New Zealand transgender weightlifter Laurel Hubbard, 43, competed in the women's 87 kg weightlifting event and will compete on August 2 with China's Li Wenwen and Wang Zhouyu. The news was just released, and it quickly rushed to the hot search.
Is it fair for transgender weightlifters to participate? At least the International Weightlifting Federation and the International Olympic Committee confirmed that she met the criteria for participation. In 2015, the IOC amended its statutes to officially allow transgender athletes to participate in the Olympic Games. Testosterone levels in transgender female contestants are specified in detail in the eligibility guidelines, such as maintaining total testosterone in serum below 10 nanomoles per liter for the past 12 months, etc. Hubbard complied with the regulations and thus became the "first person" for transgender athletes to participate in the Olympic Games.
Still, the controversy has not stopped. Some experts pointed out that the guideline can hardly offset the biological advantages of men who have experienced adolescence; there are media analysis that Hubbard was a male weightlifter before the "gender transition", but his performance in the international arena was mediocre, and after participating in the women's competition in 2017, he won "six gold and one silver" in various competitions; Belgian contestant Anna van Bellingen also spoke out through the media, she respected the rights of sexual minorities, but Hubbard's participation was unfair to other female players.
In addition to the discussion of whether the participation was fair, the dilemma of the transgender group also resurfaced. In an environment where existing rules are still to be perfected, can transgender people compete on the same stage in sports as everyone else? More importantly, compared to other sexual minorities, transgender people are a minority in the minority, not only being excluded and discriminated against by the outside world in their lives, but also not even supported by other sexual minorities and feminists. This issue shares facts, opinions, and controversies related to transgender people.
Is it "she" or "him"?
Gender troubles, who made the mistake?
New Zealand female weightlifter Hubbard, who recently caused controversy, underwent hormonal therapy for five years before returning to the field in 2017. On her comeback, she gave a brief interview to New Zealand's national radio station, in which Hubbard talked about her original intention of participating in weightlifting, which was not unrelated to shaping her masculinity. As early as 1998, Hubbard, who was still known as "him", broke the New Zealand record with a snatch of 135 kg, a deadlift and a total of 300 kg in the New Zealand Youth 105 kg competition. In other words, she was designated male at birth and struggled to adapt to the gender framework that trapped her and lived as a man.
New Zealand female weightlifter Hubbard.
Playing a "normal person" is a long-term routine that many transgender people have endured. "Either men, or women", the traditional dualistic gender classification method is also an artificial creation, and most people, especially the cisgender group, may not think much about this simple and crude classification. However, for transgender and other multi-gender groups, "acting" and "becoming" a "man" or "woman" accepted by the mainstream of society may be their daily and even lifelong confusion and struggle.
"Transgender" is a popular saying in recent years, the academic community can not give a consensus on the connotation and extension of "transgender", transgender gender identity spectrum is diverse, always in change and flow. Overall, transgender is increasingly being used as an umbrella term in discussions.
While "transgender" challenges traditional gender categories, it is inclusive and broadly, it can accommodate all and any gender identity that does not apply and overflows the assumptions of dualistic gender. In daily life and social media, whether a person is transgender or not depends on his or her personal perception and choice of gender. A "transgender child", which may have more than one gender identity at the same time, can be any kind of conventional, unconventional gender at the same time, such as men, women, queer genders, non-binary genders, mobility, transfiguration, cross-dressing queens, and so on. In the transgender community, not everyone pursues gender confirmation through hormones, surgery, etc. (formerly known as "gender reconstruction"), and some of them may have no objection to their biological sex, but they may pursue gender expressions that are different from the biological sex at birth and different from the mainstream or social paradigm in terms of clothing, speech, behavior, personal title, etc.
In 2019, the World Health Organization released a new edition of the International Classification of Diseases, which no longer includes transgenderness in the category of mental disorder. To this day, however, some places still use the old term "gender identity disorder". The first step for a transgender person to get back an explanation of his or her gender and become himself is to become a hospital or institution certified "mentally ill person."
Demography's understanding of transgender groups is still limited, one of which is that the definition and standards of "transgender" in the academic community are not clear; unlike the traditional dualistic gender label of one-size-fits-all, the connotation of "transgender" is broad and often changing. International statistics on the transgender population are mostly from developed countries such as Northern Europe and North America, due to differences in statistical methods and definitions of "transgender", the data floating range is large; taking the United States as an example, the latest report of the Williams Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles in 2017 estimates that the proportion of transgender population in the total population is 0.6%, behind this small number is 1.4 million people of all kinds.
