Transgender woman weightlifter Laurel Hubbard competing in the upcoming Tokyo Olympic Games is “like a bad joke” to biological female athletes, a rival weightlifter
told Inside the Games.

What are the details?

“First off, I would like to stress that I fully support the transgender community, and that what I’m about to say doesn’t come from a place of rejection of this athlete’s identity,” weightlifter Anna Van Bellinghen of Belgium told the sports website.

But she soon added that “anyone that has trained weightlifting at a high level knows this to be true in their bones: this particular situation is unfair to the sport and to the athletes,” Inside the Games said.

Van Bellinghen, 27, is looking to qualify in the same weight category as New Zealand’s Hubbard — the over-87-kilogram super-heavyweights — and is directly affected by the presence of Hubbard, who’s
set to become the first openly transgender athlete to qualify for the Olympics in any sport, the website reported.

Hubbard, 43 — a
biological male who identifies as female and has competed against women for several years — began transitioning to female at age 35.

It would seem Van Bellinghen’s complaints about Hubbard go against the wishes of the powers that be, who
allegedly want those who disagree with Hubbard’s presence to be quiet about their concerns — but she went for the jugular anyway.

Van Bellinghen pointed out to Inside the Games that it’s widely known athletes can retain the benefit of taking steroids even years earlier — so therefore “why is it still a question whether two decades, from puberty to the age of 35, with the hormonal system of a man also would give an advantage [in competing against women]? I understand that for sports authorities nothing is as simple as following your common sense, and that there are a lot of impracticalities when studying such a rare phenomenon, but for athletes the whole thing feels like a bad joke.”

She added to the sports website that Hubbard’s presence means “life-changing opportunities are missed for some athletes — medals and Olympic qualifications — and we are powerless. Of course, this debate is taking place in a broader context of discrimination against transgender people, and that is why the question is never free of ideology. However, the extreme nature of this particular situation really demonstrates the need to set up a stricter legal framework for transgender inclusion in sports, and especially elite sports. Because I do believe that everyone should have access to sports, but not at the expense of others.”

Anything else?

Hubbard made a splash in 2017 after
winning two silver medals in a women’s world championship — and then in 2019 took home two gold medals and a silver medal in the women’s competition at the Pacific Games in Samoa.

In 2015, IOC guidelines ruled that transgender athletes can compete as women if their testosterone levels are below 10 nanomoles per liter for at least 12 months before their first competition,
Reuters reported.

But numerous scientists have criticized these guidelines, saying they do little to mitigate the biological advantages of those who have gone through puberty as males, including bone and muscle density,
Australia’s 7 News reported.

Here’s Hubbard in action in early 2020:

🏆Laurel Hubbard Gold Medal (NZL) 126-144 Weightlifting World Cup Roma 2020

@kentchevalier / Twitter screen shot

Freedom Bakery / Facebook

If you’ve been to a dog show, you probably know there are these strange creatures that “assess” and “evaluate” pooches and give them sub-par scores. I don’t know what criteria they’re using or even who they are, but the rascals must be mad—I’ve seen dogs and in my book, they’re all immeasurably cute!

Luckily, there’s an online project that agrees with me. It’s called WeRateDogs and it does exactly what the name says. Started by Matt Nelson, it attaches witty captions to fan-submitted pictures of their pups, giving those fluffy ears, stubby paws, and pointy tails the praise they deserve. Oh, and a “grade” that exceeds the perfect 10, of course!

We at Bored Panda love this pure-hearted internet delight, and have already written about it here, here, and here, but Matt and his team keep themselves busy, so we have to keep up with them. Here’s a new collection of their latest posts!

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Nelson initially started WeRateDogs on Twitter just to brighten up people’s feeds. But the account gained thousands of followers overnight, and that figure has kept climbing ever since. Currently, it stands at a whopping 9 million. Nelson was even able to turn the account into a business, selling merchandise and posting branded content.

“[I] got addicted to trying to make people laugh in that constrained character space,” he told CNBC Make It. At that time, a tweet could contain only 140 characters.

As Nelson tweeted, he noticed that “every time I would post a picture of my dog or any content that had to do with dogs, it would do much better than my other content… That signaled that the internet loves dogs just as much as I did.”

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Nelson launched WeRateDogs back in November 2015, when he was a college freshman at Campbell University in North Carolina. In fact, he released the account’s first post from a local Applebee’s, featuring the pup of the friend he was having dinner with.

By that night, Nelson received hundreds of messages from dog owners asking for their pups to be featured. At first, he also promoted WeRateDogs from his personal Twitter account, which had about 10,000 followers at the time but by the end of that week, it already passed him in followers.

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Nelson became overwhelmed with juggling college, a job at a golf course, and his social media newborn pretty quickly. However, instead of selling his side hustle, he decided to drop out of college before his junior year and moved in with his parents in West Virginia to focus on WeRateDogs full-time.

Fortunately for Nelson, his parents and close friends were very supportive of this bold decision and believed he could continue growing WeRateDogs. His dad, an executive director of a law firm in Charleston, even helped Nelson manage the business’ growth once he started raking in significant revenue.

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But the project is more than just smiles and awws. Nelson is also focused on raising money for dogs in need, posting links to crowdfunding campaigns each Friday. In 2020, for example, WeRateDogs helped raise $1.3 million!

In addition to encouraging his millions of online followers to contribute to these noble causes, Nelson also regularly donates to such campaigns.

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“Since we only post one or two per week to the audience but are sent hundreds of others, we typically pick another one, in which either I will personally donate or WeRateDogs will donate as an organization,” he explained.

The weekly tradition started in 2016 after Nelson realized a dog he featured needed a wheelchair. The dog’s owner asked for about $500, but after sharing the fundraiser, $700 was raised in just 45 minutes.

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“It was very clear that my audience was looking for a way to give back,” Nelson said. And they still are! Consider this: each campaign that appeared on WeRateDogs has been fully funded within an hour of being posted.

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Nelson hopes to continue to share these campaigns with his audience and raise more money, as he found that many pet owners struggle to cover medical expenses, especially when most of them do not have pet insurance.

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“Part of the reason [WeRateDogs] has been so successful is because our audience trusts us with the curation of these stories, and now, our audience trusts me,” Nelson said. “So, that consistency of posting every Friday and getting our audience used to it has really helped it become what it is like now.”

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