New Zealand's Laurel Hubbard is the first transgender player to participate in the Olympics.
Japanese sexual minority parties also watched the competition.
At "Pride House Tokyo Legacy," an exchange base for sexual minority parties, which is an official program of the Tokyo Games, the staff involved in the operation watched Hubbard's competition.
One of the staff, Tokieda, who is also a transgender himself, was uncomfortable with being a man. When he was a high school student, it was painful to divide physical education into men and women, and he said that he kept away from sports after that.
I have rarely watched the Olympics so far, but this time I was looking forward to the participation of Hubbard.
When Hubbard appeared on the TV screen, Tokieda and his colleagues waved a flag in a color that symbolized transgender and cheered, and applauded even after the competition was over without a record.
Tokieda said, "All the athletes were active, and I was moved by the transgender women. I was disappointed with the result, but I think her participation was a big event at the Tokyo Olympics. I hope that the people who watched the competition will have a chance to think about sexual minorities again. "
Decades of discussion over transgender players
There has been decades of debate over transgender athletes whose mental and physical genders do not match.
According to Associate Professor Satoko Itani of Kansai University, who is familiar with sexual minorities and sports, the discussion first began in the 1970s, when American tennis players who were competing as men underwent sex reassignment surgery. It is said that he tried to participate in the official tournament, but he participated at the end of the trial.
After that, there was a growing demand for the human rights of transgender athletes, especially in Europe and the United States, and the IOC = International Olympic Committee published regulations on transgender female athletes in 2004. Participation conditions include the fact that the law of the home country allows for self-identification.
After that, the IOC formulated new guidelines in 2015, as it was pointed out that unfairness would occur in different countries and that it would be a violation of human rights to require surgery.
Among them, ▼ the level of testosterone, a type of male hormone, is below a certain level for 12 months until the competition, ▼ you can participate if you do not change the declared gender for 4 years after the competition. ..
Associate Professor Itani said, "The wave of debate or criticism in society as a whole has been repeated, but this time too. However, the guidelines are not limited to those involved in transgender human rights, but also those involved in sports organizations. The IOC's Medical Committee has come in to set out the best rules in the existing data, and players participating within that framework should be respected. "
Regarding the future, "Since there are few cases of research on actual athletes, such as the effects of hormone therapy, verification is required in the future. The IOC has said that it will show new regulations after this tournament, so I would like to keep an eye on it. In Japan, discussions and social consensus on the human rights of transgender people have not progressed. It is necessary to send a message that society respects those people, and competition organizations need to work on rule making first. " I was talking.