Transgender woman weightlifter Laurel Hubbard competing in the upcoming Tokyo Olympic Games is “like a bad joke” to biological female athletes, a rival weightlifter told Inside the Games.
What are the details?
“First off, I would like to stress that I fully support the transgender community, and that what I’m about to say doesn’t come from a place of rejection of this athlete’s identity,” weightlifter Anna Van Bellinghen of Belgium told the sports website.
But she soon added that “anyone that has trained weightlifting at a high level knows this to be true in their bones: this particular situation is unfair to the sport and to the athletes,” Inside the Games said.
Van Bellinghen, 27, is looking to qualify in the same weight category as New Zealand’s Hubbard — the over-87-kilogram super-heavyweights — and is directly affected by the presence of Hubbard, who’s set to become the first openly transgender athlete to qualify for the Olympics in any sport, the website reported.
Hubbard, 43 — a biological male who identifies as female and has competed against women for several years — began transitioning to female at age 35.
It would seem Van Bellinghen’s complaints about Hubbard go against the wishes of the powers that be, who allegedly want those who disagree with Hubbard’s presence to be quiet about their concerns — but she went for the jugular anyway.
