Published on : 01/08/2021 – 12:02
Laurel Hubbard, a New Zealand weightlifter, will become the first transgender to compete in the Olympics on Monday. This historic turning point arouses many positive reactions, but also a lively debate. According to some, the athlete enjoys physical advantages linked to his past as a man.
At 43, Laurel Hubbard is the oldest weightlifter to compete in the Tokyo Games, but most importantly, she is the first transgender to compete in the world’s biggest athletic competition.
Born male, this New Zealand athlete took part in tournaments in the men’s categories before beginning a transition process to become a woman in her 30s. She became selectable for women after meeting the International Olympic Committee (IOC) criteria for transgender athletes.
His qualification for the Olympics was hailed as a historic moment for the Olympic movement. “Laurel Hubbard is a woman and competes according to the rules of her federation. We must pay tribute to her courage and tenacity,” IOC Medical Director Richard Budgett told reporters in Tokyo.
A sport started in adolescence
Laurel Hubbard was born in 1978 as Gavin. She is the daughter of the Hubbard Foods grain industry tycoons. Her father Dick was also mayor of Auckland, the most populous city in New Zealand from 2004 to 2007. As reported in the newspaper L’Équipe, she began weightlifting at the age of 14 because she represented for the young boy that she was at the time a “male archetype”. “I thought that if I indulged in such a radically masculine activity, it would influence my future,” she told Radio New Zealand.
Gavin Hubbard then has a good level, but nothing intends him to perform at the international level. “I saw him lift incredible weights because he had great physical qualities, but to my knowledge he never won a National Championship or broke a record during those years when he was at the height of his youth and of his strength, “Hayden Kumerich, one of his former teammates, told Teams. “Now, after having transitioned and despite her much older age, Hubbard is starting to break records as a woman.”
“It’s just not fair”
This is where the shoe pinches. The presence of Laurel Hubbard in Tokyo in the category of women over 87 kilos is far from unanimous. Some believe that she enjoys an unfair advantage over her female rivals due to physical abilities inherited from decades as a man.
Some defenders of women’s sport, including former tennis champion Martina Navratilova, have thus expressed their reservations, as they believe that the inclusion of transgender athletes risks calling into question the victories obtained through hard work to improve the status of women’s sport. . “I’m happy to address a transgender person the way they want, but I wouldn’t like to have to compete against them. It wouldn’t be fair,” said the Czech, early activist. gay rights. For Caitlyn Jenner, Olympic decathlon champion at the 1976 Montreal Games who became a woman in 2015, “it’s just not fair.”
Weightlifters have also stepped up to the plate. New Zealander Tracey Lambrechs was affected by the arrival of Laurel Hubbard in women and was even forced to switch categories. “By transitioning to such a late age, we retain the benefit of having had male testosterone levels for a very long time,” she said to the newspaper L’Équipe. “For example, no other potential medalist in Tokyo is in his 40s.”
The question of testosterone level
But on the legal level, its qualification does not suffer from any dispute. Laurel Hubbard became selectable after proving her testosterone levels were lower than recommended by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), set at 10 nanomoles per liter. Conversely, the American transgender athlete CeCe Telfer, a specialist in the women’s 400-meter hurdles, was excluded from the Olympic selections, failing to meet World Athletics standards regarding his testosterone level. These standards, set by the International Federation for races ranging from 400m per mile (1,609m), require women with unusually high testosterone levels to take hormone therapy in order to hope to compete.
In December 2019, a report from the NGO Humans Right Watch revealed that several athletes, including Ugandan Annet Negesa, were forced to undergo an operation to remove their internal genitals, which produce testosterone, without their consent. enlightened.
The South African Caster Semenya, who has a natural excess of male sex hormones, refuses to submit to this treatment and has been fighting for more than ten years with the International Athletics Federation. Banned from 800m and 1,500m due to this rule, she failed to qualify for Tokyo over 5,000m.
Laurel Hubbard has a strong presence in Japan. The one who expresses herself very little in the media knows very well that this does not please everyone, but she prefers not to think about it. “All you can do is focus on the task at hand and if you keep doing it it will get you through it. I am aware that I will not be supported by everyone, but I hope that people can keep an open mind and maybe look at my performance in a larger context, “she told Stuff in 2017.
Faced with this avalanche of reactions, the New Zealand team are helping them manage the situation. “We work closely with Laurel, as with any athlete, but especially with her because of the enormous amount of attention she generates,” said New Zealand Olympic Committee spokesperson Ashley Abbott. “We will continue to work with her to ensure that she is supported at all times and that she understands the environment in which she operates,” she added.
Within the other delegations, Quinn, of her birth name Rebecca Quinn, became the first officially trans non-binary person to participate in the Olympics, underlines the magazine Tétu. The athlete is competing in the women’s football tournament with Team Canada with which she qualified for the semi-finals against the United States. In an Instagram post, she expressed pride “in seeing ‘Quinn’ on the roster and on her accreditation” to the Games, while also fondly recalling that previous athletes had been unable “to live their truth because of the world. “and that” the fight is not over yet “.
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