First olympic transgender athlete to compete at Tokyo 2020 **MOD NOTE IN OP**

Are you from the generation where everyone got a trophy for just showing up? All the athletes at the are trying to win but they realise they can't all win. I guarantee that they all went there dreaming of glory. Some no doubt, expect to win, others believe they can but even those rank outsiders would be dreaming and hoping that maybe, just maybe, the sports gods will smile on them. Everyone of them is trying to win. Just because there aren't enough medals for all of them doesn't mean they aren't going to try.

I am, because I think the phenomenon you’re referring to isn’t so much a generational thing as a cultural thing. It’s not an ideal I’ve ever bought into personally as I don’t believe participation is more important than winning, nor do I believe that winning is more important than participation. One thing I’ve certainly never believed in is the idea of sneering at anyone who has lost or failed or simply isn’t able to do what I can do.

I’ve seen other people do it and it’s always struck me as unsportsmanlike, I’ve seen other people complain when they lost that the competition was unfair, or that the winner was cheating or somehow had an competitive advantage. I’ve never had much time for sore losers either.

Different ideals motivate different people differently, so while I can certainly understand where you’re coming from in saying that they’re all going there for the glory, it’s not that different from what I said that there are athletes who want to make an appearance on the world stage. I can’t for example tell you what motivates any individual athlete any more than you can guarantee me that you can.

What we do know for certain is that if everyone had a God given right to win (as some people imagine is their right), and if that right were upheld in law by mere mortals, it would defeat the purpose of the idea of instilling in people that they are striving for an ideal greater than themselves.

I don't know what more evidence one needs to show that women with higher level of T than average do better in sport when this says that prevalence of this DSD phenomenon in elite sports athletes is one hundred and forty times more prevalent than in the general population.

It's the fault of the rules more than it's Hubbard's fault although I'm far from a fan of Hubbard. The rules should forbid biological males from taking part in female competitions. The rules quite simply are fcuked up to allow this situation to happen.

Throwing in the privately-educated rich boy comment just makes you sound like a begrudger.

So much for transgender women will destroy women's sports as they will, apparently, automatically win. Turns out it takes skill, timing and expertise too if a person is going to win at elite level. Who knew...

I am looking forward, however, to seeing the massive increase in support for women's sports with all those suddenly passionate about it leading the lobbying for better funding, more exposure (and I'm not talking about the up the crack of yer arse shorts women are forced to wear), and most of all attendance at women's sporting events.

I expect every women's international rugby match to be packed from now on as ya'll can be certain all those playing are cis - and you naturally will translate that support into financial gain for the squad. They might even be able to turn semi-pro and not have to work to fund their playing.

Won't hold my breath though.

Hubbard looked very overweight considering it was the Olympics and took the place of someone who was training for years for this.

It’s not saying that the rate of DSDs among certain athletes is 140 times the average rate either. It specifically refers to the prevalence of 46XY DSD among female athletes which is 140 times higher than expected in the general population. From the actual study -

That’s more accurate and a significant difference between the implications of your suggestion, and what the actual data suggests. The data suggests that they are, in your terms ‘androgenised persons’, or ‘biological males’, etc, any reductive descriptor other than recognition that they are women.

The correlation was significant enough for the WA to introduce the policy it did in relation to female athletes with what are regarded as disorders of sex development competing in the female classification in order to address what they viewed as “recruitment bias”, enough for them to introduce the idea of ‘restricted events’, and it is this discrimination which Caster Semenya and athletes like her (most recently the two Namibian female athletes who failed to meet the criteria), are claiming is unfairly discriminatory against them -

Dr Stephane Bermon from the IAAF Medical and Science Department.

The evidence which the WA are relying on is not based upon scientific evidence, it’s based entirely upon finding and interpreting correlations in limited statistical data sets. They have a separate policy in relation to athletes who are transgender which is well worth a read for the way both policies are written, placing responsibility on the athletes themselves as opposed to acknowledging international human rights law which places obligations on organisations like the WA which prohibits unlawful discrimination and only permits discrimination in limited circumstances which is regarded as justifiable and reasonable only in limited circumstances to achieve a legitimate aim, as opposed to targeting any specific demographic for exclusion.

References:

No more so than the other competitors in the same category. They don't call it the super heavyweight class for nothing.

KGs count, not regional medals.

The Pacific games is Australia, New Zealand, and other Oceanic Island. Not countries with elite weightlifters.

Her best lift ever was 285kg two years ago. The favourite came in with a PR of 335kg - 50kg more, a staggering gap. She never had a hope of winning.

I mean, I was truly shocked at how bad Hubbard was. I really was not expecting that. I was expecting some effort at least. There was just no dignity in it. I think that's why it made such a splash yesterday.

In what was there no effort?

She made a strategic error imo. But saying there was no effort just sounds like you don’t get how it works tbh. Which is the case for a lot of people commenting tbh.

You're wasting your time, the same folks would probably argue that an obese 50yr old that smokes 40 a day getting thrashed by 12yr olds in a school yard egg and spoon race constitutes definitive proof that adults should be allowed to compete against children.

There's no basic common sense any more, the evidence for which is this thread. In a sane world the IOC would have told the less than 1% of less 1% of the population that 'LOL, no. We're not rewriting the rules to accommodate the feeling of an infinitesimally tiny number of people. Deal with it!'.