TRIGGERnometry - Transwomen in Women's Sport： Inclusive or Unfair？ With Judy Glenney

00:00:00.000 I felt rather betrayed. I felt anxious for the next generation of women weightlifters 1.00

00:00:09.800 because what are they going to face if we keep going down the trail that we are?

00:00:22.800 Hello and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster. I'm Constantine Kishin.

00:00:28.860 And this is a show for you if you want honest conversations with fascinating people.

00:00:34.880 It doesn't get any more fascinating than the guest we have for you today.

00:00:38.780 She is a pioneer of women's weightlifting, a former national champion and America referee,

00:00:44.020 and also an author and writer as well.

00:00:46.240 Judy Glaney, welcome to Trigonometry.

00:00:48.220 Thank you. It's a pleasure to be with you.

00:00:50.740 It's so great that you could join us today.

00:00:52.820 It's obviously a time in which women's weightlifting and some of the other issues 1.00

00:00:56.820 that you've written about in the past is very much in the public eye. Before we get into all

00:01:00.860 of that, please tell us and our audience a bit more about your background. Who are you? What

00:01:06.660 is your journey through life? How do you find yourself sitting here talking to us all the way

00:01:10.520 across the pond? My background is primarily in sports. I participated in sports all through my

00:01:18.260 growing up years, but then I met this wonderful man who later became my husband, who was a

00:01:23.160 weightlifter. And I became absolutely fascinated with the sport of weightlifting, the type that

00:01:29.660 you see in the Olympics where you put the weight over your head. Well, there was no weightlifting

00:01:34.560 for women at that time when I started training and started working with him. But we decided that

00:01:41.420 I enjoyed it so much. Why not start the sport for women? So that began my journey in weightlifting.

00:01:50.040 At that time, like I mentioned, there was no official entry for women, so I competed against the men.

00:01:57.540 Well, I shouldn't say I competed against them.

00:01:59.480 I competed alongside of them.

00:02:02.120 I wasn't allowed to compete within the competition, so I was competing outside the competition just because I enjoyed the sport and I wanted to do the best that I could.

00:02:15.460 But so as the years came by, I wanted to really involve other women because I knew I wasn't the only crazy out there that wanted to do this.

00:02:26.940 So by and large, I started getting in contact with other women, other officials. 0.55

00:02:33.920 We had our first national competition in 1981.

00:02:38.080 that grew into involving more countries as I became more aware and more connected with the

00:02:45.480 international weightlifting community. So we had our first world championship in 1987,

00:02:52.460 but my dream had always been to get weightlifting into the Olympics. So I just made so many more

00:03:02.420 contacts, which led me to thinking that this might be a possibility. So long story short,

00:03:09.360 we did get the women's weightlifting into the Olympics in 2000, which was amazing. I had the

00:03:17.040 opportunity to, by that time, Mike, my weightlifting career on the platform had long since been gone,

00:03:26.540 But I did have the opportunity to be an official at that Olympic.

00:03:33.340 So I was just so pleased to see these women on the platform. 0.72

00:03:37.780 During this time, I also was dealing with, or shortly after this time, I should say,

00:03:43.420 I started dealing with my son who announced that he was transgender.

00:03:48.880 So I have this background in my family dealing with this issue now that has entered

00:03:54.900 the weightlifting arena. So that is my background. And that is the subject of your second book,

00:04:02.560 dealing with your son and that story. So let's talk first of all about the weightlifting part

00:04:11.020 of it. I imagine that when you were doing this in the 70s and the 80s and later, you were not

00:04:18.120 exactly being embraced by many of the men who were competing in weightlifting. I imagine it

00:04:24.640 would not have been easy am i right oh no no oh yes there were many raised eyebrows many words

00:04:33.140 exchanged uh fortunately my husband uh was kind of a buffer but as i would be in these competitions

00:04:42.400 and would say want to warm up on the platform before my lifts oh my goodness the the comments

00:04:48.800 What is she doing here? She has no right being here. And they would scorn and they would essentially give me the impression that I was totally invading their sacred space. 0.51

00:05:02.800 But the meat directors would allow me again to compete. They said, no, you cannot compete within the competition, but you can certainly compete outside the competition.

00:05:16.240 So it took a long time before we could convince the weightlifting community that women could do this. 0.99

00:05:25.300 And that's one of the things I might add that I really wanted to get across to the public as the women started to compete, 1.00

00:05:35.180 that these were women who really appreciated the sport.

00:05:39.000 They were knowledgeable about the sport.

