If it takes a trans athlete to make you care about women's sport, you don't care about women's sport.
- Timothy Dobson
- Nov 28
- 7 min read
Two weeks ago, most of you wouldn't have been able to name a professional strongwoman. One week ago, it would have been the same. I reckon today, even with everything that's been going on in the world of strength athletics, you still can't. For some of you, that is fine as you aren't getting online to be outraged on behalf of the women involved. But the outrage surrounding women's strength athletics this week has been audible, after years of palpable silence surrounding the sport.
Last week, in Arlington Texas, Official Strongman Games ran the World's Strongest Woman event for 2025, and my word, people have had words to throw about because of it.
In this ranticle, I'm not going to do my utmost to share facts, and not my own opinions, apart from the overarching issue I find this has raised: a lot of people don't give a shit about women's sport, when it is not a platform for them to throw hate at someone.
Whether you agree or not with their policy, when signing up for OSG/WSW athletes need to state their sex at birth. AFAB = eligible for World's Strongest Woman, AMAB = ineligible. The winner of the event was assigned female at birth. Whatever you believe about the trans community, that is a fact. Whether you agree with the policy of the competition, the fact doesn't change. A person assigned male at birth competed and "won" the comp. That goes against the rules.
The governing bodies which oversee strength athletics globally largely don't have trans policies. I have looked, I couldn't find them.
How could they not have known?
OSG, didn't know about the biological sex of the person initially announced as the winner, until after the event.
People online asking "how could they not have known?" have a big overlap in the Venn Diagram, who look at a lot of strongwomen and say "they look like a man". We are talking about a non-tested competition in which many of the competitors are on PEDs, a lot of extra testosterone is being pumped through these incredible athletes' bodies, and that can have impacts on muscle mass, jawlines, and all sorts of other factors.
The other factor being thrown about is the size of the athlete initialy crowned as champ. Jammie Booker, is only a little bigger than 3x champion Rebecca Roberts who won in 2021, 2023, and 2024.
We are talking about an athlete a little bigger than last year's winner, and who only won by a single point. The "how could noone tell?" crowd, can stick it.
I saw that video of the angry lady though...
The next thing being thrown around online is the reaction of Andrea Thompson, the now winner and 2x World's Strongest Woman. Andrea is a legend of the sport and has been competing for years. She won back in 2018 and this year was her final run at the crown.
There is footage of Andrea walking off the podium after the ceremony saying "this is some bullshit". By all accounts, including from Andrea, and from her coach (Laurence Shahlaei, another legend of strength sports) Andrea didn't know about the biological sex of Jammie Booker, Andrea is just an absolute monster of a competitor who thought they came within an inch of the fairytale ending to the career (and in a certain light, they have had it taken from them. Andrea doesn't get the podium moment they deserved.) Andrea is now copping flack online about being a transphobe. I don't know Andrea's thoughts on any of this, other than the fact I can understand the pain of thinking you have fallen just short in competition.
Andrea's initial post when announcing her second place finish (now first), was a gripe about her "t-rex arms" impeding her lifting.
Fallout (not the video game).
A person has been outed as trans. This is a massive thing, and whatever your thoughts on it are, it's a big deal.
Strength athletics has been thrown into the court of public scrutiny and hate is being thrown in all sorts of directions.
A competitor has missed the finals of World's Strongest Woman. Top ten after the first two days compete in the final day of the event to determine the final standings. It's a two day competition if you don't qualify for the final, and a three day if you make it.
Andrea Thompson has joined a short list of athletes as a multi-time champion. (Aneta Florczyk 4x, Donna Moore and Rebecca Roberts 3x, and Jill Mills, Olga Liashchuk, and Andrea Thompson 2x) but Andrea didn't get to hoist the golden trophy, or stand atop the podium.
Hate is taking over what I have seen to be one of the most inclusive and welcoming sporting communities around.
Why do you care, T.J?
I love strongman, I love strength athletics and unlike many people out there, I never moved on from my fascination with watching World's Strongest Man on TV as a kiddo.
I also have a personal connection to all of this. I was at Official Strongman Games 2 years ago when the event was held in West Virginia. I was there to watch my cousin who is a rising star in the sport. This year, the open men's division was won by the one and only, Joshua Patacca, he's the aforementioned cousin and a multi-time Australia's Strongest Man, and now OSG winner.
