Larry Williams Drive

Now look it may not altogether surprise you today to hear that the International Olympic Committee has banned transgender women from competing in female events because this was so obviously going to happen once Kirsty Coventry was elected president of the IOC. She was clearly going to do it, given that she campaigned on doing exactly this. But, you may be surprised to realise what an enormous U-turn this actually is. I had to go back and have a look to actually believe it. Five years ago, the IOC publicly praised Laurel Hubbard for having “courage and tenacity” as the first transgender athlete to compete at the Olympics. They said everyone agrees that trans women are women. So, to go from that position to now banning Laurel Hubbard from competing in a female category again, in the space of five short years, is actually—when you think about it—quite an extraordinary turnaround. Now obviously what’s happened is public opinion has shifted. Five years ago was before the Cass Report was delivered in the UK on the