A top female Canadian powerlifter who was suspended by the sport’s organizing body for criticizing male participation in the female division is seeking to be reinstated.
The Canadian Powerlifting Union temporarily banned Ontario-based female powerlifter April Hutchinson from participation in events after she appeared on Piers Morgan Uncensored in October to discuss the growing threat that male participation poses to women’s athletics.
“I basically received my letter of suspension that they were going to suspend me because I called the male-born athlete a biological male on Piers Morgan,” she told the Epoch Times. “I’ve hired a lawyer and we are appealing that decision.”
In February, Hutchinson learned she was supposed to face Anne Andres, a transgender-identifying man, in her weight class at the Vancouver national tournament, National Review reported at the time. She refused to compete in an act of protest after watching Andres’s behavior on the circuit, which included gloating about competing in the women’s category and insulting female powerlifters for poor performance in certain upper-body exercises.
Since taking up women’s powerlifting in 2019, Andres has quickly risen through the ranks, scoring a bronze medal at nationals and setting the bench-press record for the Alberta province at 253 lbs. in the 84+ category, Hutchinson said. At the Western Canadian Powerlifting and Bench Press Championships in September 2022, Andres bench pressed 270 lbs., defeating multiple women in the Women’s Raw 185+ Open.
Hutchinson has had PR disputes with her sport’s governing body since she decided to bring her concerns about the issue public.
“It’s been a lot of back and forth with my federation, like them sending me letters of discipline saying that I can’t speak up about this topic or I’ll be suspended,” she told the Epoch Times. She said the CPU “basically ignored” her initial letter objecting to the organization’s laissez-faire attitude to men in the women’s powerlifting arena.
Hutchinson told National Review that the CPU’s rules haven’t been updated in about five years and are stunningly lenient compared with those of national and international governing bodies for other individual sports.
Many organizations require male participants to maintain testosterone levels within a specified limit and to have identified as trans for multiple years in order to compete against women, but the CPU only requires that lifters present a passport listing the sex they’re seeking to compete against. Canadians and Americans can now request a change to the sex listed on their passport by filling out a form.
Hutchinson’s activism persuaded the CPU to make a small policy change, however. The International Powerlifting Federation ordered the CPU to stop allowing gender self-identification, instead requiring competitors to declare their gender identity with government identification and report their testosterone levels.
“My federation actually tweaked their policy because I spoke out,” she told the Epoch Times. “I mean the international federation put pressure on them and said you better change your policy or you’re going to get suspended.”