Sometimes, even the greatest coaches have to take one for the team. Or in this case, to prove a point.

Avi Silverberg, a Canadian powerlifting coach, self-identified as a woman during last week's Heroes Classic Powerlifting Meet held in Lethbridge, Alberta. You can probably guess where this is going. Silverberg unofficially broke the women's bench press record in the 84+ kilograms category.

Silverberg was protesting the The Canadian Powerlifting Union's policy on gender self-identification. This policy explicitly allows biological males to participate in women's sports based solely on their self-proclaimed gender: "Based on this background and available evidence, the Expert Working Group felt that trans athletes should be able to participate in the gender with which they identify, regardless of whether or not they have undergone hormone therapy."

But wait, we haven't even gotten to the craziest part. The official record holder, who was unofficially beaten out by Silverberg, is also a biological male - but they identify as a woman. Their name is Anne Andres, and they sat in the front row as Silverberg broke their record. Andres has won eight out of nine competitions they've entered in the female category.

Andres actually mocked their female competitors back in February, when Andres asked why female powerlifters are "so bad" at bench press: "Why is women's bench so bad? I mean not compared to me, we all know that i'm a tr***y freak, so that doesn't count [...] I mean, standard bench in powerlifting competitions for women. I literally don't understand why it's so bad."

Well, women tend to be much weaker than men. Biological women, at least. So there's that.

In summation, in the year of our Lord 2023, we have a biological male who identifies as a man breaking the record previously held by a biological male who identifies as a woman...in a competition originally intended for biological females. Got it? Good.

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Lily is a Zoomer college dropout who somehow landed a writing gig here at LwC.com. In her spare time, she enjoys going for runs, touching grass, and occasionally tweeting tweets for fellow tweeters.

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