“Reluctant”

Oh come ON Beeb – “reluctant” is the LAST thing he is. If he were reluctant he wouldn’t be doing this sadistic unfair thing.

And it’s not “history” he’s making, either.

The ridiculous story, by Joshua Surtees:

“I’m not here to change the world,” said Laurel Hubbard in 2017, the year she first competed as a female weightlifter.

The year he first competed “as a female” as if that were something people can just do, the same way they can just comb their hair or eat a sandwich.

“I just want to be me and do what I do,” she told a reporter in her native New Zealand, after returning home with two silver medals from the World Championships.

Of course he said that, what else would he say? “I just want to compete against women so that I can be sure of winning”?

Two years later, her victory in the +87kg category at the Pacific Games in Samoa provoked accusations of unfairness – due to the fact she had lived as a man for the first three decades of her life before transitioning in 2012, coming out as a transgender woman aged 33, then resuming her sports career.

Rubbing the incorrect insulting pronouns in our faces. And yes of course that’s why his theft of two medals provoked accusations of unfairness: it was unfair. We’ve all seen the famous podium photo.

On Monday she will become the first openly transgender athlete to compete in a different gender category to that which they were born at an Olympic Games.

On Monday he will openly compete as a woman in the hope of winning medals he would otherwise have zero chance at.

Now 43, she will become the third oldest lifter in Olympic history. The New Zealand Olympic Committee’s Ashley Abbott called her a “really important role model” who “opens a conversation about inclusivity”.

“If you see someone like you achieving on the world stage, it’s a really wonderful opportunity to see that there is a pathway,” said Abbott.

What if you’re Samoan or Tongan and you see someone like you lose the chance to achieve on the world stage because an entitled rich white guy has stolen your place? That’s an opportunity to see that there was a pathway but entitled rich white guy has stolen it, yeah?

Though changing the world may not be top of her agenda, Hubbard’s selection as the first trans athlete in an individual sport goes a long way towards changing centuries of sporting tradition.

For the worse.

On Friday, the IOC released another statement on her behalf which read: “I see the Olympic Games as a global celebration of our hopes, ideals and values and I would like to thank the IOC for its commitment to making sport inclusive and accessible.”

Bullshit. He’s thanking the IOC for making sport exclusive and inaccessible for women. How fucking dare the BBC ignore this obvious fact.

Abbott said Hubbard was “keeping a low profile” and told reporters on Friday she would be shielded from “anything negative in the social media space”.

“We all need to remember that there’s a person behind all these technical questions,” said Abbott.

A male person, who is cheating women out of their medals and chances to compete. Not all that technical really.

At the same briefing, Richard Budgett – the medical and scientific director of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) – said: “Laurel Hubbard is a woman and is competing under the rules of her federation.

“We have to pay tribute to her courage and tenacity in qualifying for the Games.”

We have to no such thing. It takes zero courage to steal opportunities and rewards from women.

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