Pendulum swings towards tighter measures against transgender athletes
Heading into 2024, there has been a seismic shift in the sporting landscape for trans athletes with the pendulum swinging back toward tighter measures on a divisive issue.
MANCHESTER, England — New Zealand weightlifter Laurel Hubbard’s appearance at the 2020 Tokyo Games as the first openly transgender woman to compete at the Olympics received mixed reviews in one of the most contentious areas in sport.
In the end, Hubbard retired after an inauspicious performance in Tokyo where she failed to record a valid lift.
Fast forward to 2023 and she would find herself ineligible for next year’s Paris Games after the International Weightlifting Federation tightened its eligibility rules.
Heading into 2024, there has been a seismic shift in the sporting landscape for trans athletes with the pendulum swinging back towards tighter measures on a divisive issue that has virtually no grey area.
In March, World Athletics banned transgender women who had gone through male puberty from elite female competitions — a decision federation president Sebastian Coe said was based “on the overarching need to protect the female category.”
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