Transgender, on the other hand, as a marginalized demographic group, is often invisible in society. Some transgender people who have completed gender confirmation may choose to completely seal their past gender identity; others can't wait for the day when the suicide rate of transgender groups, especially adolescents, is much higher than the population average; and at least one in five transgender people, or at most nearly half of transgender people, have tried suicide.
This kind of invisibility contains a lot of helplessness, on the one hand, it is difficult for mainstream society to "tolerate" transgender groups to "be themselves"; on the other hand, transgender identity makes them easily the target of sexual assault and violence, once they are labeled as "minority" or "outlier", trouble ensues. The wide dissemination of the Internet and the high density of media coverage at a certain point in time are easy to give people the illusion that transgender people have "invaded" people's lives, but it is difficult to say whose curiosity is satisfied by the exposure, examination and comment of transgender groups. In recent years, there have been many criticisms and discussions of transgender groups and academic circles about the one-sided use of the film and television industry and the exhibition of transgender life and experience.
Stills from the movie "Farewell to the King".
The much-maligned "transgender man":
How hard is the process of "being yourself"?
Another term that was often used to describe transgender was "transsexual" earlier than the broader "transgender"; historically, it was a discriminatory term for transgender and is now rare in general discussion. But, at least in the English context, some people in the transgender community will choose to use the term to emphasize their "transgender" rather than broad transgender identity.
"Transgender", more emphasis on the distinction between the rational distinctions in life, its meaning is narrower, to some extent, it is more in line with people's understanding and imagination of gender and transgender groups: they are "born of the wrong gender", trapped in the gender dislocation of the body, the simplest and straightforward explanation is that she was registered as a male by the hospital according to physiological characteristics, but her self-perception is female, and then she may change the registered gender in official documents through surgery, hormones, applications to change the registered gender in official documents, the use of "she" in interpersonal communication to refer to herself, etc. To match oneself to the perception of "being" a woman. As a woman, she hopes to be recognized as a woman at the societal level. They may feel more repulsive and uncomfortable with their biological sex at birth, and prefer to eventually transform into a "nother gender", away from the gender and gender titles assigned at birth, and eventually become "he" or "she" on the other side of the mirror. When the transformation is complete, some people will completely detach themselves from the "cross-child" identity and become the new "he" or "she".
But the process of becoming the ideal mirror self, making and completing the transformation, is full of thorns. Gender affirmation used to be called "gender reassignment," and it's clear that the latter's perspective is still based on the mainstream gender hypothesis, and people are gradually replacing the latter with the former as a sign of respect for transgender parties. Gender identification includes hormones, surgery, psychological counseling, etc., and the ideal medical intervention begins before puberty; for many people, this is a lifelong luxury dream.
In terms of surgery alone, the cost of each operation ranges from a few thousand to tens of thousands of dollars, and long-term fixed drugs cost at least thousands of dollars per year. Some of these programs may apply for medicare reimbursement, but medicare itself is a significant expense, and even if medicare is purchased, it is not uncommon for insurance to refuse reimbursement to transgender people.
Human Nature and Social Order, by Charles Horton Cooley, Huaxia Publishing House, 2015. Social psychologist Charles Horton Cooley was the first to put forward the theory of "mirror me", he believes that people's self-knowledge is mainly formed through social interaction with others, and others' evaluation and attitude towards themselves are a "mirror" that reflects themselves.
Many people don't even have the opportunity to think and plan for this, and when they actively or passively "come out" as transgender people, they may end up on the streets and lose all connection with society. In the unlikely event that the process of gender identification is to begin, transgender people in the health care system may be more dazed and confused than they are in the inexperienced medical system, sexual assault, verbal and physical violence, or just eat behind closed doors. If they are fortunate enough to overcome difficulties and complete gender confirmation, they will have to deal with short- or long-term side effects such as surgery and drugs, such as a higher risk of stroke and cancer. Since the healthcare system's attention and research on transgender people is at best in its infancy, perhaps even more worrying is the phrase "side effects are unclear." And even if a transgender person completely steps to the other side of the mirror, applying for gender change in legal documents and official government records is another marathon: in the United States, for example, applicants may have to pay fees, submit doctor's certificates, court certificates, etc. between states, and the number of regulations, clarity, and practical difficulty vary greatly from state to state.