00:05:42.480 they could do the technique and we were athletes first we weren't out there to

00:05:48.120 burst the the as it were the ceiling of men's weightlifting but we just wanted to compete as

00:05:55.880 athletes and you say you just wanted to compete as athletes you must have had such a tremendous

00:06:01.760 sense of pride you know to take a sport that was very much at the margins and then bring it into

00:06:08.120 the mainstream with the olympics oh i was just i i was i was on the jury at the olympic games and

00:06:15.440 i just sat there with with such emotion that these women to use the expression did me proud 0.99

00:06:23.080 they were such technicians they they carried themselves like women they carried themselves 0.98

00:06:31.560 like athletes and i couldn't have been more proud of the way they conducted themselves

00:06:37.800 and their performances they lifted fantastic so I was I was like a mother hen as it were

00:06:44.600 so and this is kind of what I think we're getting at the the process of getting women the opportunity

00:06:51.960 to compete on a par with men in the Olympics is something that you and other people like you had

00:06:58.060 to fight for for a period of time which brings us on to the conversation that is being had now

00:07:04.320 about this issue where, you know, depending on how you see it, some people would argue that

00:07:10.300 that opportunity is now being taken away from women with someone like Laurel Hubbard coming in. 1.00

00:07:17.200 What is your take on that whole situation? I have a lot of takes on that whole situation.

00:07:24.200 We got an hour, Judy, so you go for it.

00:07:26.280 First of all, I believe that with your comment about our getting into women's sports, we did fight so hard for women, not only in weightlifting, but in other sports, to compete on an equal playing field.

00:07:46.880 We tried very hard to get access to coaches, to facilities, to equipment that would just allow us as women to compete in something that we truly did enjoy.

00:08:01.780 So when these opportunities came about, we embraced them and we competed against women. 1.00

00:08:10.200 And I think that that was the main thing that I wanted.

00:08:13.500 I didn't want to compete against the men.

00:08:16.240 I wanted to compete against women. That's where my heart was. That's where I felt I could

00:08:23.360 contribute most was to give the opportunity to women who enjoyed what I did. I knew,

00:08:30.420 as I put before, I wasn't the only crazy. And as I found out, I wasn't. There's a whole world

00:08:37.100 of women out there that really did enjoy weightlifting. So I wanted to give them the

00:08:42.600 opportunity to compete on that equal footing, women against women. And it came about not only 1.00

00:08:51.000 in weightlifting, but in the other sports as well. So when we are addressing this whole transgender 0.99

00:08:58.260 issue, that comes on several levels. When I first saw that she was going to compete, 1.00

00:09:07.700 uh a lot of emotions uh frustration uh a little bit of anger but the the sense that that my work

00:09:18.120 and not only mine but so many other women who have and i might add that i didn't pioneer this

00:09:25.460 on my own i had so much help and so uh i'm i'm just kind of the the face of weightlifting at

00:09:33.600 this point, but so many other women were involved in getting us to get the women's 1.00

00:09:40.000 into the Olympics. So when it came to this issue, I felt rather betrayed. I felt anxious for

00:09:51.600 the next generation of women weightlifters, because what are they going to face if we keep 1.00

00:09:59.920 going down the trail that we are. So, for example, and we're talking about the IOC,

00:10:07.620 the International Olympic Committee, has changed their policy through the years. And this is what

00:10:12.840 really concerns me about where this is going with this whole agenda, that first of all, when

00:10:20.980 we first started competing internationally, and the women kind of made a joke about this, 0.97

00:10:27.140 we had gender testing that was we swabbed the the cheek and and there were actual chromosome testing

00:10:34.820 and we kind of joked that we had a little card that said we were a genuine female that's not

00:10:42.740 such a joke anymore so that became the standard by which we were competing women against women 0.87

00:10:51.240 Then the IOC said, well, we're not really concerned with that.

00:11:01.200 And that's about the time when the transgender community really hadn't come along in force much before that time.

00:11:12.500 There were a few that were making some inroads with other sports.

00:11:17.560 So I think the IOC made this change from the chromosome testing to if you are going to compete as a woman, then you need to have surgery.

00:11:28.340 You need to be a woman. 1.00

00:11:31.100 Well, as time goes on, the transgender community made some more issues and said, well, some of the athletes can't afford that.

00:11:42.860 They are not going to go to that length.

00:11:44.960 So they relaxed that, and now they are only testing for testosterone.

00:11:51.020 My feeling is if they have gone that far in relaxing all of these regulations for transgender, are they now going to relax them further and say, well, now you only have to identify as a woman?

00:12:11.380 That is my concern.

00:12:12.980 We in Washington State, I'm on the West Coast of the United States, and in my state and in several other states, that is the only criteria that some boys can compete against girls is say, I identify as a girl.

00:12:28.480 So this is what really concerns me as this progresses, is that we are accommodating a very, very, very few to the exclusion of women.

