Anne Andres, a trans-identified male, achieved a new Canadian record in women’s powerlifting after defeating his female opponents at a championship in Manitoba yesterday. The shocking triumph comes after the sport’s governing body established an explicit gender self-identification guideline earlier this year. Keep reading to know more about it in detail.
Who is Anne Andres?
A male powerlifter who identifies himself to be a “woman” yesterday broke a women’s powerlifting record at a competition in Brandon, Manitoba.
Anne Andres, 40, has won nine out of the eleven events he has competed in over the previous four years, and he presently owns numerous records in the female division, including women’s deadlift and bench press.
Anne Andres powerlifting record:
Andres bench pressed 270 pounds at his most recent competition, the Western Canadian Powerlifting and Bench Press Championships, which took place on September 23, 2022.
In the Women’s Raw 185+ Open, the second-place finisher bench pressed 220.4 lbs. for comparison. The competitor who placed seventh bench pressed 176.3 pounds. Andres outlifted every biological female competition by almost 40 lbs.
The video was shared on Twitter by the Independent Council on Women’s Sports (ICONS), who also noted that Andres currently holds the women’s bench record for Alberta, Canada, and that she will be competing in the women’s division at the 2023 CPU National Championships the following month.
🏋️Trans identifying male, Anne Andres is Alberta Canada's women's powerlifting record holder in bench
🚨competes next month in women's category at the 2023 CPU National Championships🚩Recognizes no understanding of upper body strength differences btw males & females
🧵 pic.twitter.com/DYEyEWZTLr— ICONS (@icons_women) January 4, 2023
Andres made an appearance at the 2023 Western Canadian Championship of the Canadian Powerlifting Union yesterday at Brandon University’s Healthy Living Center. Andres competed in the Female Masters Unequipped division and won the title ahead of Michelle Kymanick and SuJan Gil.
The top-performing female in the same class, SuJan Gil, came in at 387.5 pounds, while Andres’ total powerlifting score was 597.5 pounds, according to early figures received by Reduxx. The total weight lifted in a squat, bench press, and deadlift is referred to as the “total”.
With his total, Andres would have been among the top male weightlifters in the competition had he competed in the men’s division.
Watch Anne Andres deadlift video below:
Andres broke the unofficial women’s global powerlifting record as well as the Canadian women’s national record, claims a witness to the competition.
Andres published footage of his involvement on Instagram, bragging about his accomplishments. In the films, he can be seen battling against female competitors while sporting blue hair dye and pink socks.
Andres wrote in one post,
“Today I did some lifting. Not just some lifting. I got to lift with friends from across Canada,”
“Keep in mind I turned 40 a week ago so suddenly being master 1 is kind of hollow. That in mind, I got every masters [sic] record and two unofficial world masters records. I don’t care about records. I care about being there with my friends.”
View this post on Instagram
Anne Andres gender & “Trans Inclusion Policy”
The Canadian Powerlifting Union (CPU), which earlier this year issued a gender self-identification policy, oversaw the Western Canadian Championships.
The rules expressly enabled any guy to compete in women’s events based solely on self-declared “gender,” which sparked a significant protest from women’s rights activists.
Following advice from the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport (CCES), the CPU published its “Trans Inclusion Policy” in February. This document made it clear that the CPU supported enabling transgender powerlifters to compete in the xes category of their choice.
The document refers to the CCES’s “inclusivity in sport” guidance and states that “based on this background and the 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.”
“Alberta powerlifting record holder for bench at 120kg (253lb) in 84+. Aiming for deadlift and 600 world record! Yes I’m a transwoman, get over it.”
At the ICONS 2022 conference, sports scientist Dr. Ross Tucker discussed the disparities in upper body strength between biological men and women. He claimed that when men and women participate in the same 55 kg weight class, men can lift 30% more weight. When comparing men and women who weigh 108 kg, the disparity rises to 40%.
“The biological differences between males and females are so large that unless we continue to defend the protection of a women’s sport category, those who do not possess that advantage would basically disappear from the sport.”