Just to "be themselves," transgender groups as a minority face risks unimaginable to the cisgender majority in all aspects of their economy, social relations, and physical and mental health.
On December 2 last year, Canadian actor Ellen Page (who has starred in films such as "Juno", "Inception", "X-Men: Reverse Future", "Fruit Hard Candy" and other films) posted a long post on Twitter, announcing her transgender identity and changing her name to Elliot Page.
The weak look at the weaker,
Where are the transgender allies?
On the one hand, we must deal with risks, the lack of life security and uncertainty, on the other hand, we will encounter social and systematic misunderstanding and discrimination, regardless of the wishes of transgender individuals, as a group, they have to get involved in and participate in political activities and controversies.
In 2020, the Trump administration tried to amend the U.S. Affordable Care Act (also known as the Obamacare Act, as it was introduced during Obama's tenure), focusing on Section 1557 of the bill, which states that healthcare organizations may not discriminate against a person on the basis of their gender, including gender identity and sexual orientation. The trump administration's revisions aim to frame "gender" as the biological sex specified at birth. This could ultimately lead to transgender groups, along with minorities such as LGBTQIA+ groups, being discriminated against when seeking health care and having difficulty seeking legal support.
Although it is also a minority, transgender groups often appear in the expression LGBTQIA+, but in the process of expressing political demands, transgender groups do not always go in the same way as other gender and sexual minorities. Transgender groups have diverse understandings and needs for their gender identity and gender expression. Similarly, there are different voices within the transgender community about their own political identity and who they choose to ally with. Some people stand with other gender, sexual minorities, and some people don't see themselves as part of the sexual minority: the reason is that, in their view, the focus of transgender is on gender identity rather than sexual orientation, and transgender people are not all sexual minorities — transgender people may also be sexual majority, that is, heterosexual. In addition, unfortunately, even in LGBTQIA+, which is already a minority group, there will still be a minority in the minority, and transgender groups may still be discriminated against and bullied within the minority.
Once when people mention minorities, the more common abbreviation is "LGBT", and now the differences in "minorities" are more diverse, such as "LGBTQIA+", which includes lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual and "other". These include pansexuality, non-binary gender, mobility, partic, bipoly, and so on. As you can see, there are both words that describe gender identity and sexual orientation identity.
In addition to these minorities, there is another "A", "ally" - "ally", and the alliance of sexual minorities does not need to be "is" minority, and they themselves may be men and women from transgender heterosexuality.
With the advancement of the affirmative action movement for sexual minorities, the meaning of "sexual minorities" has become more and more diverse.
Transgender groups and feminists,
Where is the contradiction?
In the feminist community, there is no shortage of transgender researchers who are themselves "allies" with sexual minorities and transgender groups. But in some of the recent debates about the right to use public facilities, particularly school restrooms, transgender groups seem to have been sometimes pushed against feminism and even women. On popular culture and social media platforms, people use the abbreviation "TERF" for women who fear and reject transgender groups.
"TERF" (trans-exclusionary radical feminism) – "radical feminists who exclude transgender" (also known as "transgender women"), a term that first appeared in the early 2000s, was intended by cipher feminists who proposed the concept to separate themselves from the transgender camp through this subdivision. Groups known as "TERFs" now reject the term, calling themselves more "gender critical" feminists. This group has less dialogue with modern feminist theories, and relatively speaking, they emphasize biological sex and its role in shaping "women" and "female experience"; on this basis, when discussing and criticizing transgender women, they will emphasize her "trans" identity without recognizing her "female" identity. In contrast, they will also promote traditional gender cognition, division of labor and expression. A person's identity is very complex, gender, sexual orientation may not be the core of shaping a person's identity at all times; in sociology, feminist research and other academic circles, transgender groups often appear as research objects, in recent years, as transgender groups dare to appear in the public eye, social fear, cross-border emotions are also escalating, there is no shortage of scholars began to stand up to respond to this problem. Some scholars have pointed out that "TERF"/"gender critique feminists" often resort to their "orthodox" female identity in public discussion and political activities, portraying themselves as "weak" (natural and helpless because of biological sex) who need protection from being harmed by "men".
