One of Canada’s top female athletes says she is being sanctioned for speaking out against transgender athletes in women’s sports.
April Hutchinson, a female powerlifter with Team Canada and a North American deadlift record holder, said on X, formerly Twitter, that she faces a ban by the Canadian Powerlifting Union (CPU), the governing body for powerlifting in Canada.
“I now face a 2-year ban by the CPU for speaking publicly about the unfairness of biological males being allowed to taunt female competitors & loot their winnings,” she posted.
“Apparently, I have failed in my gender-role duties as ‘supporting actress’ in the horror show that is my sport right now. Naturally, the CPU deemed MY written (private) complaint of the male bullying to be ‘frivolous and vexatious.’”
The Epoch Times reached out to Ms. Hutchinson and the CPU but did not hear back by publication time.
The decision by the CPU comes after an Aug. 19 piece Ms. Hutchinson wrote and was published in the UK’s Daily Mail. In it, she criticized the CPU for allowing transgender athletes to compete in women’s sports.
She said she refused to compete against Anne Andres, who is transgender, and wrote to the CPU to get them to change policies about transgender athletes competing against biological women.
“When I refused to shut up, the CPU threatened me with suspension from the Canadian National team. I’ve now obtained a lawyer to assist with my legal battle,” she wrote in the article.
“Everyone knows this is unethical. But the federation has been too cowardly to do anything because the Canadian government protects ‘gender identity’ from discrimination, alongside race, gender, and sexual orientation. As a result, the rights of biological women are trampled."
The CPU has previously been warned about its stance toward competitions involving transgender individuals.
The International Powerlifting Federation (IPF) has said the CPU may be suspended from competitions if it continues with current policies.
The federation’s rules state that “no lifter should have an unfair and disproportionate advantage over another athlete.”
IPF requires testosterone testing to prove that a transgender athlete’s total levels are below 2.4 nanomoles per litre and free testosterone is below 0.433 nanomoles per litre.
Noncompliance with testing may mean the athlete will be deemed ineligible for competition.
“It’s different in different sports. We are a strength sport, so of course, it is different from other sport. And so we worked out a long time [ago] this policy but Canada never did follow that policy,” IPF President Gaston Parage told the Daily Mail.
“It is important to do that because [when] we worked out the transgender policy, we wanted to make sure that we don’t discriminate against women. It is needed to have such a policy to make sure if a transgender compete[s], that it is fair [to] the women.”
The CPU’s transgender policy does not mention testing and doesn’t require athletes to disclose gender identity history, including any hormone therapy.
