Laurel Hubbard Tokyo Olympics: Petition calls for transgender athlete to be banned from competition

The public feel ‘betrayed’ by the Olympic committee’s decision to allow Laurel Hubbard to compete in the women’s weightlifting division, with 21,000 signing a petition calling for the rules to be overhauled moving forward.

The 43-year-old competitive weightlifter was selected to represent New Zealand at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics – making her the first transgender athlete to compete at sport’s highest level. 

But when Daily Mail Australia revealed she captained her high school team to glory at Auckland’s exclusive Saint Kentigern Boys’ College in 1994, thousands of outraged readers suggested her inclusion in the female division was distinctly unfair.

‘So many women feel betrayed,’ a woman who knew Laurel when she was younger said.

‘[Laurel] should pull out of the team.’  

Hubbard transitioned from a man to a woman in 2012 at the age of 35, after training and competing in male weightlifting competitions since she was a teenager.

A poll conducted by Daily Mail Australia revealed 96 per cent of participants – 2,418 readers – thought it was unfair that Hubbard had taken the place of another female athlete in the competition. 

Just 88 votes supported the action. 

A minority argued she is within the rules of the sport, therefore should be welcomed in the competition.

‘Laurel Hubbard has NOT broken any rules set out by the governance of sport,’ one supporter said. ‘[She] is a fully transitioned transsexual. She is according to the rules.’

Others pointed out that while Hubbard captained his weightlifting team as a teenager, his results in junior competitions would never have seen him qualify for a position on the men’s senior national team.

Hubbard came first in the 99kg over 16s Junior National Championships and second  in the 108kg weight division at the Northern Region Secondary School Championships.

But the school 1994 yearbook reveals he was named only as a non travelling reserve for an international team which would represent New Zealand in Australia later that year.

Now, as Laurel, the 43-year-old is one of the top female weightlifters in New Zealand, and was among the first selected to represent the nation in Tokyo next month.

Close to 22,000 people have signed a petition stating the rules which allowed Hubbard to qualify as a woman – namely that her testosterone levels are below the qualifying amount and that she identifies as a woman – are not fair and should be scrapped.

‘This completely ignores the physical advantages in speed, height, stamina and strength that a male-born athlete will have,’ the petition reads.

‘Women were not consulted and did not consent to this policy which will make a complete mockery of their sport.’ 

Hubbard understands that her selection will be divisive and a point of contention heading into the Olympic games. 

‘When [people] are shown something that may be new and different to what they know, it’s instinctive to be defensive,’ she said during her last known interview in 2017.

‘It’s not really my job to change what they think, what they feel and what they believe. I just hope they look at the bigger picture, rather than just trusting whatever their gut may have told them.’

‘I’m just me.’   

Students from her 1994 graduating class remember her only as ‘Gavin’ – an academic and quiet student who spent most of his days training in the gym at their $22,000-a-year school.

The incredibly-private weightlifter was shy and awkward even then, before turning into a recluse after graduation and reappearing more than a decade later as Laurel, an athlete dominating in her new female division.  

‘I can’t remember Gavin having too many friends at school. He never really seemed to fit in,’ one peer told Daily Mail Australia. 

Saint Kentigern – now a co-ed school – boasts dozens of alumni who have gone on to excel in their chosen sporting fields. 

The college has dominated tennis, golf, rugby, cycling and triathlon competitions for the last decade, and dedicates social media posts and a corner of their website to congratulating former students for their on-field achievements. 

When former Saint Kentigern College student Kirstyn Goodger was selected to represent New Zealand at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, the school commended her efforts on Facebook. 

Ms Goodger attended the prestigious private college after it became co-ed and joined the school’s rowing team in 2006.

Countless former students have gone on to play for New Zealand’s national rugby union team, the All Blacks, while others have been recognised for their efforts across the ditch in Australia playing rugby league.

The college has never publicly acknowledged Hubbard’s attendance at the school, but a spokeswoman wished her well for the Olympics, which begins on July 23. 

‘Over the course of 60 years, the Saint Kentigern community has remained deeply respectful of its heritage, staying true to its founding Christian principles and Scottish heritage,’ the school’s webpage reads.

The spokeswoman said: ‘As with all our former students who have gone onto Olympic selection, we wish Laurel the very best for her competition.’ 

Hubbard was a gifted student and participated in classes a year above her own, making it even harder to bond with students her own age.

Peers remember her being particularly advanced at mathematics.  

‘He just never really spoke to us, and we never spoke to him either,’ another Saint Kentigern alumni said.

Hubbard ‘never seemed comfortable’ among the boys in his class, struggling to bond over typical ‘boy talk’ and rarely participating in group activities. 

Classmates who shared a tent with Hubbard on school camping trips recall him ‘barely speaking a single word’ to them, even when the rest of the boys stayed up late at night chatting and playing pranks on one another.  

Hubbard’s peers say it is clear now he felt uncomfortable spending so much time in such close quarters to other boys.

‘He must’ve hated it,’ a former classmate said.  

After graduating in 1994, Hubbard fell off the grid. By 2004 his father, Richard ‘Dick’ Hubbard, had been elected Mayor of Auckland.

Richard Hubbard founded Hubbard Foods and is considered the ‘Messiah of Muesli’ in New Zealand for his dominance in the breakfast cereal market.

Since transitioning to Laurel, Hubbard has maintained that she wants privacy and rarely gives media interviews.

She said she first took up the ‘archetypally male’ sport of weightlifting in an attempt to feel more masculine as she struggled with her identity, but that ‘wasn’t the case’.  

On June 22, Hubbard was selected to compete in the 87 kilogram-plus super heavyweight division in Tokyo.

Her selection has been met with praise by New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who said Hubbard met eligibility standards set by the sport, the International Olympic Committee, and the New Zealand Olympic Committee.

But there is still plenty of outrage in the sporting community, with everyone from professional athletes to everyday sports fans and commentators arguing she has not only taken a spot from a biologically-born woman, but has an unfair advantage in the competition because she has the physical strength of a man. 

New Zealand Olympic weightlifter Tracey Lambrechs has suggested two gold medals be awarded if Hubbard wins in her division, arguing it would be unfair to pit her against female competitors.