As an Australian, I also love that the Aussie contingent at OSG this year are waving the flag for the explosive growth and improvement of strength sports down under. We had our second Aussie woman podium in the open weight womens, we had an Aussie man win the open category (in one of the most dominant performances the competition has seen) and we had Aussies in the finals for most categories.
I care also because I am a passionate advocate of women's sport, and I am a supporter of women's sport not just when it gives me a chance to get on my high horse and fling shit at minorities and the vulnerable.
Dial R for rantingness.
The thing that has been shitting me up the wall this week is all of the people online who are taking their first notice of women's strength sports, because a trans-woman won an event which she was not eligible for. If a robot won the 2025 Miami jai alai open, I wouldn't give a shit, because I don't care about jai alai... would it be weird for a robot to win? yeah, probably, but again, I have other shit going on in my life and don't care about jai alai. The same people getting online to spout vitriol and throw hate surrounding this event probably haven't cared about women's sport since the Riley Gaines/Lia Thomas swimming controversy (two people tied for fifth place and a hateful woman made a career of it), bet you can't name the winner of the race though...
The issues facing women's sport around the world are many and varied.
Grass roots funding.
Lack of research into women's specific physical injury (look at ACL prevalence).
Access to fields.
Lack of competitions.
Online bigots with cranio-rectal inversions.
Sexism and harassment.
I could keep adding, but it is not my aim here to just list gripes. The point is that you need to move a long way down the list of issues and the magnitude of their impact, before you get to trans women in sport.
That is not to say there is not an issue/potential of issues with trans participation in sport.
There are two sports I know of where women have parity or a competitive advantage over men at a high level... ultra marathon running, and marathon swimming.
That is not a critique of women, a critique of men, or a critique of trans people.
It does lead to the question, though. How can trans athletes compete safely, and ensure equity and/or safety for biologically female competitors?
In some sports, weight divisions may solve the issue. In some sports, three divisions may be needed. In some other sports, it may be that there are already open divisions.
In a lot of sports as policy stands currently, there are open categories and women's categories. There are many strength competitions out there where if a woman wants to compete against the men, she can. What exist though, are "protected categories" and they exist to mitigate any advantage that may exist.
I've coached junior girls who have competed on the field in lacrosse with the boys, some of them kicked butt, others... not so much. It doesn't matter, they wanted to compete and they did. The issue only goes one way in some of these circumstances.
The solution here is simple, and incredibly complex.
Every sport needs to consider a trans policy, they need to look at the competitions they offer and they need to determine what advantages/dangers may be offered.
Everyone should be able to compete... and everyone should be able to compete in a competition which is right for them.
The most popular answer I see from bigots and arseholes online is "just make all sport open to everyone and men will win everything." That's a shit idea. If you like that idea, you are someone who likes shit ideas.
One challenge facing the solution of "work out what is needed and cater accordingly" is that trans people make up a tiny proportion of the population. If they are also in a niche sport (lacrosse and strongman are pretty niche in a global sense), the issue of numbers is magnified. How do you run a comp for trans athletes if there are three of them in the region?
I don't have the answers to that, and I know I don't have the answers. Ockham's arsehole pitching the solution of "just put everyone together" isn't right though. If you want to see the strongest person ever... they're a guy. If you want to see people pushing themselves to their limits against competitors who are giving it their all, then you need other comps. Strength athletics already has weight classes, age classes, and in some comps accessible classes. It could be that the solution to this in strength athletics is to just stick with the already existing policy of OSG: AMAB = Strongman, AFAB = Strongwoman. The issue at the core of what started this rant, is that a person lied on an application. Whether you agree with their motives, that is different.
As with all of these ranticles, I'm not going back to refine my thoughts. I'm getting something off my chest with the hope of enlightening some folks.
To sum up all of this though, I'd have a policy where if you wait for transphobic outrage to motivate your interest in women's sport, you get fired out of a cannon into the sun. Either, care about women's sport, and advocate for them, or... fuck off.
Don't use "protecting women and girls" as an excuse for transphobia if you don't care about women or girls in any other avenues. Your bigotry is transparent and while it may sound great in your echo chambers, it doesn't hold up to scrutiny.
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