trans athlete Laurel Hubbard and the weight of the binary at the Olympics | The game’s rules

Laurel face the heaviest 120 kg in its history. Those records on either side of the bar carried with them the pressure to respond to conflicting opinions about his sexuality. Expectations have always been placed on this object, which he must lift above his head with his arms outstretched. As a teenager, he started weightlifting to reaffirm his masculinity in the eyes of others. Laurel, 43, has dedicated her entire life to the sport, trained thousands of hours, exposed and sacrificed her body with each snatch, built an extremely heavy target and lifted it with all her might. However, his whole career today is resolved in the field of biology. No matter what your ability, your effort doesn’t count. Only the biological “advantage” with which it was born counts. Laurel Hubbard, is touted as the first trans athlete to compete in the Olympics.

Following the decision of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 2015 to accept the participation of trans people without having to undergo genital surgeries, the debate over the purported benefits that a trans athlete could have over their cis peers, has been raised. relaunch. So told, the news seems to be the opening of the IOC criteria. There are still “biological” factors that determine the participation of trans athletes, in fact Laurel Hubbard had to show that their testosterone levels are within the “usual” values ​​for a cis woman. In addition, he will not be able to compete under another different generic assignment during the 4-year period. These criteria imposed by the CIO force trans people to build their own gender in the shadow of the cis models. The figure of Laurel must fit into the “normality” which in this case (and others) has a female name.

Laurel’s life has been marked by the opinions of others. Daughter of the mayor of Auckland (New Zealand) and educated in a boys’ school, she had to make an effort to show herself according to the parameters expected for her sex assigned at birth. Weightlifting was Laurel’s way of invigorating her body image and participating in the men’s world. But after winning a few junior championships, she decided to retire from the discipline at 20, tired of the weight she had to bear. At the age of 32, he started his transition and started lifting weights again until he now qualified for the Olympics.

“What transition? He only let his hair grow “ says a little girl on Twitter. Others get caught up in bullshit and make jokes about Laurel’s genitals. The flock of cis chicks questions Laurel’s femininity using the same parameter that the Patriarchy uses with them. These remarks are no different from those Laurel received at school from the boys. Her participation in the Olympics was marred by criticism from other athletes who saw her as a joke in bad taste. Some even predicted the ultimate collapse of the discipline and the possibility of being “invaded” by something other than cis hegemony. Cis vs. trans seems to branch out without limits and threatens to forever break the weak unity built by feminisms in response to patriarchal power.

Finally, on both sides, what Laurel found were foreign standards and expectations to be met. How much more do trans athletes need to do to validate themselves in front of the world? Radical trans-exclusive feminists (known by its acronym: TERF) and conservative sectors interpose the discourse of biology to discuss our bodies and capabilities. But even while fulfilling these expectations, the duty to fulfill a transgender according to a higher law that descends from heaven cis like a divine word, like a second nature which cannot be broken, weighs on us.

Laurel tried to lift those 120kg of pressures, mandates, expectations, regulations and criticism and to no avail. On his second try, he couldn’t even lift the bar off the ground. If he had won, they would have said it was for the benefit of his gender. After seeing her lose, there are already those who suggest that she did it to hide her true abilities and outsmart the queer ideology. In either case, Laurel is a suspect, a stealthy monstrosity trying to steal an unalterable essence, appropriating an indisputable truth about bodies. In the end, she failed to lift the weights and was last in the standings. His colossal silhouette, which exceeds the limits of normality, leaves the stage yielded to so much weight, but nothing takes away the emotion of having tried. Laurel put a foot forward to chart a course where a sport can be played, always breaking its rules.