April Hutchinson, a female powerlifter with Team Canada and a North American deadlift record holder, says she welcomes a newly enforced policy regarding transgender individuals competing in the sport.
The policy update from the International Powerlifting Federation (IPF) would mandate specific maximum testosterone levels and provision of medical records for transgender athletes before and during competition, as well as a valid passport issued in the gender of competition for at least four years.
Athletes would also not be allowed to self-identify as a certain gender, nor fluctuate between male and female competition categories.
“Allowing men to compete in women’s sports is discriminating against women,” Hutchinson said, adding the renewed policy recognizes that and “protects women in sport.”
“The policy does not discriminate against transgender persons. It is fair. It still allows transgender athletes to participate. They just must follow the testosterone monitoring. If they do not pass the testosterone monitoring, they are allowed to compete in the sex in which they were born,” she added.
The change in policy follows criticism after Anne Andres, a biological male powerlifter who is now transgender, set Canadian national and unofficial world records on Aug. 13 in Brandon, Manitoba, at the Canadian Powerlifting Union’s (CPU) 2023 Western Canadian Championship.
‘Disproportionate Advantage’
Hutchinson said the IPF has now made it clear that competitors “must align or be suspended.”The new IPF policy says that “no lifter should have an unfair and disproportionate advantage over another athlete.”
It states that the “difference in testosterone level between male and female has a significant effect on the biological makeup of an athlete—such as muscle mass, type of muscle fibres and muscle distribution.” As powerlifting is a strength sport, the differences between biological males and females “are directly related to performance,” it states.
The IPF said that going back 50 years, “male records of similar body weight categories are always significantly higher than female records.”
The newly enforced policy requires that any transgender athlete who wants to compete in powerlifting at any level must declare they are a transgender before competing. Notably, the policy states that the athlete “must have a valid passport issued by one’s country with an indication of gender.”
It also states that athletes cannot be considered if they claim a “gender fluid identity.” It cites maximum testosterone levels for an athlete to compete must be no more than 2.4 nmol/L, with no higher than 0.433 nmol/L, at least 12 months prior to the first competition. Those levels are monitored by interval testing, according to the IPF.
Hutchinson said it is “not a perfect policy” but is a “step in the right direction.”
SuJan Gill, who placed second lifting 387.5 kilograms in the same competition, said people are “forgetting that Anne Andres is a human being with emotions, and a desire to be accepted, as we all are.”
Gill said she chose to support Andres and was “happy” to compete alongside the former male athlete.
“I do not know the science behind transgender athletes and if they have biological advantages,” she told The Epoch Times, adding that it’s more important to value the individual than “who comes in first or who lifts more than who.”
“At the end of the day, in this sport, we are all competing against ourselves first, always striving for a personal best,” she said.
Andres told The Epoch Times on Aug. 24 that the new IPF policy “changes literally nothing for me,” given that it was 13 years after transition that the athlete first started bodybuilding.
Andres expressed concern, however, for how the policy will “drastically” affect junior weight lifters. The IPF policy requires medical records for four prior years, and Andres noted that juniors start competing at age 12, “juniors that haven’t gone through puberty.”
Competition
On Aug. 21, Hutchinson wrote an editorial for the UK Daily Mail, saying that Andres won a women’s gold medal and set an all-time powerlifting record in three combined lifts: squat, bench, and deadlift. Andres ultimately lifted 1,327 pounds—470 more than the closest biological female competitor.“The top 20 men’s competitors lift over 2,000 lbs. If Andres competed against them, Andres wouldn’t even rank in the top 6,000. But Andres’ deadlift was the second highest in women’s weightlifting history,” wrote Hutchinson.
She said her view was that a transgender individual competing against biological women “was cheating,“ given that “Andres weighed 200 lbs. and deadlifted 314 lbs. in 2019.”
“Today, Andres weighs nearly 260 lbs. and deadlifts over 500. While Andres’ gains are seemingly impossible in female competition, the numbers would barely register in the male division,” said Hutchinson.
She told The Epoch Times that three female powerlifters dropped out of the competition before Andres’ win. She alleges the athletes wrote to the CPU and were “ignored.” She said one of her fellow competitors quit, and the other dropped weight to enter another category.
The CPU did not return requests for comment.
