Tokyo Olympics: petition against Laurel Hubbard highlights debate on transgender athletes

There’s been support and controversy over the New Zealander competing in the women’s weightlifting category, dominated by mainland China, Taiwan and South Korea

Scientists say there is insufficient evidence to say a transgender athlete has an unfair advantage over other competitors

Reading Time:5 minutes

Laurel Hubbard competes during the women's +90kg weightlifting final at the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, Australia. Photo: AFP

Published: 3:00pm, 27 Jun 2021Updated: 12:25am, 2 May 2023

Nine months after starting hormone therapy in 2004, transgender distance runner Joanna Harper found she was 12 per cent slower than she was beforehand – equal to the difference between the performance of male and female distance runners.

This led her to start studying transgender athletes, and since 2005 she has tracked the performance of about 40 sportspeople after they transitioned. She is now a PhD researcher at Loughborough University in the UK and author of the book Sporting Gender.

“Transgender women get slower and weaker after gender transition,” she said. “Their ability to recover from hard training is reduced. Trans women lose muscle and gain fat, all of which negatively impacts performance.”

Harper was commenting after New Zealand weightlifter Laurel Hubbard became the first openly transgender athlete to be selected to compete at an Olympic Games.

In 2015, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) changed its rules to allow trans women to take part if their levels of testosterone – the major male sex hormone that increases muscle mass among other things – remain below a certain threshold for at least 12 months before and during the competition.

The IOC’s move was cheered as a step towards greater inclusivity but the news about Hubbard – who is 43 and transitioned to female in her 30s – has reignited the debate about whether transgender women have an unfair physical advantage.

An online petition to suspend the IOC’s transgender policy was started, arguing it is “unfair to women due to the incontrovertible physical advantage that trans women have”. As of Sunday morning, it had more than 19,000 signatures.

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Tokyo Olympics: petition against Laurel Hubbard highlights debate on transgender athletes

There’s been support and controversy over the New Zealander competing in the women’s weightlifting category, dominated by mainland China, Taiwan and South Korea Scientists say there is insufficient evidence to say a transgender athlete has an unfair advantage over other competitors

There’s been support and controversy over the New Zealander competing in the women’s weightlifting category, dominated by mainland China, Taiwan and South Korea

Scientists say there is insufficient evidence to say a transgender athlete has an unfair advantage over other competitors