First transgender athlete to compete at Olympics, Tokyo 2020(21?)

Link

Laurel Hubbard will compete in the women's 87kg weightlifting category. Her testosterone levels are below the threshold.

Does the fact that she was born a man matter? What are your thoughts PG? Is it fair, unfair, doesn't matter because it allows for more inclusion?

I don't agree with it. Hubbard was born male and went through puberty as a male. She has unfair advantages such as increased muscle and bone density.

Well at the very least this will provide a very public metric to base future decisions on based on her performance.

I wonder if they will plan out a strategy for her to win, but like dial it back a little bit so she only wins by a tiny little bit lol.

I disagree with this wholeheartedly btw, I don't think it is fair to cis female athletes that have been female their entire lives to compete with someone that went through puberty as a male.

*Also I don't have anything against the trans community, so please don't accuse me of bigotry. I fully support a person's right to identify as whatever they like, have sex with whoever they like, and marry whoever they like.

This is a discussion of keeping a level playing field, the only difference here is we are talking about genetic advantage instead of, say, blood doping.

It doesn't make sense to me that this would be allowed and performance-enhancing drugs would not.

However, the IOC’s decision has recently come under fire after scientific papers were published which said that people who have undergone male puberty retain significant advantages, including in power and strength, even after taking medication to suppress their testosterone levels.

Last year, the scientists Emma Hilton and Tommy Lundberg found that the male performance advantage in weightlifting was 30% when compared to women. Their research indicated that even when transgender women suppressed testosterone for 12 months, the loss of lean body mass, muscle area and strength was only around 5%.

Sounds like bullshit to entertain the far-left.

Don’t people have more important things to worry about? With all the things going on you worry about some dude that wants to be a dudette? This is why China is taking over.

@uninspiredcup: More like nonsense for the right to get riled up about. Priorities. This doesn’t matter:

"Don't care about it, if you do you're right-wing"

This isn't Tumblr my freind.

@uninspiredcup: Because that’s what I said. Oh wait, no I didn’t.

Per you: Sounds like bullshit to entertain the far left.

🧐 Hypocrisy?

Uh.

They should create transgender women and men competition in the Olympics. She is Biologically still a men you can’t change that and i am pretty sure she will rank top 3. People forgot how hard women had to fight to be taken serious in sports and still do

@thenation: My friend, attempting to dismiss it with nothing but an emotional appeal, slights and self-imposed ignorance is caring.

Repeating a condensed version of this to highlight how silly it is, is not hypocrisy nor how hypocrisy works.

Data was posted and used to imply reality is potentially being purposefully ignored.

To which, you proved this point by demanding reality be purposefully ignored.

Thus the dark circle is complete.

Don’t agree with this, no.

Remember, being a woman is so easy, so trivial, any man can do it.

so this?

Quite honestly I don’t even see this as a problem.

@kadin_kai: You don’t see it as a problem for the female athletes?

@comp_atkins: that was exactly what I was thinking of when I said that hhahaha

How so? Genuinely interested in your perspective, not trying to give you a hard time.

@mrbojangles25: Firstly there is a difference between sex and gender identification.

Imagine being born a sex but you identify yourself as a different gender, how hard would life be if the rest of society fails to acknowledge you.

So from my perspective it’s better to accept this natural occurrence. One way of accepting this is allowing transgenders to participate in the gender they see fit, in sport and all other aspects of society.

@sealionact: Is it unfair to those born biologically female? No, not really. There are biological differences between ethnicities do we begin to favour one ethnicity over another?

Moreover in sport, it’s more than bone density and muscle, there are learned skills, technique, stamina, training, perseverance and it all comes into play.

I recognize and accept that in many regards, but it's also important to consider the feelings of others. Imagine spending your whole life training to compete for the Olympics as a cis female athlete, only to have your chances of winning on an even playing field stolen away from you because a biological male (trans female) with an innate advantage gets to compete because they identify as a woman.

That's not fair, either.

Transsexuals' are nothing new and have existed for over a century, but of late they have made inroads into being accepted into society, which is great. With that said, I think you need to draw the line sometimes; not from a place of bigotry, but from a place of objectivity and fairness.

Sometimes one needs to be the bigger person and say "You know what, that's fair. I get it. I do have an unfair advantage and even though I feel I should compete from a social standpoint, I know objectively it would be unfair to these people that have, in a sense, struggled as much as I have."

We don't favor ethnicities over another, no, but we treat them differently in objective senses. Black people, for example, need to have different medicine in many cases. In fact, it has actually led to complications because doctors treat black patients the same as white patients (it is part of our systemic racism problem around the world).

My point is, you make allowances for these differences. Not from a place of racism or bigotry or anything malevolent, but from a place of objectivity and because it matters.

Your point about sports is true to an extent, but all things being equal, it often comes down to physicality. You take two people off the street, give them equal training in boxing, 95/100 times the bigger guy will win. That's the truth, that's why weight classes exist; the bigger person is stronger, taller, has greater reach, and so on.

I do. It's an unfair advantage.

