Laurel Hubbard is the beginning of the end of women’s sports

[steakandcheeseplease]

Not sure if another thread has been started on this. This really is the end. I spent ten years being a sports coach to children. I know males and females bodies are physically different and behave different in sport. This is an absolute tragedy for our young aspiring female athletes. A mediocre male weightlifter rising to the top of the womens ranks purely because of his physiology. Stealing a place that is rightly a females. This is my actual WTF moment.

[https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/laurel-hubbard-is-the-beginning-of-the-end-of-women-s-sports]

The other weightlifters in the competition should just refuse to compete with her.
Completely unfair.

The other weightlifters would be risking their entire career to do that. Many people don’t get a second shot at the Olympics. Of course, someone didn’t get a first shot thanks to Laurel. Megan signal owns a gym. Her business could be destroyed in the backlash. I wish past successful athletes who’ve had their shot would speak up and help normalise saying this is not ok.

@timeisnotaline

The other weightlifters would be risking their entire career to do that. Many people don’t get a second shot at the Olympics. Of course, someone didn’t get a first shot thanks to Laurel. Megan signal owns a gym. Her business could be destroyed in the backlash. I wish past successful athletes who’ve had their shot would speak up and help normalise saying this is not ok.

Exactly - it is the athletes who have retired and who have already had their chance that should be saying something (and not letting the twitter mob shout them down). They have far less to lose.

It's disgraceful isn't it. I'm so sad for the women who have missed out on a place, I really hope someone speaks up soon.

Hopefully Hubbard will win & that will make the unfairness visible to a much wider audience.

I'm hoping the publicity from this will help bring about a change to stop this happening.

I think this began some time ago really, with Caster Semenya as the end of women's sports was certainly evident if you look at the podium placement at the 2016 800m. Here is why.

"The public can see as well."

By competing in the female category Semenya laid the ground work for Hubbard, and Hubbard will not be the only one at Tokyo in the end, I feel certain.

In a way this is useful to those who have been arguing for years that the female category in sport is at risk. It does feel that the news of Hubbard's win and Kuinini Manumua's loss is spreading.

I always think of Katharine Switzer back in 1967 being pulled at and kettled at the Boston Marathon and how it took 49 short years to totally annihilate what she fought for.

@corlan

I'm hoping the publicity from this will help bring about a change to stop this happening.

This^

As TW become more visible in women's sports the more people will realise how unfair it is.

There was a really good article in The Times today setting out all the physiological differences between men and women, and how just looking at hormone levels at a certain point doesn't give athletes a level playing field. It was really interesting.

boysvswomen.com/#/ is a good website to look at visualisations of how elite female athletes compare to high school boys across various sports.

Baffling that anyone can argue this is fair. Utterly baffling.

@purpleboy

It's disgraceful isn't it. I'm so sad for the women who have missed out on a place, I really hope someone speaks up soon.

The inclusion of Hubbard means the exclusion of 21-year-old Tongan weightlifter, Kuinini Manumua. It would have been her first Olympics.

Young women of colour, step aside please.

Young women of colour, step aside please.

For a privileged rich white Male,

If Your Feminism Doesn’t Exclude Women of Colour at To Prioritise Rich White Males Your Feminism is Bullshit.

Apparently.

I don't think it's acceptable that people are saying that see Hubbard will make this more visible and the public will see. The public already see, I know it's different but they saw Semenya and whilst something has happened now it's not all over and it hasn't been properly addressed.

If one woman misses out, it is too much, this needs to be where the bar is set.

Something should be done right now. I would like to see all athletes saying this is wrong, coaches and heads of state. A large group standing up to the IOC and making noise is what is needed. The tread softly slowly approach needs to be thrown out of the window.

If Your Feminism…

Distressing and depressing.

I could howl for for the likely future of women's sports and what it means for the entire research field in this area.

This.

Such a powerful image, timeisnotaline

How do the so-called progressives square the inclusion of one "minority" with the exclusion of another? Not being snarky, I genuinely want to know how they justify this.

A lot of countries are not raising objections yet because they have their own transgender athletes coming through the system, ready to steal even more medals from females. I feel that LH is being used to test the waters, to see how the public will react.
I hope the outcry is loud & clear because women’s sport is finished if it isn’t.

I was particularly shocked to be reminded by the BBC article that a country may enter only one athlete into an event. So NZ have two male entrants in the two events available, excluding female athlete representation altogether.

Inclusion my arse. Nurturing and celebrating male choices and feelings about personal identity ahead of females participating at all? Celebrating a mediocre male athlete ensuring that females are blocked from competing in women's events, setting women's world records out of reach of female athletes, for their own personal glory? The name for this is male supremacism.

I used to admire NZ prime minister Jacinda Ardern, but not anymore...
www.espn.com/olympics/story/_/id/31684661/new-zealand-pm-jacinda-ardern-backs-transgender-weightlifter-olympic-selection

I wonder if she would still support the disgusting and scientifically unfair practice of allowing male-born transwomen in women's sports if her very own daughter were older and missed out on qualifying in her school sports teams because a male-born "woman" performed better than her. Would Jacinda console her daughter by saying "Parties here have simply followed the rules"???

I suspect you are correct Lordamighty. I hope that that enough well argued and persistent cases are put to the OIC to remove the policy that allows males to ever participate in female sports.

I think the OIC has said that after this olympics they are inclined to allow the sporting federations to make their own policies. This will be a very dangerous move, we already believe that these bodies are not interested in preserving female sports (I expect plenty of those making the decisions are also not female).

The OIC needs to have the gumption to admit that them accepting Harper's study as a basis for this decision was the wrong choice and roll back the decision, and in fact, declare that until such time as it can be PROVED with repeated studies that there is a way to include males into women's sports, that they will not be included (like the World Rugby decision).

If this was a progressive, inclusive agenda it would ensure that all benefitted equally and there were no losers. This by definition excludes females and that's supposed to be a good thing .

Grouping by gender will always make female people losers. Where are the transactivists and politicians who are so focused on intersectionality and fairness and diversity and social justice? Why aren't they on this? Why aren't they shouting no, not like this, we need better ways that raise up the full diversity of male athletes without trampling half the human race underfoot?

I don't think Laurel will win. I expect they know the backlash if they do and there's more profit and exposure for them if they get to be the flag bearer of transwomen in sport because hey they didn't win like those nasty feminist said they would.

This is awful.

Why should women risk their careers because the IOC etc are privileged men with no spines and no interest in women’s sport. This is THEIR responsibility and fuck up.

I think the duty is on the men to speak out and say - hey Laurel - come to our side