Rob Jessel and Madison Smith have a piece in The Critic about the BBC and its dishonest reporting of weightlifter Laurel Hubbard.
Laurel Hubbard is a woman. If you don’t believe so, you’re a bigot and should be reported to the police for hate crime.
That was the message BBC Sport tweeted to its 9.3 million followers yesterday evening in response to criticism of its gushing profile on the 43-year-old male New Zealand weightlifter.
As it happens, Hubbard failed all his lifts yesterday. But the issue here is bigger than Hubbard, bigger even than the issue of men taking part in women’s sports. It’s about the infantilisation of debate by our national public broadcaster, and its threats against women for the crime of speaking up for their rights.
The whole thing is well worth reading if you have the stomach for it. Sometimes I wonder - maybe the BBC is best ignored as too odious to be worth the effort. Yet the effort has to be made.
5 comments:
Yes, I usually make the effort to ignore it.
Was it the message, or is this a paraphrase or an interpretatiuon of the message?
Which account did it come from? Was it an official BBC account or was it an account from someone who works at the BBC or claims to work there?
Can you refer us to the account so we can search for it on Twitter. I often do that for Titania McGrath so I know that search function can work.
Forther and better particulars, please. Until then, I maintain my scepticism.
In fact I do not believe that Laurel Hubbard is a woman.
I believe he is being exploited by oters, and I think it is sad fot women weight-lifters that he has taken the place of a woman lifter who could have gone to the Olympics from New Zealand.
James Strong
For the BBC be disingenuous about this subject is par for course.
I wrote a piece on the subject a short while back and while Hubbard failed to take advantage of his obvious physical advantage, that is because he, and I use he deliberately, is/was a mediocre athlete in a minority event, the same so far is the same for others who have taken advantage of transitioning, Rachel McKinnon has won a cycling world championship, but it is a masters title for older riders where again the transitioner was average before the change.
The problem is when some average but decent 20 year olds decide to transition to gain an advantage then the shit will really hit the fan.
All sporting bodies have been weak in clamping down on this farce and now are afraid in the face of PC to do what is right for women athletes.
This problem only affects women the reverse is notable by its absence! we have numerous classifications in the paralympics, I am sure they could find a category for trans only athletes where they could compete against each other.
Oh and the BBC headlines with 'reluctant Hubbard' wasn't reluctant to take the place of a biological woman in the team though was he.
I remember a Punch cartoon from the time of the Moscow Olympics. The picture showed a tester with a stopwatch and a female athlete flaked out on the floor next to a large piece of agricultural equipment. The caption read "You just failed the sex test. A real woman would have changed that tractor tyre in thirty seconds."
Sackers - not much effort these days though.
James - I don't believe that Laurel Hubbard is a woman either and I'm not convinced that many do, including the IOC.
Wiggia - it surprises me that the mediocre athlete taking obvious advantage of the rules isn't more prominent in any discussion.
Bill - that reminds me of huge female shot-putters from behind the Iron Curtain.
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