00:12:45.480 So what I'm saying is that we are accommodating the wants of a few against the needs of the many.

00:12:53.020 so as this begins to be more invasive women are going to be hurt by this if if men only have to 0.95

00:13:04.420 say they identify as a woman that gives them perfect access and the law now is going to 0.69

00:13:10.880 accommodate that that they have access to locker rooms to restrooms to any other women's spaces so 1.00

00:13:20.120 this is not just sports. This is across the board in our culture. And I am very fearful

00:13:26.740 for our women because of this whole idea that has come across. So yes, I have a lot of passion

00:13:38.080 about this whole identity and this gender. I hate to use the word praise, but unfortunately

00:13:47.420 for the young people it has become a craze and I can say a whole lot more about that as well

00:13:56.180 so if you want to interject no we're finding you very interesting and on the show we love to hear

00:14:02.840 our guests talk Judy I'm going to slightly push back on that so let's take the case of Laurel

00:14:08.600 as far as I know and correct me if I'm wrong she had to be below a certain testosterone level 1.00

00:14:15.080 when she competed, then surely isn't that enough? 0.88

00:14:19.440 Doesn't that put her on equal footing with all the other athletes? 0.73

00:14:22.980 And look, trans rights activists would say, if she had such an advantage, 0.63

00:14:28.640 then how come she lost in the first round?

00:14:33.400 Well, first of all, if we parlay that out, we can say, all right,

00:14:40.600 if you're going to go buy testosterone, are you going to test everybody

00:14:43.780 for testosterone. And given there are some women, biological women, that have a fairly high 0.94

00:14:52.340 testosterone level, are you going to keep them out just because their testosterone level

00:14:57.760 is slightly higher? So this not only affects them, but it affects all the other women as well. 0.94

00:15:04.480 Judy, sorry to interject there, but actually you say that as a theoretical, actually at these very

00:15:10.540 olympics that are occurring as we speak that has happened several women have been excluded not from

00:15:16.300 weightlifting but from other competitions precisely because of that and so it very much speaks to your

00:15:21.920 point and by the way the point francis is making is very much a devil's advocate i think we i think

00:15:26.580 it's also important to get into the fact that testosterone alone isn't the only thing that is

00:15:31.580 the difference between men and women, right? Absolutely. Absolutely. I firmly believe that 0.98

00:15:40.340 God created men and women. There are only two genders and your gender is assigned at birth. 0.93

00:15:47.880 You're either a man or a woman, a girl or a boy. So you are given those testosterone. And yes,

00:15:54.480 some men have higher estrogen levels. Some women have higher testosterone levels. This is all part 0.52

00:16:01.440 of being who we are as those individuals so as you're saying that in and of itself doesn't make

00:16:08.720 you a man or a woman so um that point addressed uh as far as her performance goes yes she may

00:16:18.580 have had some of these or or this testosterone level within those limits but given her age she

00:16:25.420 She was 43 years old, and it is very, very rare that a woman can compete on that level at that age.

00:16:37.560 So that is another factor.

00:16:41.920 I can't speak to why she performed.

00:16:45.920 There's a lot of different factors why she did what she did.

00:16:49.720 She's not the only one that, to use the way the expression, bombed out.

00:16:54.640 That is, she did not make a lift. There are unfortunately other lifters, very much male, very much female that did the same thing. So that in and of itself, I don't think her performance really speaks to that issue.

00:17:13.720 Well, right. You're not comparing like with like. The fact that a 43-year-old athlete bombed out while competing with 25-year-olds, isn't this? So I guess in a way, the fact that Laurel Hubbard made it to the Olympics at the age of 43 shows, to some extent, the advantage that Laurel Hubbard had, right? And give us some figures, because this would be interesting. On your personal, did you continue to try and compete by the time you were 43?

00:17:41.300 oh i hung on as long as i could so my uh like i said we we started the our nationals the u.s

00:17:51.340 nationals in 1981 i had already been lifting 10 years before that um but i continued to progress

00:18:00.340 i won uh four national championships uh and then that's when i started to to wane that's when my

00:18:09.220 lifting my best lifting was about 30 my early 30s maybe uh middle 30s and i stride and as we

00:18:17.780 got more into international competition and i saw the olympics coming on i said oh my goodness i got

00:18:23.300 to try but there was no way uh and that's when i started to compete on at 40 on the master's level

00:18:31.260 And my lifts were nowhere near, uh, by that time, what they were at, at my peak in my

00:18:38.180 thirties.

00:18:39.260 So can you give us the numbers?

00:18:41.080 What, at your peak, what, what would you lift and, and what might you be lifting at

00:18:45.700 40 odd?

00:18:47.920 Oh, let's see.

