Laurel Hubbard, a biological male from New Zealand, has been competing against women for years. The athlete’s qualification for a spot on the nation’s weightlifting team marks the first time a transgender-identifying athlete will compete in Olympic Games, multiple reports say.

“I am grateful and humbled by the kindness and support that has been given to me by so many New Zealanders,” Hubbard said in a statement.

New Zealand Olympic Committee CEO Kereyn Smith said that Hubbard has met eligibility criteria, “including those based on [International Olympic Committee] Consensus Statement guidelines for transgender athletes.”

“We acknowledge that gender identity in sport is a highly sensitive and complex issue requiring a balance between human rights and fairness on the field of play,” Smith stated. 

Beth Stelzer, the founder of Save Women’s Sports and an active campaigner for preserving sex-segregated sports in state legislatures, said in an email to The Christian Post Monday that she wonders who will be brave enough to assert the basic facts of biology.

“What the Olympics is doing by allowing males to compete in the women’s category is not only shameful but a mockery of the sport,” Stelzer, a weightlifter herself, said. “We cannot change our sex. A male cannot become a female by lowering their testosterone. Women are not a hormone level. Identities do not play sports; bodies play sports. The rights of females should not end where the feelings of a few males begin.”

Stelzer said it is a “tragedy” that there could be “males on the women’s podium at the Olympics.”

“We need to stop complying with these lies and start supporting females,” she continued. “It is like the tale of the Emperor’s New Clothes. Only the Emperor’s not naked. He is trying to force everyone to say he is a woman.”

“Why did it have to get this far for women’s rights to be considered?” she asked. “How many more women will have to lose out before society stops complying with lies and starts protecting females? If this doesn’t wake people up, I don’t know what will.”

Source: The Christian Post

Photo: Guardian