How Is It Fair When a Male Weightlifter Competes Against Women?
by Michael Brown, Charisma:
The performance was stunning, as New Zealand weightlifter Laurel Hubbard absolutely smoked the competition, beating her nearest competitor, a Samoan woman, by nearly 20 kilograms. The only problem is that Laurel is a biological male, born Gavin, which is why a number of the competitors felt the competition was unfair.
But of course it’s unfair. Hubbard is a male, not a female, and even after months of hormone treatments, he still has unfair advantages over the other women, who sacrificed for years to make it to this elite level, only to lose to a man. How is that right?
As one woman tweeted in response to this news, “Imagine training for this your whole life, as a woman, only to have a known leader in men’s weightlifting take your title.”
Gavin Hubbard had “previously competed at a national level in men’s weightlifting,” making it all the more absurd that he would now be competing against women, which is why his presence was “met with criticism from Australian competitors who believe a transgender athlete in the female weightlifting category was not an equal playing field.”
Not an equal playing field indeed—no more than it was an equal playing field when a female high school wrestler taking testosterone defeated all the other girls she wrestled against (she’s on hormone treatments as part of her “transitioning” to male) and no more than it was an equal playing field when a male-to-female mixed martial artist manhandled (literally) her female opponents.
After the wrestling competition, Patti Overstreet, the mother of another wrestler, said, “She’s standing there holding her head high like she’s the winner. She’s not winning. She’s cheating. It’s not equal. It’s never going to be equal.”
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