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]

@Wegobshite

My DH who isn’t been very aware of the TWAW debate is shouting at the tv “ He He “ Me & the dog thought he was watching some weird interactive tv show . Then I realised he was angrily shouting at the tv where they are talking about LH competing in the Olympics - My DH is shouting at the tv that “it’s a he not a she” - he even said he noticed that LH armpits has more hair than he has and he is struggling to get his head around this how he is able to compete in the woman’s category 😂😂

His brain is really hurting him at the moment .

As a male who has competed in high level MMA & boxing for many years he’s been in a right strop since watching this on tv today mumbling WTF is going on and he is suddenly starting to understand what I’ve been telling him for ages .
Previously he was well if they aren’t hurting anyone why are you getting so annoyed - now it’s like a little lights gone on in his head and he actually gets what the problem is .

I can only hope that a lot of people who have felt similar to my DH get their lightbulb moment

It is happening in our house. DH is GC in an intellectual sense, but I'm sure at times he thinks I have gone a bit tin-hat about the whole topic, and never raises it himself.

Since the story broke yesterday, he has come stomping into my office at least three times quoting new (to him) outrages about the ridiculousness of the whole situation. He is properly angry - as an ex-sportsman himself, I think this has finally ignited his sense of injustice about what is happening.

He even raised it with DS(13) yesterday (usually it is me who cautiously sows the seeds of critical thinking - we are both conscious that this is a dangerous area and at least three of his classmates have declared themselves trans). DS was absolutely incandescent.

I think this will be a lightbulb moment that a lot of men and boys who haven't engaged or who would rather just live an easy life.

What about Chelsea Wolfe, the US transwoman who is on the BMX team? An alternate, so only if their teammates don't ride, they will. So that is 2 confirmed plus the Italian paralympic transwoman. Going well. Who knew transwomen were such fantastic athletes....

What's to stop teams intentionally recruiting trans women en-masse in the hopes of building a 'female' team that can't possibly be beaten?

Have you seen the women's football team in Iran?

Interesting a trans man is competing in the woman's category.

Now shouldn't they be competing in the mens?

The women's football team:

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/11903290/Eight-of-Irans-womens-football-team-are-men.html?

One of the reasons girls are less likely to continue with sport is that there are so fewer opportunities to turn it into a paying career compared with men. At a time when male footballers were routinely taking home six figures a week, England's most capped female player, Fara Williams, was homeless. Things were beginning to change but now the misogynistic pushback has begun.

I hate the stupid argument that Hubbard might not even win gold, and therefore it doesn't matter. That just means a really mediocre male has stolen an elite woman's place.

Hopefully this links to the excellent post by James Smith PT on this subject:

fb.watch/6hR9ki2VpQ/

This is the discussion in NZ, from the Stuff website, with some other pages supporting them.

"What a lot of people don't understand is the disruption of the endocrine system and the actual significant impact to the human physiology where the brain is actually disconnected from the major vital or organs and function of the human physiology." Kristen Worsley

I do think that it will be Sports and the absolute ridiculousness of men competing in women’s categories will be what makes people realise what’s happening
It’s definitely making the men I know suddenly have a WTF did I just see - 😂 moment
Sports often mean a lot to men in that its a team building and teaching fairness from a young age
As my DH said nothing fair in a man beating a women
He can’t get how a man would want to take a trophy that is for women .
He’s in a right rage over it 😂

I have a friend from China who is tall and there was a lot of interest in sending him off to a specialist kind of boarding school when he was a child, to turn him into an elite volleyball/handball/basketball player. Children there are sent off to specialist sports' schools from a very young age. China is absolutely going to embrace this.

It's been a long time since I studied biology but I would have thought that if your "brain is actually disconnected from the major vital or organs" wouldn't you be either dead or in a vegetative state rather than competing in the Olympics?

I think a lot of countries will embrace it, if they think it will result in medals and records.

To some, winning is all that matters, at whatever cost. They see women’s teams as simply another class to dominate.

If they can dope their way into the record books, they will.
The type of regime that could break Elena Mukhina’s neck in the pressure to achieve gold will have no compunction at all in calling men women. It’s all about the medals and the glory.

There has long been jiggery-pokery around the categories in Paralympic sport with athletes bigging up their issues to get into a class they have more chance of dominating. Some have practically got away with murder. I think this is going to be the same.

I think Semenya was different as there was a lot of obfuscation from the press around her DSD and it wasn't easy to figure out she was actually born male (as were the silver and bronze placed athletes in the 800m at the Rio). It's a lot more obvious that Hubbard was born male. I can only hope that means a different reaction from the public or we are entering a dark time indeed for women's sports.

@EmpressWitchDoesntBurn

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

Yes, agree, looking at this..... competitor, it would be hard to see how they won't win, so here 's hoping.

@Yousexybugger

Out of pure curiosity, I would be really interested to know Jacinda Ardern's real views on this as her statement could be read two ways, as 'them's the rules, nothing to argue about, it's all fair and square', or 'those are the rules, nothing has technically been done wrong so I'm not in a position to really say anything otherwise'.

Yes, I wondered that. ''All the rules were followed'' doesn't really let us know what she really thinks.

the brain is actually disconnected from the major vital or organs and function of the human physiology.

Oh, is this Sally Hines?

I remember the time when Oscar Pistorius identified as 'differently abled' and competed in the 400m race in the 2012 Olympics (not the Paralympics). By finishing second in the first heat attention was drawn to his blades and a lengthy investigation was held, to ask if he was competing at an advantage.

It raised a sensible question about what was fair and what wasn't fair. I wonder if the IOC need reminding about this episode of their history.

@NecessaryScene Sorry, wasn’t Stuff, it was the New Zealand Herald www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/support-for-first-new-zealand-transgender-olympic-athlete-laurel-hubbard-grows/OMMTAJ2U4UT72HQW74QH2CKXAI/ a comment from Kristen Worley.

@RandomMess

Have you seen the female Chinese relay team?

I have and I have a photo of them somewhere...

A picture paints a thousand words but sometimes it just paints one.

I admire The Spectator for highlighting this but it's an insult to all the female athletes (including many cyclists and basketball players and no doubt other sportswomen) who have ALREADY had their goals and records and accolades taken away from them.

I think it may be a light bulb moment because, sadly, most men have only woken up to the impact of the extreme trans movement on women when it comes to sport (though they might have noticed a few cyclists etc etc).

Perhaps someone can explain the other impacts to them, like the potential of self identification, the no platforming of women who have tried to explain and have been threatened with death/rape or lost their jobs.

Odd it takes one trans woman qualifying for an Olympic position for men (and a lot of under 30 woke of either sex) to think about the issues.

@Onthetrain75

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.

Got a link? I can’t find it.

I've been looking forward to watching the Olympics with my DC. I now think we're going to have to avoid a lot of it. How can I sit and watch women's events with trans athletes in with my DDs? What answer can I give when they ask why there are men in the women's events (and they will, they're not stupid). The Olympics are meant to be inspirational to the young

Big burn