The Olympics aren’t fun for me anymore
As a child, the majesty of the games captivated me, I don’t feel that anymore
My earliest memory of the Olympics was watching the 1988 Olympics in South Korea on our grainy TV at home I was 6 years old. I only remember glimpses, the cauldron being lit, some people running track and field. My dad was a physical education teacher and coached soccer and track for 30 years, so sports were ubiquitous in my home growing up.
As time went on, I became captivated with the Olympics. I remember the shock of the 1996 Olympic Park bombing, but I also remember Michael Johnson demolishing the 200m dash world record in those same games. My dad said at the time that his record would never get broken. Usain Bolt did it just 8 years later.
From Katie Ledecky and Michael Phelps’ aquatic dominance to the many magical moments of the USWNT, the Olympics have always held a special place in my heart.
But my love of the games has faded over time. From corruption scandals, to the IOC’s insistence on holding this year’s games despite the raging Delta variant and a now rising caseload in Tokyo (which officials insist is not Olympics related), the Olympics are no longer magical to me. Perfectly deserving athletes are being excluded from competing in the games for arbitrary or ridiculous reasons.
This year especially, as a trans woman who loves sports, has been painful. Instead of being able to sit back and enjoy the games, I’ve been arguing with Twitter bros about the upcoming participation of trans woman Laurel Hubbard in women’s weightlifting.
In a normal world, people would look at Hubbard’s number 16 rank in the world and realize that it would be a tremendous upset if she won a medal. Instead, we have hundreds of thousands of cis men who believe themselves to be completely and utterly superior to all women who just assume Hubbard will magically, automatically win because she went through male puberty.
I realize that just mentioning her name is yet another invitation for randos to tell me their feelings about her, I promise you I don’t want to hear it.
I’m frankly dreading the coming discourse that will inevitably come from her participation Monday. I want to root for her, but knowing how a Hubbard win will be weaponized against the rights of all trans people everywhere makes that very difficult. And that sucks. That is not the Olympic spirit I grew up with.
Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern games, once said, “[The Games] are global. All people must be allowed in, without debate.” As a trans woman, I know that we are always the exception to the rule. Our bodies, lives, and even our language is constantly up for debate with people who either find us disgusting or who believe we shouldn’t exist.
That dynamic now permeates how I consume the Olympics. And I hate it.
