This weekend one Olympic athlete is preparing to make history.

Whether she wins or not is irrelevant, because just by taking part she will become one of those rare few who will be described as "the first ever".

There's no certainty that her history-making effort will be widely celebrated.

Certainly, it is controversial and yet the athlete herself is playing entirely by the rules.

New Zealand weightlifter Laurel Hubbard will become the first openly transgender woman to compete at the Olympics when she joins nine other competitors in the women's 87+ kilogram event at the Tokyo International Forum on Monday evening.

AAP:Dean Lewins

That's about the only simple thing to say about the story because everything else is highly complex and emotive.

Even the science is divided.

In years gone by there used to be rooms full of men making decisions for women, without hearing from the women themselves.

Then it was rooms full of white people making decisions for people of colour, without hearing their voices.

Now there are also rooms full of cisgender people making decisions for transgender people.

Some of those with the loudest voices and most forthright opinions have never actually discussed their views with a transgender athlete.

The most common view against transgender women competing in the women's category is:"Sooner or later there'll be no women left." By that, they mean cisgender women.

That line has been around for the best part of a decade and there is still no evidence of it happening.

One expert who worksin the field described it this week as "vastly overblown".

Australian weightlifter Charisma Amoe-Tarrant voices her support for Laurel Hubbard following her inclusion in New Zealand's squad for the Tokyo Games.

Significant numbers of men are not going to wakeup in the morning and decide, for a laugh, they'll become women so they can win a sporting contest.

Overwhelmingly, transgender women speak of knowing at age three or four that their bodies did notmatch what they knew themselves to be on the inside.

They describe living in a parallel world where the way people saw them was not who they were.

That experience alone can be psychologically traumatic.

When a male transitions to female, under the current International Olympic Committee (IOC) consensus, athletes need to prove they have reduced their testosterone levels to under 10 nanomoles per litre and maintain those levels for a period of 12months prior to their first competition.

Some experts argue 10nm is still too high, with most cisgender women registering levels between one and five nanomoles per litre.

Some are happy with the ratio but want the time period extended from one to two years or longer before being allowed to compete.

Transgender athletes have spoken of the impact testosterone reduction has.

Explained basically, the skeletal and muscular development of a male body that has gone through puberty requires a certain amount of hormonal "fuel"to sustain the speed and muscular strength to carry that body.

Reducing testosterone impacts the entire endocrine system, with flow-on effects formoods, metabolism and the way thebody's organs function.

Canadian cyclist and transgender woman Kristen Worley described the impact on her body as "spontaneous menopause".

Put another way, there was not enough fuel to continue to drive the vehicle andeverything steadily declined.

One of Australia's first transgender athletes was middle-distance runner Ricki Coughlan.

Speaking at a recent Association of International Sports Press (AIPS) e-College session, Coughlan said her experience was different.

"I experienced very little in the way of a full-blown puberty," she said.

"When I began my transition, the doctors didn't put me on a testosterone blocker because I didn't need one.

"My testosterone levels are lower than the average females.

"This points to the fact that all of our lives are different; where we start from and where we finish and where we go are very different."

Australian rugby player and sprinterCaroline Laytsaidbefore transitioning she was running 100 metres in "very low 11 seconds".

"Six years after surgery I was running 13.5 seconds, so I was about two and a half seconds slower over 100 metres," she said.

As part of a PhD thesis, Loughborough University's Joanna Harper has been collecting data on "changing athletic attributes as trans athletes transition".

Layt said she hadgiven all her statistical information to Harper, including how the amount she could bench press decreased from around 115 kilogramsto about 70kg.

Her data showed as a male athlete she was graded at around 85 per cent whileas a female she was graded at around 80 per cent. In other words, compared to most others in each category, she was more competitive as a manthan as a woman.

"But I'm only one person," Layt said.

"As we know, there are people that don't take hormones, there are people who are non-binary, so I think it's going to be a case-by-case basis.

"There's not one set rule for all."

The IOC will make a significant announcement in the coming months regarding a transgender framework which individual sports can use in devising their own policies.

It is expected to be a major shift, looking at the inclusion of transgender athletes through a multi-dimensional prism including human rights, legal, medical, social and scientific aspects.

The IOC's medical and scientific director, Richard Budgett, saidthere was still more science needed.

"There's quite a large amount of research being done at the moment to ascertain the residual advantage after going through male puberty, but you have to weigh that against all the other disadvantages of going through transition, and it's not something any individual would ever take lightly," he said.

"There are lots of aspects of physiology and anatomy, and the mental side, that can contribute to elite performance and it's very difficult to say, 'Yes, she has an advantage because she went through male puberty,' when there's so many other factors to be taken into account.

"It's not simple.I think each sport has to make their own assessment depending on the physiology of that sport so that they can ensure that there's fair competition but also inclusion of everyone, whether they're male or female able to take part in the sport that they so love."

He paid tribute to Hubbard's courage and tenacity in competing at the Olympic Games.

Hubbard rarely gives interviews but on Friday issued a message.

"I see the Olympic Games as a global celebration of our hopes, ideals and values and I would like to thank the IOC for its commitment to making sport inclusive and accessible," she said.

Come Monday, Hubbard will make history.

By Tuesday we'll know how widely that will be celebrated.

Excerpt from:
Laurel Hubbard will make Olympic history on Monday before winning a medal despite the naysayers - ABC News