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Allow me to tell of numerous conversations I’ve been having with Pippa York during endless hours on the route of the Tour de France. Pippa was born Robert Millar in Glasgow 62 years ago, the son of Bill and Mary. For the first four years everything seemed normal. The boy was sent to the local primary school and straight off, first day in the school yard, he has an epiphany.
“At a break we all went outside and there was a natural division between boys and girls. Literally a railing: on one side, boys, the girls on the other. I wanted to be with the girls, but knew that I’d be in trouble with some of the bigger boys if I did that. I’d already seen a small kid who was considered ‘wimpy’ being picked on. So I joined in with the boys and hoped I wouldn’t be noticed.”
At home, he would wait until it was safe to try on his sister’s clothes and, from the money he earned delivering newspapers, he secretly bought girls’ clothes. All the while, he yearned to be a girl and felt comfortable in girls’ clothes, only to afterwards feel guilty about a need he did not understand. Lost between who he was perceived to be and the female he wanted to be, he became obsessive about the sport of cycling.
Training for five or six hours each day, dealing with the exhaustion that followed, fixating on diet and rest — all of this left little time for anything else. The pursuit of a professional contract was not an ambition but a means of survival. The gender dysphoria was suppressed, but it could never be made to go away. The need to be female remained. I know enough now about York’s life to understand that though she is now where she wants to be, it would have been better had it happened sooner.
All the terrific success she achieved in her life as Robert Millar she would have given away if she had been able to transition as a teenager or a young athlete. The time in York’s company has had an eye-opening effect.
n considering the case for and against Hubbard’s selection for the Olympics, my first reaction is to empathise with the journey that she has endured to get to where she has. The child of a former mayor of Auckland, she was born a biological male but from an early age felt she was a female trapped in a male body. She chose weightlifting in the belief it would make her feel and look more male. It didn’t work and eventually, like York, she transitioned.
After transitioning she returned to her sport, took the medication that lowered her testosterone level to below the required level for 12 months, and complied with all the International Olympic Committee (IOC) guidelines.
Brett Favre, once a star quarterback in the NFL and now a podcaster, isn’t a fan of Hubbard’s inclusion: “It’s a man competing as a woman. . . Males cannot compete against females.”
Tracey Lambrechs once competed for New Zealand in weightlifting and she too is not enthusiastic. “I’m quite disappointed for the female athlete who will lose out on that spot,” she said. “We’re all about equality for women in sport but right now that equality is being taken away from us.
“I’ve had female weightlifters come up to me and say, ‘What do we do? This isn’t fair, what do we do?’ Unfortunately, there’s nothing we can do, because every time we voice it we get told to be quiet.”
The argument against Hubbard relates to the strength and power that she will have accumulated from 34 years living as a man. How can this be fair on biologically female rivals? Studies, mostly on non-athletes, show that the lowering of their testosterone level only partially diminishes the strength advantage enjoyed by trans women. Hubbard is not expected to win the gold medal at Tokyo, although she is a contender for silver or bronze.
Perhaps over time results will show that trans women weightlifters enjoy a significant advantage, and then it will be up to the IOC to review its guidelines. In the interim we should allow Hubbard to compete without rancour. She is painfully shy, does not do interviews and four years have passed since she addressed questions about her situation.
Admitting that she understood people’s reservations about her involvement in female sport, she said: “I am who I am. I’m not here to change the world. I just want to be me and just do what I do.”
From someone who has broken no rules, it’s not much to ask.