable using she/her for mtf before (I do not believe you can become a woman) but also wasn’t comfortable using he/him as I can see how that would be upsetting to a mtf transsexual.

I mentioned this weightlifting news to my husband. I expected him to at least be shocked/bothered by it (he’s generally a feminist) and I was quite taken aback by how he wasn’t, at all. I think it’s a combination of him being liberal (I wouldn’t necessarily talk IRL about this as openly because of liberal friends’ judgments) him not hearing many of these stories (I had to reread that article about the Wachowski siblings as I thought I must’ve been an idiot at the time for not realising the directors were women. These untruths are stated and there’s no awareness of them), and a depressing amount of male privilege.

"Men don't have more power". In other news, the Pope is now Protestant and bears have embraced modern sanitary technology.

Mind you, given that the poster in question is also on a thread about sexual violence dismissing women's worries because "men get objectified too" I don't think they're posting in good faith.

How anyone can look at Hubbard and not be outraged by the blatant cheating is beyond me.

Mind you, given that the poster in question is also on a thread about sexual violence dismissing women's worries because "men get objectified too" I don't think they're posting in good faith.

Ah. Benefit of doubt given, and now withdrawn

That particulr poster won't be back, I think.

If anyone is in any doubt about how old-fashioned you are and how you need re-educating, this linked comment on the thread below demonstrates it.

"In this conversation, I think it’s important we recognise that nobody is “biologically woman”, because saying that suggests there is a real physical difference between cis and trans women, and there isn’t. Trans women are as biologically women as cis women

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3101669-A-Spartacus-letter-re-Jo-Cox-Leadership?msgid=73882800#73882800

Someone mentioned 'gaslighting' up thread......

So female athletes should be allowed to dope with testosterone.

How can some competitors in the same class be allowed testosterone levels of up to 10 and others not?

That's really interesting about the third Bridget Jones because honestly I have never before been to a movie showing where the audience of mainly women all laughed until they cried throughout. Being in the audience for that was amazing really. And now I know why.

Totally agree that this is so wrong.

The problem with not buying tickets for women's events with transwomen competitors, is that it would be assumed that no one wants to watch women's sports - which is part of the reason why women had and still have trouble attracting funding, television audiences and sponsorship etc.

What would speak volumes is for women to buy tickets to the events, then not attend in protest. To stand outside if necessary. We need to show that there is a market for women's sport but not if it includes legitimised cheating.

And on the cheating vs transing "and then oh accidentally being amazingly better than all your female competitors"; Sports people are accepted as being driven, focussed, making sacrifices or choices that many people would not to pursue their success etc and what qualities do sports cheats often exhibit on top of these?

An extra high desire to win - at any/ all costs, a super-need to be validated, approved of, lauded, praised, to be seen as the best, to be rich, famous, to continue a career or identity that they cannot let go of for fear of having nothing else or being 'nobody'? (Sound similar to identity/ personality issues to anyone else?)

These sports cheats will have an internal justification for their behaviour, an excuse that allows them to cheat without (much) guilt, something that legitimises their actions in their own mind despite knowing they break the rules, and they will go to great lengths to keep that internal justification intact so they can keep on cheating and winning, even when they know in themselves that they have cheated and do not legitimately deserve the credit, they still pursue cheating. (Sound similar to transactivists emotional manipulations of fact?)

So with the overlapping traits, I think yes, if you give some people an opportunity to satisfy deeply desired (and poorly controlled) emotional needs and to do so legitimately, then yes, I can see a lot of people(men) transitioning simply to win.

I think the majority of people think that to have transitioned then you've had a sex change.

Yes, until this very moment. I hadn't realised 'to transition' could mean anything else. I got confused with all the terminology.

A transsexual has had the op right? A transvestite dresses like a woman and transgender is no operation?

All born men.