EQUAL PLAY
ON 2 AUGUST 2021, New Zealander Laurel Hubbard stepped up to compete in the women’s +87kg weightlifting event in Tokyo. At 43, Hubbard was the oldest weightlifter in the competition and regarded as a medal contender. Notably, Hubbard was also the first openly transgender athlete to compete at the Olympic Games.
Hubbard fell short of Olympic success after dropping a barbell loaded first with 120kg, then 125kg on three successive snatch attempts, placing her last in her group. Addressing the world’s media afterwards, she thanked the International Olympic Committee (IOC), praising their “commitment to the principles of Olympianism”.
“They’ve demonstrated, I think, that sport is something all people around the world can do,” Hubbard said. “It’s inclusive, it’s accessible. And I think that’s just really fabulous.”
But Hubbard also acknowledged that her participation had “not been entirely without controversy”. The inclusion of trans people in the world of professional sports has a complicated history.
Most arguments centre on guidelines for transgender women (those assigned male at birth) who hope to compete in women’s sports, with a recent review published by the UK sports councils concluding that there are “retained differences in strength, stamina and physique” between trans women and cisgender women, even following the suppression of testosterone.
Transgender men face somewhat fewer regulatory barriers, though professional guidelines differ by sport. Generally, they are barred from competing in the female category once treatment with testosterone begins, and are asked to provide a written declaration of gender identity in order to participate in the male category. But there’s often a stigma to navigate.
There are, of course, differences in male and female sports performance, on average. According to data in the journal Endocrine Reviews, male athletes outperform females in disciplines such as running and swimming by up to 12 per cent, while the Journal Of Applied Physiology concluded that female athletes typically display 40 per cent less upper-body strength and 33 per cent less lower-body strength than their male counterparts.
It is the job of sports regulatory bodies to control