00:18:49.080 My best, uh, snatch was 82 and a half and kilos.

00:18:54.220 and my best clean jerk was uh 97 and a half kilos as i started to compete on uh on the master's

00:19:06.120 level my snatch on a good day was probably 60 um clean and jerk maybe uh 75 right so you know by

00:19:17.920 that time they were they were definitely coming down and believe me i i tried my best i trained

00:19:24.900 and i i did all that i could to hang on to that but but scientifically uh you do start losing

00:19:33.560 muscle mass particularly in women at least by the age of 40 so to try to keep that level at that age

00:19:44.040 As contrast, we have only a few men who generally keep their strength later than women.

00:19:52.740 We have only a few men that have been able to keep their strength up into their 40s, into the 41, 42, 43, up around that age.

00:20:04.140 So it's even very difficult for men to do that.

00:20:07.160 And so what you're saying is that it's utterly remarkable that Laurel Hubbard could then compete at that level, really, particularly if she was classified as a woman. It's unheard of, essentially.

00:20:22.040 I truly think so. I think that it is a rarity.

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00:21:59.840 and i can't believe i'm going to ask you this question but i think it's important

00:22:06.060 why is it so important that we protect women's sports in your opinion from transgender athletes 1.00

00:22:13.080 from people who want to compete i think it's it's important on a couple levels first of all

00:22:18.680 like i said to to uh well let me cite for example um a case going on right now in the united states

00:22:26.360 Two women who are track athletes, they were competing at the high school level. 0.97

00:22:34.980 A transgender boy identified as a woman competed against them, subsequently broke records that the events that these girls were competing in.

00:22:47.680 And unfortunately, because he was competing as a woman and getting ranked first in these events, breaking these records, they lost their college scholarships because of this.

00:23:04.880 So this is the ramification that is happening right now in our time.

00:23:11.160 And these are not the only girls that are going to be affected.

00:23:14.140 If they make this rule across the board that all you have to do is identify as a girl or as a woman and compete in girl sports, we are going to really set women's sports back years because of the lost opportunities that they are going to have competing against women on these higher levels.

00:23:40.040 So that's my first concern.

00:23:41.520 My next concern is the message that these people are giving to the next generation of not only sportsmen, sportswomen, those women that want to compete in sports as athletes and so forth, but these younger girls in general saying,

00:24:00.480 look at what, what these, I can do this. It's no big deal. I, I think I'm a boy.

00:24:07.740 So unfortunately we have made this so easy. And now, unfortunately we are now even making this

00:24:17.600 so accessible that when a youngster, and we're talking four and five years old, if they express

00:24:27.700 any kind of interest in the opposite gender, then they are, and I will use the word forcibly 1.00

00:24:35.340 because that is exactly what's happening. The doctors, the parents, the teachers are obligated

00:24:42.640 to transition that youngster as young as possible. That is the biggest mistake we can make. And

00:24:52.860 Unfortunately, the more the media plays with all these transgenders and the more I quote unquote opportunities they are giving them, they are just encouraging this whole transgender agenda as soon as possible for these youngsters. 0.99

00:25:11.100 And they have no business doing that. I heard one pediatrician say that this is the worst form of child abuse that he has ever seen. And unfortunately, it is going that way.

00:25:22.860 And we know that a youngster, and I know from my own experience, when I was young, I liked boy things.

00:25:31.720 I liked to climb trees.

00:25:33.340 I liked to ride bikes over bumps.

00:25:35.180 I liked to wrestle.

00:25:37.120 I liked to test my strength.

00:25:39.800 Totally unheard of when I was growing up in the 50s and 60s.

00:25:46.800 That was totally unheard of.

00:25:48.980 And, you know, girls just don't do those things. 1.00

00:25:53.640 If I had been later doing those things later as a girl, they more than likely they would have said, oh, you should have been a boy.

00:26:03.460 Let's transition.

00:26:04.720 You like these things.

00:26:05.580 And I said, oh, yes, I want to be a boy because that's and I thought that would be great.

00:26:11.400 But I grew out of that.

00:26:13.080 And that's what they're saying with these youngsters is that the greater percentage is up into the almost the 90 percent that these children grow out of it.

00:26:25.440 So as we we transition these youngsters into this, we are forcing them into this whole area that they should never have been entered into.

00:26:37.220 By the time they get into puberty and we've given them puberty blockers and we have told them to transition into that opposite gender, they are very, very confused. 0.99

00:26:50.460 We are seeing suicide rates unbelievable. And the argument, I will say, is that, well, my son or daughter had threatened suicide like my son did. He threatened suicide.

00:27:06.880 But my point is, yes, there is a dysphoria between the mind and the body.

