(LifeSiteNews) — Female athletes won a modest victory against domination by men who claim they are women after the International Powerlifting Federation (IPF) announced a change in rules.
The weightlifting organization announced that “transgender” 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.
The change came about a week after a gender-confused man named “Anne” Andres set a Canadian powerlifting record.
He 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.
Canadian competitive powerlifter April Hutchinson called the change a “BIG win.”
“It’s not a perfect policy but a step in the right direction,” Hutchinson wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. “No more inclusion policy. See what speaking up can achieve.”
A big WIN for women in powerlifting Canada today. The @IPF_tweet has changed policy. It’s not a perfect policy but a step in the right direction. No more inclusion policy. See what speaking up can achieve? Thank you @coachblade for all your help and @ICFSport @icons_women pic.twitter.com/JZMZDygSCQ
— April Hutchinson (@Lea_Christina4) August 22, 2023
The International Consortium for Female Sports (ICFS) also praised the decision but said it plans to push for a complete prohibition on men competing against women.
“This is progress. It’s an acknowledgment that boundaries must be placed around the phenomenon of men demanding to compete in women’s #sports,” the group wrote in response to Hutchinson’s post. “Be sure that [ICFS] will continue to advocate for a female-only category (zero% men) in #powerlifting.”
Hutchinson previously told Piers Morgan that the gender-confused male’s participation discouraged female athletes.
“For example, that national record that he broke – athletes have been chasing that for years,” she previously said. “And we’re talking top athletes who have been training, and training, and training. It goes to show the advantages, the physiological advantages that a male has over a female, whether it’s muscle mass, bone density, lung capacity. I could go on.”
“A lot of women yesterday dropped out of the competition because they knew that ‘Anne’ would be lifting,” Hutchinson said. “They dropped, they quit, they wrote to the federation, and the federation basically did nothing about it.”
“Great news!” women’s sports activist Riley Gaines said on social media.