Sunday, April 08, 2018

When You Can’t Win On Your Own, Blame The Trans Kid

Down in New Zealand the Commonwealth Games are being held and a trans weightlifter is being challenged by the other players.
Commonwealth Games: Rivals take aim at transgender weightlifter Laurel Hubbard
NZ Herald
8 April, 2018

New Zealand transgender weightlifer Laurel Hubbard has come under fire from her rivals, just a day out from competing in the Commonwealth Games.

Hubbard, who is favoured to win gold tomorrow afternoon in the women's over 90kg category, has been a hot topic for some in the weightlifing community, and Samoan coach of one of her rivals has voiced his displeasure that Hubbard is allowed to compete.

"It's just very unfair," Jerry Wallwork told the ABC.

"A man is a man and a woman is a woman and I know a lot of changes have gone through, but in the past Laurel Hubbard used to be a male champion weightlifter," he said.
[…]
However, despite Wallwork's verbal protest, there is not going to be an official protest which stops Hubbard from competing.
[…]
"She's done everything according to the IOC rules and she's proven that she's a woman," Paul Coffa told the ABC.
So are they just “sour grapes” or do they have a point.

Well I’m no expert but what I do know is that after I had been on hormones for a year I lost a lot of muscle mass and upper body strength. The loss of muscle mass is one of the reasons that we tend to gain weight after we have been on hormones, muscles burn calories just by being muscles so with less muscles our metabolism decreases.

Whether bone structure has anything to do with wrestling I don’t know. But I do know a trans female wrestler and she doesn’t win all of her matches.

So does the disparagement against trans wrestlers have merit? The IOC has researched it exhaustively and has come out with rules for trans athletes so I don’t think she has an advantage over the other athletes, but then I’m biased.

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