The well-known British author J.K. Rowling's speech on the transgender group has also put her on the side of "TERF". As a cisgender heterosexual woman, she explains the fear and unfairness that transgender people, especially transgender women, bring to "women" from the perspective of a self-aware "real woman" and a survivor of domestic violence. Although her writing actually refers to the general fear and violence brought to women by men in high positions in the traditional gender structure, in her expression and elaboration, the real perpetrators are invisible, and transgender women are kicked out of the female community to which she could belong, and become the scapegoat of Zhang Guanli Dai.
The famous British writer J.K. Rowling is the author of the Harry Potter series of novels. (For more on this, see: J.K. Rowling was threatened with death by a "parcel bomb", responding that it would only increase sales of her work; "fired" from the Harry Potter fan site, J. Rowling said: Is K. Rowling "self-inflicted"? ）
The weak look at the weaker, and the victim becomes the ignorant and unconscious perpetrator – transgender women, who are often the focus of controversy, are not only as likely to suffer male violence as cisgender women, they also suffer verbal and physical violence from cisgender women; especially transgender women whose femininity is not clear enough, they are more vulnerable to marginalization, discrimination and unjustified accusations. Gender expressions such as "masculinity" and "femininity" are closely related to the socio-cultural environment in which a person lives; what constitutes a socially recognized man and woman will have different interpretations in different eras and cultures.
Similar to transgender encounters, homosexuality, and any other non-heterosexual tendencies and behaviors have been classified as pathological. "Minorities" have existed in social culture for a long time. Perhaps it is time to change the way of thinking, to recognize the possibility of pluralism, to accept human complexity; if the language in which human beings describe gender, the definition and cognition of gender is an acquired invention, then perhaps it is the problem to constantly classify, create a single fixed standard and try to exclude dissidents.
Behind the ideal of "everyone participating":
Competitive sports are emphasized with neglected gender
In fact, Hubbard is not the first, nor the only, transgender person to participate in major international sporting events. She is not the first woman to be questioned about her gender in an important tournament. The most attention paid to transgender women, especially those who do not meet the expectations of traditional femininity, is often the "qualified" to participate in a project for transgender groups, and the focus of the attack is often on their lack of "feminine" appearance and body shape, or outstanding (in other words, "women should not achieve"). At this point, it seems that the assumption of "female" gender identity and the expectation of "femininity" exceed transgender identity; even athletes who are born female and self-perceived as women are difficult to avoid being questioned and ridiculed by people about her gender. This is why many scholars have also pointed out that "fear of transgression" is a manifestation of misogyny. In the language of "fear of transgression" and "row span", the definition of women is limited and the initiative and action of women are denied, and women are once again put into a woman's "how should" grid.
Laurel Hubbard.
Gender censorship of women has never stopped since the dawn of the modern Olympics; before 1968, female athletes were required to be examined in a naked parade to confirm that they had enough feminine characteristics to be recognized as "women." As professional players, they have to strip naked and suffer from the gaze and evaluation of their female identity by strangers. Amid the continued protests of athletes and activists, after 1968, the IOC turned to more modern technologies such as hormones, genetic testing, etc., but the gender classification on the field never stopped. Earlier women were excluded from competition and not allowed to compete, and the stadium did not belong to women. The logic behind this panders to the fact that a "woman" is supposed to be a weak person, and if she can shine in the high-level arena and show the ability that has always been considered a "man", then her gender identity should be questioned and censored.
However, the dualistic division of "either man or woman" does not stand scientifically. The way the Olympic Organizing Committee divides men and women through hormones and genes has been criticized by many athletes and doctors - who is a man, who is a woman, and what are the criteria for dividing? The current hormone test also classifies many female athletes with high natural hormone levels into the category of "women"; while praising some athletes for their extraordinary talents, such as impressive height, extra long arm span, etc., some female athletes are born with biological advantages that have become evidence that they are not "women". Genetic testing has the same problem – the "gender" or more accurate "gender characteristics" of humans at birth are many, some people are born with male genes but the sex is presented as female, and some people are born both men and women. Rigid standards have never corresponded to human reality. The plight of transgender athletes is just one example.
Spanish hurdler Maria Martínez-Patiño.
