Today, the conversation about transgender rights and the interests of women turns to sport. At the Olympic Games, Laurel Hubbard of New Zealand, will compete in the +87kg women’s weightlifting.
Hubbard, as you surely know, was born male and grew up to become a competitive weightlifter. At the age of 33, the athlete then transitioned and became a trans woman. And because the International Olympic Committee effectively signs up to the mantra of trans rights – ‘Trans women are women’ – Hubbard can duly compete in the women’s contest in Tokyo.
To a lot of people, the prospect of a male-born weightlifter competing with biological women calls to mind a line from George Orwell:
‘One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that: no ordinary man could be such a fool.’*
Sport might well be the aspect of the trans debate that sparks the greatest public engagement with the issue.
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