Transphobia has reared its ugly head following the selection of Laurel Hubbard, a transgender woman, as a member of the New Zealand Women's Weightlifting team going to the Olympics taking place in Japan this year.
Social media has been in an uproar following an interview on Tapatahi and a story on Māori Television social media in which Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern backed the transgender weightlifter's inclusion in the New Zealand Olympic squad. Many comments had to be removed, given their violently expressed attacks on Hubbard.
Hubbard will make history at this year's Olympics, being the first official transgender athlete to perform at the Games, something that has caused great controversy.
She will, however, not be the first transgender athlete. Heinrich Ratjen, born Dora Ratjen, was a German athlete who competed for Germany in the women's high jump at the 1936 Summer Olympics at Berlin, finishing fourth, but was later determined to be male and/or intersex.
Hubbard will also not be the second if 800 metres women's world champion Caster Semenya is taken into account.
Nor the second ...
The South African athlete has a medical condition known as hyperandrogenism, which is characterised by higher than usual levels of testosterone, a hormone that increases muscle mass and strength and the body’s ability to use oxygen.
World Athletics introduced rules in 2018 for middle-distance athletes with differences in sex development (DSDs) who are legally female and have testes, XY chromosomes - typically found in men - and male levels of testosterone. DSD athletes were told to lower their testosterone levels to those of “a healthy woman with ovaries” by taking the contraceptive pill, having a monthly injection or undergoing surgery to remove their testes. Semenya, who refuses to discuss her gender, challenged the rules and lost.
The third is Andreas Krieger is a German former shot putter who competed on the women's East German athletics team at SC Dynamo Berlin as Heidi Krieger.
He was systematically and unknowingly doped with anabolic steroids for years by East German officials, which caused body chemistry issues. Being a trans man, Krieger subsequently underwent gender affirmation surgery.
Not seen as normal
But, according to Labour MP Louisa Wall, a gay woman who played for the Black Ferns, Hubbard didn't transition just because she wants to compete as an athlete.
"People don't just decide overnight to do it, and they also don't do it because they want to win gold medals. They do it because that's fundamentally who they are."
"A lot of the issues around Laurel Hubbard are related to our ignorance and global ignorance and the inherent discrimination cause she is an 'Other'. She is not seen as a normal human being."
Cathy Millen is a decorated powerlifter who has held multiple national titles for powerlifting. She has strongly condemned Hubbard's inclusion in the New Zealand Women's weightlifting team going to Japan. She says there is a clear advantage to Hubbard because she was born a man.
"There is a huge physiological when you are biologically born as a male. I think she is a pawn in this whole silly game, and it just takes away opportunities from other women to compete."
"You're classified as a woman but you're allowed to keep your genitalia and still compete as a woman? and you don't think that that will be a physiological advantage just because the rules say that you are up at a certain level with your testosterone?"
Not yet acccepted
But Wall says Hubbard has met all the criteria to compete and should be allowed to take her place in the team.
"You've had to have four years of living in that gender, and you also have to have your testosterone levels under ten nanomoles per litre and throughout the competition. It's pretty hard on the body when you endure that type of medicalisation."
In 1986, New Zealand reformed its homosexuality laws, paving the way for gay rights. But Wall says other sexualities are still considered wrong.
"So that's almost two generations of people who have come through that law reform now respecting and valuing and acknowledging homosexuality. What hasn't happened is acceptance of trans, of intersex whānau of non-binary."