00:27:13.860 But my point is, can we not try to get the mind in line with the body rather than going through all of this mutilation of the body to bring it in line with the mind?

00:27:27.540 I think not.

00:27:28.660 But God created you as a man or as a woman, and he has given you a mind as a man, a mind as a woman, and your body is in line with that. 0.54

00:27:41.180 Unfortunately, we have now made conversion therapy illegal.

00:27:46.500 And that bothers me a lot.

00:27:48.740 That even if a person says, oh, maybe I'm not sure.

00:27:56.040 Oh, no, no, can't do that.

00:27:57.680 it is illegal for a pastor, for a parent, for any professional health care, illegal for a teacher

00:28:05.740 to encourage any conversion therapy. That is to say that if you're questioning your gender

00:28:14.820 and you think, well, maybe I really should. I'm really not a boy like I thought it was. I really

00:28:22.800 am a girl no you're no you you're we're transitioning you into a boy what situation

00:28:31.700 does this put the child in uh judy this is something we've covered on the show uh quite a

00:28:36.000 bit but just coming back to sport because i do want to uh bring up the the the the suicide and

00:28:42.720 all of that side of it because i do think it's a big part of the conversation just coming back to

00:28:47.180 the sport for a moment some people might say uh the counter argument to many of the things you're

00:28:53.660 saying is well look you were a pioneer in in in women's sports and you would be turning up to

00:28:59.120 gyms i imagine and feeling like there's no place for you there and you didn't quite fit in and if

00:29:04.100 it weren't for your husband who was supporting and encouraging you uh you really would have been

00:29:08.940 an outcast and an outlier in that environment and you had to fight and fight and fight to be given

00:29:13.980 the opportunity to be included to be represented to be seen you had to work with other people like

00:29:19.700 you other women to get the chance to compete surely you can empathize with someone these

00:29:26.240 people would argue uh you can empathize with someone who currently feels like they're being

00:29:31.060 excluded they are not able to compete they don't have the opportunity uh to perform at the olympics

00:29:36.440 uh in the gender identity that they very strongly feel that they are

00:29:40.680 well i i feel that i i obeyed the rules as it were the rule stated that weightlifting was for

00:29:54.900 men that's fine i competed outside of the competition until we could get women against 0.97

00:30:04.300 women i think this is a whole different avenue because it carries so much more of the ramifications 1.00

00:30:11.000 and they do have their own games they have the gay games they which includes the lgbtq community

00:30:21.520 so in that respect they say okay well we have and and to answer your question they have gone to

00:30:29.940 like people they have garnered their group and they have formed their their competitions

00:30:37.460 against who they are but when it comes to the olympics the olympics is exclusionary between

00:30:44.760 men and women that is the point that i i the the olympics is a a to me a very sacred ground

00:30:55.020 It has been for years and years. So unfortunately, when you start going down this road, that's what I'm saying is that you may be excluded.

00:31:07.200 Just like Laurel, what women did she step over, as it were, to get to that position? 1.00

00:31:17.820 there were many women that fought very, very hard to get to that Olympic podium, to get to that 0.99

00:31:25.080 Olympic stage. And they weren't allowed to do that because of what she did. So that's where I'm

00:31:33.340 coming from in women's sports. Let women compete against women. Because if we don't, then you're 1.00

00:31:40.940 opening up a whole new can of worms. And these women, what are they going to say? It might 1.00

00:31:47.040 really come down to the point to where there the women are being frustrated and said what's the 1.00

00:31:52.440 use if that guy says that he's a girl i have no chance so why so uh we're putting this in that

00:32:01.680 sort of vein and i am very concerned that we're opening up this very big uh can of worms as it

00:32:09.500 were when it comes to women competing on these higher levels. Certainly on the lower level, 1.00

00:32:18.300 like I mentioned, on these states that just say, you can just say you're a girl and have at it.

00:32:26.700 And these girls that have striven so hard, they have trained so hard, they miss their opportunities.

00:32:33.700 And Judy, what is the attitude towards these transgender athletes amongst female athletes?

00:32:41.560 I'm not really sure. To be real honest, I haven't had the opportunity to really question them.

00:32:50.740 I will say, kind of on that vein, they did a gender testing was done up until about 1998 with the chromosomes.

00:33:02.120 then uh uh there was kind of an uproar saying oh well these these women feel violated and they feel 1.00

00:33:10.800 like they're being uh uh and intruded upon their they're questioning my my gender however they sent

00:33:19.240 a questionnaire to 3 000 athletes asking them two questions number one do you feel violated by

00:33:27.260 questioning your gender and number two would you like this to continue they got out of that

00:33:34.440 over 3 000 they got almost a thousand responses back the overwhelming response over 80 to 85 percent

00:33:43.580 said yes we want this to continue and 90 over 90 percent said i do not feel violated

00:33:52.980 So from that, I, and granted, this was years ago,

00:33:57.360 but I still feel that that probably would be the same today,

00:34:03.520 that women would want that same thing. 1.00

00:34:06.200 They want to be equal on that footing.

