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March 29, 2017 | celebrity | Lex Jurgen | 0 Comments
If you’re into subtext, read the quotes of female competitors in the International Weightlifting Open in Australia who had to take on New Zealand’s Laurel Hubbard, who not long ago was Gavin Hubbard, male power lifting champ. They’re super behind the big win for the LGBT cause. That’s the text. The subtext more like, that’s a dude and this is super fucked up.
The President of Olympic Weightlifting New Zealand took a very practical approach to watching Hubbard win for New Zealand, but at the expense of his ungainly fellow countrywomen who were unfortunately born chicks:
“We have to follow the policy of the International Olympic Committee and the International Weightlifting Federation. They do not acknowledge in any way the gender identity of an athlete other than male or female; they’re not described as transgender.”
In short, if you say you’re a woman and you can test under 10 nanomoles/liter testosterone, or about half the normal male levels, you’re female. Even if you still look a shit ton like Gavin.
It’s weird how one person’s right to live their life under the gender of their choosing seems to so often negatively affect the personal rights of others. Like the chick who trains for twenty years then watches her gold vanish in the blink of a gender bend and hormonal cocktail. That’s left out of the textbook. Nobody in a position of power or access seems to want to, or be able to, say anything about this. This is likely why the text is so far afield from the subtext.
Weightlifting as a pursuit seems particularly self-indulgent. There’s little by way of entertainment factor or broad audience appeal. There’s no team sportsmanship or selfless actor opportunities. Well, there was one. And Laurel Hubbard just missed it.
Photo credit: news.com.au