Had they been aware
Briton wins world’s strongest woman after trans athlete disqualified
Not the clearest title ever. The Briton didn’t win a woman; the Briton is a woman and she won the strongest woman contest after a male athlete was disqualified.
Britain’s Andrea Thompson has been crowned world’s strongest woman after it transpired the original winner was a transgender woman who was not eligible to compete.
Well it didn’t just “transpire” now did it. Many if not all the people in charge must have known, and the man in question certainly knew. Andrea Thompson knew, and she was shown all over social media standing on the podium below the cheating man, and proceeding to say “this is bullshit” and walking away. It wasn’t transpiring, it was cheating, enabled by people who allowed the cheating. Enough with the bullshit.
Thompson, 43, was awarded the title by event organisers Strongman two days after the event was held in Arlington, Texas from 20-23 November. Strongman only permits [should be permits only] competitors to take part in a category which matches their biological sex recorded at birth. Thompson had finished second to the American athlete after the six weightlifting events in the Woman’s Open category.
Strongman said in a statement its officials were “unaware” the original winner was “biologically male and now identifies as female” and had now “disqualified the athlete in question”.
“Had we been aware, or had this been declared at any point before or during the competition, this athlete would not have been permitted to compete in the Woman’s Open category,” the statement added. “It is our responsibility to ensure fairness and ensure athletes are assigned to men or women’s categories based on whether they are recorded as male or female at birth.”
Yes it is. Now everyone do that.
Small quibble:
I would rather they assigned athletes to men’s or women’s categories based on whether they in fact are male or female. Occasional clerical errors can occur in “recording” at birth. Of course, right now that’s still a minuscule occurrence, so if this not-entirely-precise wording prevents a lot of the unfairness that has been taking place for the past few years, even if it allows in a tiny amount of unfairness, it’s still better than what we’ve had so far.
But things could get worse. Parents in the near future could probably intentionally have their newborn boys recorded as female, precisely so that they can win women’s sport competitions. And those people would be allowed to do so, by the rules of “assign[ing them] to men or women’s categories based on whether they are recorded as male or female at birth.”
But what else could it be based on?
In theory? Testing.
A cheek swab for XX was the Olympic “sex test” for female athletes until 1999. I knew a woman who competed in the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea, for the USA in the women’s four rowing. She kept her card in her wallet for conversation. She found the card funny for saying that she “passed” her “sex test”.
As she explained it, some people may look female when they are not. Now I understand that to mean the DSD problem. Dropping the cheek swab test opened the door to all this bullshit about “assigned at birth”.
I heard this on the Radio 4 news yesterday. Interestingly, they still managed to work in some nonsense about e!igibility being down to “gender” which is of course how we got into this mess in the first place. If the chap who won was in possession of a female gender, surely he couldn’t be disqualified? It really is frustrating that even when they are trying (pretending?) to report on something accurately, they still don’t use the right terms.