00:34:09.980 And Judy, do you think Laurel Hubbard marks the start of a pattern

00:34:14.400 where we're going to start to see more and more transgender athletes

00:34:18.000 competing in elite sport, elite female sport?

00:34:20.920 We could. It all depends on the ILC. If they continue to relax the criteria, then I think it will. And not only in our, yes, I think across the board in Olympic sports, the door is definitely open. And I think there are many that will go through that door.

00:34:46.360 Judy let me ask you another stupid question 1.00

00:34:48.460 I know we're asking you quite a lot of them 1.00

00:34:50.040 but it's because we live in a society

00:34:52.260 where we pretend that we don't know the answer to them

00:34:54.640 so let me do this

00:34:55.740 can you give us first of all

00:34:58.180 just some figures for the differences

00:35:00.400 between elite male weightlifters

00:35:02.920 and elite female weightlifters 0.92

00:35:04.780 competing in the same

00:35:06.040 competitions for the same

00:35:08.440 movements what kind of differences

00:35:10.660 are we seeing

00:35:11.380 weight wise

00:35:13.780 weights lifted are you talking about

00:35:16.360 Um, well, for example, we just watched the, the super heavyweights and, uh, Lasha, uh, lifted 585 pounds. I forget the kilos, 200 and some odd kilos. I'm sorry. Um, we're so used to pounds over here.

00:35:35.980 Um, but, um, uh, an enormous amount of weight, super heavyweight and, uh, our, uh, the, the, uh, super heavyweight in the women lifted close to 400 pounds, I do believe. 0.99

00:35:56.380 Um, so, you know, there's, there's a big, big gap.

00:36:01.240 And what if that male lifter was to take some kind of testosterone suppressants or something to lower their testosterone? Would that immediately make them into, would that reduce their performance to women's levels?

00:36:15.180 i can't say that it that it actually would because there you know there's there's so many

00:36:22.000 other factors other than that so i hesitate to say yes or no on on that particular i would say

00:36:29.660 just off the top of my head that yeah testosterone makes a makes a difference um that's pretty much

00:36:36.900 why men have testosterone and can do the things they do and women have a lower testosterone 0.82

00:36:42.880 on the entire estrogen but what i'm getting at is there are other physiological differences between

00:36:48.240 men and women on the the shape of the hips the angle of the legs and the size of the heart the

00:36:54.860 lungs the the all sorts of other stuff absolutely so what i'm asking you really is is just dropping

00:37:01.900 if you've taken a male elite weightlifter and reducing their level of testosterone is that

00:37:08.020 enough to make them be able to compete with women who have the same level of testosterone as they 0.99

00:37:13.600 do i i wouldn't say that it would um and and the other thing is that that the muscle physiology of

00:37:23.940 a man is is different they retain a lot more of that that testosterone and it uh so and i am not

00:37:32.780 a doctor i am not a physiologist and i but from my background uh in sports and and the studies i have

00:37:40.660 there is a vast difference between the physiology of men and women's muscle for example so the

00:37:51.440 tendon strength the attachment strength uh like i said the retention of of testosterone all of

00:37:57.660 make a make a difference so it's not just that one factor that i that i think uh would would

00:38:05.400 make the difference and judy do you think this is this whole saga has been damaging for women's 0.74

00:38:11.160 weightlifting i don't know if it's been actually damaging um it might make the women 0.99

00:38:21.120 more competitive and say, hey, you know, we want to compete as women. So it could kind of go either 1.00

00:38:29.800 way. I don't think one woman or one man transgendering is going to make a great deal of

00:38:38.900 difference at this point. However, I do feel, as we have mentioned, that it does open the door

00:38:45.080 for others to come in.

00:38:47.800 So to make a difference in women's weightlifting at this point, 1.00

00:38:52.460 I'm not sure that it will,

00:38:54.780 but I do think that it will in future generations.

00:39:00.780 It sounds like your concern is the regulations,

00:39:04.360 making sure that the regulations are fair.

00:39:07.380 And I guess if you don't think that testosterone alone

00:39:11.400 is a measure of that,

00:39:13.460 than the fact that that is the criterion that's currently been used,

00:39:18.880 then I imagine you don't feel the current rules are appropriate.

00:39:22.260 I don't think so.

00:39:23.300 But unfortunately, as they say, the genie is out of the bottle.

00:39:28.600 I would like to go back to chromosome testing.