During the 1988 Seoul Olympics season, Spanish hurdles player Maria Martínez-Patiño was banned from competing because she did not pass the "female" identification of the Olympic Committee, and genetic tests showed that she had a y chromosome, although she looked no different from any other "standard woman", she has always lived and competed as a woman. 30 years later, South African hurdler Caster Semenya faces the same problem. In addition, there are Dute Chand, Santhi Soundarajan, who have performed well on the women's track and field field, and perhaps many more who have been turned away early and have to give up their sports dreams.
The Olympic Spirit is mentioned in the Olympic Charter, which includes guaranteeing that everyone has the opportunity to participate without discrimination, and unfortunately, in practice, for many years, in terms of gender identity alone, through artificially created criteria, many athletes need to overcome difficulties beyond the level of competition to stand on the starting line. Some of the debates focus on transgender athletes, or athletes who exceed traditional gender standards, have a "natural" advantage in competition, and if this is true, transgender athletes should be slams everyone, over any other "female" player in women's sports. This is not the case, and there is no conclusive evidence that testosterone levels are closely related to the competitive level of athletes.
South African hurdler Caster Semenya.
"Physiological determinism" is an invisible insult to athletes, especially female athletes, and an athlete's ability to stand on the field and surpass himself is behind day-to-day training, continuous accumulation of experience, and the honing and improvement of skills in a game. Competitive sports require years of efforts, and in this process, a lot of economic and social resources are needed to support. The continuous neglect and contempt of female athletes and female projects, athletes' lack of sufficient funding, excellent coaches and a good training environment are stubborn diseases in competitive sports; improving fairness in this regard should be more important than spending more money and energy to review the gender of athletes.
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In 2001, at the age of 22, Hubbard left the weightlifting arena, and in 2017, she returned to the field. In a 2018 match, a mistake in a game nearly broke her career, and when New Zealand selected her as one of the five participants in the Tokyo Olympic weightlifting event, Hubbard thanked people for their support and encouragement to help her return to the field after overcoming the injury.
In the center of the storm of public opinion, Hubbard spoke very little, and she did not give too much response to the voices of the outside world. In the less than 10-minute interview when she came back in 2017, the host asked her how she felt about the excessive attention and questioning of her gender identity, and her answer was flat, like many men and women in the workplace, she said that she had no intention of changing the world, she just wanted to be herself, do what she should do, focus on her weightlifting career -
"I am what I am. I have no intention of changing the world. I just want to be myself and do what I'm supposed to do. ”（I am who I am. I’m not here to change the world. I just want to be me and do what I do.）
"All I can really do is focus and lift the weight." （All I can really do is to focus and lift.）
Key References:
American Psychological Association. (2015). Guidelines for psychological practice with transgender and gender nonconforming people. American Psychologist, 70(9), 832-864. Bariola, E., Lyons, A., Leonard, W., Pitts, M., Badcock, P., & Couch, M. (2015).
Demographic and psychosocial factors associated with psychological distress and resilience among transgender individuals. American journal of public health, 105(10), 2108-2116.
Fausto-Sterling, A. (2000). Sexing the body: Gender politics and the construction of sexuality. Basic Books.
Flores, A. R., Herman, J. L., Gates, G. J., & Brown, T. N. T. (2018). How many adults identify as transgender in the United States? The Williams Institute. 2016.
Hines, S. (2019). The feminist frontier: On trans and feminism. Journal of Gender Studies, 28(2), 145-157.
Jones, C., & Slater, J. (2020). The toilet debate: Stalling trans possibilities and defending ‘women’s protected spaces’. The Sociological Review, 68(4), 834-851.
International Olympic Committee (2015). IOC Consensus Meeting on Sex Reassignment and Hyperandrogenism November 2015. https://www.olympic.org/search?q=androgen&p=2
Meier, S. C., & Labuski, C. M. (2013). The demographics of the transgender population. In International handbook on the demography of sexuality (pp. 289-327). Springer, Dordrecht.
Pearce, R., Erikainen, S., & Vincent, B. (2020). TERF wars: An introduction. The Sociological Review, 68(4), 677-698.
WHO (2019). ICD-11: Classifying disease to map the way we live and die. https://www.who.int/news-room/spotlight/international-classification-of-diseases
RNZ (2017, December 7). Laurel Hubbard: I have to block out the criticism. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JYerPYsts
Written by | Wang Jiayin
Edit | Li Yongbo Shen Chan
Proofreading | Wang Xin