Laurel Hubbard to go to Tokyo

[Biscuitsanddoombar]

Not a surprise and hopefully it’ll open some eyes about the utter ridiculousness of allowing someone who is male to compete against women in weightlifting

www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/may/05/trans-weightlifter-laurel-hubbard-set-to-make-history-at-tokyo-olympics

I hope it shines a spotlight but absolute heartbreak for the woman who missed out on being an Olympian and it's obviously tremendously unfair for the women Laurel will be competing against.

What message doe this send our girls?

Female sport is not visible enough. My daughter had to ask her teacher put put the women's football on at school. (Over wet playtime he used to put sport on) It was always men. Luckily he listened to her. However the most famous sports people are all men, girls need the encouragement . (It came to my attention as Sports Direct are doing some kind of women's sports sponsorship.)

However if this happens what message does this send to our girls that to do well in sport they needed to be born male to compete and win in women's sport.

And deep down these athletes must know they are cheating, deep down they must know that they have a biological advantage.

This was just on the sports news on BBC Five Live and described as 'controversial'.

And deep down these athletes must know they are cheating, deep down they must know that they have a biological advantage.

They do. And they don't care. Mediocre males breaking female records.

This is breaking me.

And I've just spoken about it with my LGDTQ+++ woke dd who sees no problem. She's planning on going into nursing! It's fucking horrendous 😱😱😱

And deep down these athletes must know they are cheating,

Where deep down means something that's blindingly obvious.

@colouringindoors

This is breaking me.

And I've just spoken about it with my LGDTQ+++ woke dd who sees no problem. She's planning on going into nursing! It's fucking horrendous 😱😱😱

Dear lord are you me? My woke teenager is heading for nursing later this year.

Sexnotgender thank you for posting! It's so fkn infuruating! I have literally had to spend this evening in a different room so I don't say something I'll regret... Massive sympathies x

@colouringindoors

This is breaking me.

And I've just spoken about it with my LGDTQ+++ woke dd who sees no problem. She's planning on going into nursing! It's fucking horrendous 😱😱😱

See, this is why everyone saying that it's good that a light will be shone on the unfairness of LH's inclusion, is being wildly optimistic. A few years ago? Maybe. But not now. A TW who campaigned to remove rape victims' right to a female medical examiner has just been appointed to run a rape crisis centre, FFS.

What on Earth makes PPs think that anyone will give a flying fuck about fairness to female athletes? Don't you get it? Women aren't allowed boundaries, we aren't allowed any sex-based facility or rights, and we aren't allowed to talk about it.

Posted the Guardian article on Facebook. Not one like or interaction .. I don't believe any of my friends think it's right, they are just all cowards.

I did the same Molly with the same results. I struggle with the total lack of engagement from my female friends.

@colouringindoors

Sexnotgender thank you for posting! It's so fkn infuruating! I have literally had to spend this evening in a different room so I don't say something I'll regret... Massive sympathies x

I’ve had so many utterly infuriating conversations with her. The worst bit is the unbearable smugness and arrogance. Literally want to scream.

Oh God yeah. Totally. 110% And I worry she has too much of an infuence on ds' thinking about his sexuality.

I know she's only 16. But the temptation to tell her very bluntly about all the shit I've experienced in my life as a result of being a woman is immense.

@colouringindoors

I did the same Molly with the same results. I struggle with the total lack of engagement from my female friends.

As a GC woman, if I saw you had posted a Guardian article on trans issues, I would assume that it was the usual Kool-Aid propaganda, and that you were therefore supporting the TWAW and Be Kind lobby. I probably wouldn't bother reading the article, assuming it would just be the usual misogynistic crap.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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”.

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.

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??????????

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.

@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.

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 .

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.