00:39:32.700 However, that's probably not going to happen.

00:39:36.220 Why not?

00:39:36.560 history has shown that that regulations generally do not backtrack they only get softer they don't

00:39:46.300 get harder so that's that is my biggest concern is the track record like I say you follow what

00:39:53.080 the IOC has done in the past they've gotten softer they haven't gotten harder so to go back

00:39:59.720 to that and you we have now such a a a big uh transgender voice not just in the athletic arena

00:40:10.040 but and this is interesting too it's kind of a side mark that um most of the people pushing for

00:40:17.280 a lot of the transgender activity are not transgenders they are political people who are

00:40:24.140 pushing this transgender agenda. So that's why I think that the rules aren't going to go back to 0.99

00:40:33.820 that because we have such a major political group that will get involved and fight for less, not

00:40:42.960 more. Judy, why do you think this case has struck such a chord? Because, you know, women's power 1.00

00:40:50.480 powerlifters, women's powerlifting, weightlifting. It's a minority sport. It will have its people

00:40:56.460 who will follow it, who will enjoy it. But it's not a mainstream sport, dare I say. But this case

00:41:02.100 has elevated it to a mainstream story. It's been talked all over the world. Why do you think that

00:41:09.960 is because naturally because uh as you said weightlifting has been primarily a a man's sport

00:41:19.960 um so and and strength has been particularly the i i would say the the mirror of a man's strength

00:41:32.520 or a woman's strength so this has kind of been the determination uh this is weightlifting is 0.94

00:41:38.900 the epitome of strength so you have someone coming in as as this person and and naturally it's going

00:41:47.000 to be uh the the uh the the forefront of what a man or a woman is um so i i think that that in and

00:41:59.800 of itself is is going to be the the pivot point um of this this whole transgender thing is is 0.99

00:42:07.940 watching what women do with strength and what men do with strength and judy if you don't mind me 0.87

00:42:13.900 asking about your personal story with your family because i do think it's relevant here if that's

00:42:18.580 okay with you how do you how do you square your very passionate defense of protecting women's

00:42:25.060 sport with your own experience where uh which you've written about in in your book uh of having

00:42:31.200 a son who was not comfortable with his sex or his gender, wanted to transition, was unable to,

00:42:42.500 and eventually ended up sadly taking his own life. I'm sure for a mother, that's literally

00:42:47.340 the worst thing that could happen. And of course, our heart goes out to you. But how do you reconcile

00:42:53.280 those two things? Because I imagine you would have wanted your son to get whatever support he

00:42:58.060 needed to to be happy and to live a happy life therein lies the rub i knew that he was not a

00:43:07.980 woman and to allow him to pursue that avenue would only lead to his unhappiness this is not it has

00:43:18.780 shown time and time again that the surgeries the the transitioning does not solve the problem the

00:43:27.240 suicide rates after transition are just as high. It does not solve anything. So when it came to my

00:43:33.880 son, we really tried and we prayed diligently that he would get the help through counseling,

00:43:44.520 through whatever means we could to again show him that he truly was. God gave him a male body 0.71

00:43:54.880 And he had a plan for him as a boy growing up into a man.

00:44:00.540 And this is very unfortunate because, like I said, as we push these people into it, they find that many times this is not the solution.

00:44:11.740 So that's why we did not go along.

00:44:17.360 We did not condone him.

00:44:19.620 We made sure that he understood we love him.

00:44:22.720 We loved him as our child, no matter what he is and no matter what he does.

00:44:29.060 He is always our child.

00:44:30.700 We love him.

00:44:31.720 But unfortunately, we couldn't condone that journey that he was taking because in our

00:44:38.260 hearts, we knew it would only lead to unhappiness.

00:44:42.720 I have talked to many people who have come out of their transition and said, this was

00:44:50.280 the body that God gave me.

00:44:52.080 This is where I'm going to find peace and happiness. It was not in that opposite gender. 1.00

00:44:59.940 So that's why I'm pushing so hard to get conversion therapy allowed so that we can get these people on the right track so that they have their mind and their body in sync.

00:45:15.540 and not try to go through something that is going to be irreversible in their bodies.

00:45:23.460 So the whole idea of pushing these people are doing them, I think, a disservice.

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00:47:16.720 so when you say conversion therapy the only time I've ever heard conversion therapy Judy

00:47:23.760 is gay conversion therapy which we know just doesn't work how is transgender conversion

00:47:30.220 therapy different and how does it work well my my take on conversion therapy as as we're using it

00:47:37.740 is to allow that person to at least consider that they are not of the opposite gender

00:47:45.740 And unfortunately, many times they are convinced that, and there's no talking to them, but there are some that, and I'm talking about children, young children who exhibit the opposite gender behavior, and later on, and parents or teachers or whoever have allowed them to display the opposite gender behavior as much as they want to.

