(LifeSiteNews) — Canadian female athletes are now expressing their upset with sports organizations for allowing men in women’s powerlifting competitions.
Earlier this month, Canadian athletes Julianne Cragg and Maria Barwig spoke to the National Post to voice their concerns with men being allowed to compete against them in women’s weightlifting events.
“It’s not our intention to exclude anyone from competing, but the status quo (of mixed competition) is unsustainable,” Cragg, an Edmonton-based powerlifter, explained.
“An I.D. that says ‘female’ was basically all you needed to enter a woman’s event,” she continued.
Similarly, Barwig, a competitor based in Langley, B.C., declared that there must be a universal policy to keep women’s sports fair.
“There has to be a blanket government policy as it relates to women’s divisions,” she said.
Canada has some of the laxest rules for allowing men to compete in women’s sports. Currently, the Canadian Powerlifting Union (CPU) allows men to enter the women’s division if they have a valid passport bearing a female gender, which cannot be changed for at least four years.
Men must also register a testosterone level equal to or below an accepted threshold for at least a year before the competition.
In contrast, the USA Powerlifting bars both the use of androgens by any athlete, including women seeking to “transition from female to male,” and the participation of “male to female” competitors.
However, parts of Canada are beginning to wake up and defend women’s sports. In January, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith promised to introduce legislation to keep men from competing against women.
In addition to being physically stronger than women, many male competitors harass and mock their female competitors. Indeed, this happened to Cragg in 2021 when a male competitor spoke to her after an event.
“That athlete came up to me (after) they’d won and said to me… ‘just so you know, I’m biological male and the rules allow it, so there’s nothing you can do,’” she said in an interview earlier this year.
According to Cragg, the man dared her to lodge a complaint against him. The incident left Cragg shaken and forced her to take a break from lifting.
“I’d touch the bar and I’d just cry,” she explained.
The male athlete was eventually banned for six months after it was discovered that he had a years-long history of targeted harassment and online bullying toward fellow competitors.
Unfortunately, Cragg’s story is far from unique. As LifeSiteNews previously reported, in August, the CPU suspended gender-confused male powerlifter “Anne” Andres for six months after a slew of death threats and harassments against his female competitors.
Interestingly, while Andres was suspended for six months for issuing death threats, female powerlifter April Hutchinson was suspended for two years after publicly condemning him for stealing victories from women and then mocking his female competitors on social media. Her suspension was later reduced to a year.
However, even Andres himself has admitted that biological males have an advantage over females in powerlifting, saying, “While the science does appear pretty clear that transgender women [sic] athletes do appear to have a sustained advantage having gone through male puberty, even after having testosterone-blocking surgery, that’s not the conversation we’re having here.”
Indeed, scientific research continues to reaffirm that males have an edge over females in sports due to their physical capabilities, which are not eliminated by cross-sex hormones.
Competing in the women’s category, Andres set the national record at a championship in Brandon, Manitoba, at the Canadian Powerlifting Union’s 2023 Western Canadian Championship after outlifting the females in the category by over 200 kilograms. He won first place in the Female Masters Unequipped category, as recently reported by LifeSiteNews.
However, shortly after his win, the International Powerlifting Federation (IPF) warned the CPU that Andres would be suspended if he continues to compete against women for violating the IPF policy that “transgender”-identifying athletes must present identification proving they have identified as the opposite sex for at least four years prior to competing against women. The gender-confused male must also prove he has a lowered testosterone level.