Anne Andres vs Avi Silverberg:
Andres garnered considerable prominence just before the CPU announced a gender self-identification policy after posting a video in which he appeared to make fun of female athletes, posing the question of why female powerlifters were “so bad” at bench pressing.
A powerlifting coach who has worked with Team Canada came out as a woman in March to express her opposition to the inclusion of men in women’s sports. Avi Silverberg unofficially broke the Alberta women’s bench press record for the 84+ KG division during the Heroes Classic Powerlifting Meet in Lethbridge, Alberta.
Many people believed that Silverberg’s complaint was specifically directed at Andres because he was there at the powerlifting competition and saw it.
In a video response he posted to his Instagram account on March 26, Andres addressed Silverberg’s demonstration, saying that while the coach had “malicious intent,” the gesture ultimately amounted to “nothing” and was “entirely ignored.”
Athletes’ accusations against Andres:
American competitive swimmer Gaines responded by criticizing Trudeau’s rules on social media, which allow the Canadian Powerlifting Union (CPU) to adopt a gender self-identification Trans Inclusion Policy that permits men to compete in women’s events based solely on gender.
Gaines said that Andres’ record “is a mediocre lift by a mediocre male powerlifter because the Canadian powerlifting union is discriminating against female athletes” in the caption of her X post, which claimed that Trudeau’s “radical disdain for women (and reality)” was “in effect.”
@JustinTrudeau 's radical disdain for women (and reality) in effect🤡
New national and unofficial world record for trans identifying male, Anne Andres pic.twitter.com/E46860L14P
— Riley Gaines (@Riley_Gaines_) August 14, 2023
Gaines identified Andres as being male. Gaines also uploaded a video of Andres discussing women’s powerlifting in which she disparages the bench press of her rivals.
Andres began her argument,
“Why is women’s bench so bad? I mean, not compared to me,” “We all know that I’m a tranny freak, so that doesn’t count. And no, we’re not talking about Mackenzie Lee. She’s got little T-Rex arms, and she’s like 400 pounds of chest muscle apparently. I mean, standard bench in powerlifting competition for women. I literally don’t understand why it’s so bad.”
Gaines said, referring to Andres,
“Let’s rephrase that: Women’s bench might be bad to you because you are a male who has gone through male puberty with a male amount of testosterone,”
“Being a woman or female athlete doesn’t mean we’re inferior or not capable of accomplishing incredible things, but it means we’re different from men.
“That’s exactly why the women’s sporting category was ever even created. And we deserve to be recognized and celebrated based off those physical ceilings and our own uniqueness.”
Following Andres’ record-breaking effort, April Hutchinson, a competitive powerlifter from Canada, also expressed her opinion.
She said on Piers Morgan Uncensored,
“It’s been very disheartening,”
“For example, that national record that he broke — athletes have been chasing that for years. And we’re talking top athletes who have been training, and training, and training. It goes to show the advantages, the physiological advantages that a male has over a female, whether it’s muscle mass, bone density, lung capacity. I could go on.
“A lot of women yesterday dropped out of the competition because they knew that Anne would be lifting. They dropped, they quit, they wrote to the federation, and the federation basically did nothing about it.”
The CPU was criticized for allowing Andres to compete among female competitors by Linda Blade, the founder of the International Consortium on Female Sport.
Since learning about Anne Andres’ unethical participation in CPU female powerlifting in January 2023, Blade, a sport performance coach with a PhD in kinesiology, said, “we have written letters, assisted affected athletes obtain legal representation, and worked very hard to convince CPU to align with its own international federation to ensure fairness for Canadian women.”
“Since we became aware of Anne Andres’s unethical participation in CPU female powerlifting in January of 2023, we have written letters, helped affected athletes obtain legal representation, and worked very hard to convince CPU to align with its own international federation to ensure fairness for Canadian women, The CPU insists on championing this unfairness and we condemn it wholeheartedly.” Blade, who is a sport performance coach with a PhD in Kinesiology, said.
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