00:48:15.220 But later on, they say, hmm, maybe I do really like to put on a dress.

00:48:22.680 And they were born a girl, and maybe they thought they were a boy, so they played with boys things and so on and so forth.

00:48:28.940 But later on, hmm, maybe I do like to put on a dress, or maybe I do like a girl thing.

00:48:37.020 today's society will have already put them on the path to being a boy with no turning around

00:48:47.700 so my conversion therapy is saying let's allow that child to at least be themselves and explore

00:48:58.680 what their what their birth gender really is and be at at at peace with that be happy with that

00:49:07.200 in whatever way we can we can allow them to do that through counseling uh through primarily

00:49:14.560 through through counseling but uh that's that's my point on on conversion at least letting them

00:49:21.880 uh explore what they're where they're happy in and possibly their birth gender no it sounds like

00:49:28.480 what you're really talking about is you're against the transitioning of children, which I think most 0.99

00:49:33.500 people would be. Absolutely. There have been, again, many, many studies showing that these

00:49:41.700 kids who are put on that transgender path that early, by the time they get into puberty, 0.73

00:49:51.260 you can imagine how confused how frustrating they might be uh they are puberty blockers which means

00:50:00.060 that that everything is stopped their hormones have stopped their bodies are not developing

00:50:05.700 like they should have so they see their peers going through this stage and they're doing nothing

00:50:13.600 the girls are not developing breasts they are not going through their periods and so forth

00:50:19.940 the guys are not developing beards and so forth so there's they're in a quandary well

00:50:25.800 who am i i don't see anything happening so they're identifying really as as neither because

00:50:33.600 they don't see any progress in what they're going through unfortunately again this can be

00:50:40.740 irreversible so perchance they do go later on in life and say i really was a woman i'm

00:50:49.920 not a man. I've talked with several people who have lived in the opposite gender, females

00:50:57.440 particularly, living as a man for maybe 15, 20 years. And they come to themselves and

00:51:06.880 they say, God put me in a woman's body. I am a woman. Now, if they had gone through

00:51:14.800 all the surgery, they have irreversible damage. They have lost their sex drive in organs and

00:51:27.940 their hormones and so forth. So unfortunately, damage done. That's my concern when we have all

00:51:38.560 these kids going through this and unfortunately it has become a fad because we are introducing

00:51:46.020 it so early in our sex education courses that they're they are literally taught to explore

00:51:52.020 who they really are they are not we have taken out pink and blues we have taken out girls and boys

00:51:58.420 everybody is just one neutral person so right off the bat our kids are being told you can be

00:52:07.040 anything that you want to be.

00:52:09.900 So our kids are unfortunately being used as, I think, pawns

00:52:15.520 in this whole situation.

00:52:17.760 They are truly not allowed to really go the path

00:52:22.820 that they were created to be.

00:52:27.260 Judy, thank you so much for coming on the show.

00:52:30.920 We're going to ask a few questions for our local supporters afterwards,

00:52:34.900 But we're going to end this interview with our final question, which is always, what's the one thing we're not talking about as a society, but we really should be?

00:52:43.200 I think we've pretty much covered the waterfront as far as that goes, that I think that that I would encourage any parent who is involved with their transgender son or daughter to really explore really what what transgender is.

00:53:06.460 go into the research go into the background find out really what is happening before you allow your

00:53:14.420 child really to get into this uh god has a plan for for them in the gender that that they were 0.99

00:53:22.000 given and that's the only way that they can find fulfillment and happiness uh in in that uh place

00:53:29.140 that that god has for them thanks judy and uh before we uh ask our locals questions and before

00:53:35.380 we let you go for the purposes of the interview. Where can people find your work online?

00:53:41.620 My book, Mom, I'm a Girl, is at JudyGlenney.com. My weightlifting book,

00:53:50.520 Uplifting Dreams, is at W-L-G-L-E-N-N-E-Y, W-L-G-L-E-N-E-Y.com. So both of those books

00:54:01.540 are available on my two websites.

00:54:05.400 Judy, thanks for coming on the show

00:54:06.920 and thank you all for watching at home.

00:54:08.980 We will see you very soon

00:54:10.180 with another episode like this one

00:54:11.660 or our show.

00:54:12.840 All of them go out at 7pm UK time,

00:54:14.980 which is 2pm Eastern.

00:54:16.240 Take care and see you soon, guys.

00:54:19.580 We hope you've enjoyed

00:54:20.820 this incredible interview.

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TRIGGERnometry - August 15, 2021

Transwomen in Women's Sport： Inclusive or Unfair？ With Judy Glenney

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