Problem with your argument is that the bone density and muscle you spoke of gives someone born a male an advantage even before the competition begins. They can train harder, have better stamina and fatigue slower when training.

It’s absolutely not fair for female athlete, and it’s also not fair to a trans athlete of they win….because it doesn’t matter how hard they trained, they’ll always have that unfair advantage hanging around their neck.

Your argument about biological differences between ethnicities is just bizarre.

It is an absolute travesty and a joke that this has been allowed to go this far.

If you compare Hubbard's max lift both pre/post transition, there is roughly a 5% difference between the two.

Then compare max lifts in any weight class, between men and women of the exact same weight, and there is more like a 30% difference.

Then add in the fact that Hubbard is 43, when the average age of the females in this category is 24, and you'll see how unjust this is.

What's crazy is the people who advocate so hard for Hubbard to compete, seem totally cool with the fact that an indigenous biological female will lose her spot at the games, so that a white biological male, and also the son of a millionaire can take her place. Such justice!

Nobody forced you into this thread bud. If it's so inconsequential to you, why are you here commenting?

Who are you to tell people what should/shouldn't matter to them?

@appariti0n: I don’t answer to you, this is a free and open forum and I can post wherever I want bud.

I have a right to express my opinion on anything I want, just because you don’t agree with it doesn’t mean I am telling you what to think.

Says the guy who literally just told someone else what they should/shouldn't be worried about.

Btw, welcome back Yessir.

@appariti0n: 🤦‍♂️ I didn’t, but whatever.

@thenation: Aww, dropping the appariti0n = Eoten theory now are we?

Lol nonsense? Speaking of China taking over that could have to do with the fact their military doesn't entertain this type of bullshit. Ours on the other hand panders to it even creating gender neutral fitness test so more women can pass.

@horgen

Something is going on with this thread specifically. Dropped from 30 posts to 28 suddenly, and I am getting notifications for posts that aren't here.

Edit: Sent a note to the mod team as well.

Users might delete their own posts after posting them. The notification doesn't go away and the counter might go down.

Weird, ok thank you!

@mrbojangles25 Thanks, I'll take what you said as a compliment. Was kinda thinking of running with it for a while though :P

I deleted a post.

Yes. Two replies from that nation fellow are missing.

Most likely realized the hole was about to reach China.

@uninspiredcup: LOL. Took me a minute to get your joke. Was thinking of the hole in the ozone layer for some reason.

@uninspiredcup: Or more likely I was sick of getting notifications of you and apparition running your mouths in my inbox. But whatever helps you sleep at night.

But by all means, continue being mad over something irrelevant. 😉

@LJS9502_basic: What if she does not win a medal?

It's an unfair advantage. Biologically males and females are different. Either we allow them to compete in the genetic profile they were born with or they cannot compete. We can't bend over so far that we are unfair to other groups. I get they shouldn't be discriminated against but allowing male DNA to compete against female DNA is discrimination of another kind.

agreed, but if a female comes along with a genetic mutation to make her muscles grow slightly larger or allow her blood to carry more oxygen than a "normal" female, that is also unfair to the "normal" female, is it not? the "normal" female is not competing on an even playing field either.

Hypotheticals now?

@comp_atkins: Right. Modern high level sports is mostly a genetic lottery at this point, and I think I'm pretty much fine drawing the line wherever.

It's really not a hypothetical at all, outside of the specific mutation he mentioned. There's an entire industry within professional sports to deduce the likelihood of success at high level competition based on a number of physical attributes. and how they interact with other physical attributes - and it's pretty darn good at predicting success statistically speaking. It may not be the specific genetic mutation he spoke of, but perhaps height, hand size, BMI, proportionate hip flexor strength, wingspan, etc.

I would argue that said mutation is random and therefore as likely to occur in any of the other competitors as it is the one in question, and therefore not unfair. I think it is more "luck" at that point than an objectively unfair advantage.

With that said, it was long thought that Kenyan and Ethiopian runners had genetic advantages, but ultimately it was just because they train at high altitude, spend their lives walking and running everywhere instead of driving, and have a culture that idolizes professional runners and encourages that whole thing.

There are advantages and inequalities everywhere, but in a regulated sport with standards and testing, those advantages [I would argue] are borderline insignificant, and add to the spectacle, if anything. This is why we consider the best events to be close calls, with winners defeating opponents by narrow margins. Events where the winner slaughters the competition is not traditionally considered worthy.

Not so with trans women: entering into a competition as a trans woman nearly twice the average competitors age, lifting within 5% of your record when you identified as a man (pre-transition), and lifting 30% more than the next-best female is not insignificant, and it detracts from the spectacle of the sport and it's integrity.

@LJS9502_basic: But if she does not win a gold medal then clearly she did not have an unfair advantage.

Let's goooo

Going by that logic, if someone is using performance enhancing drugs, but didnt make first place, heshe did not have an unfair advantage and therefore not to be disqualified.

I honestly don't give a shit but to fair I don't care about the Olympics in general I can definitely see both side of the argument though.