Despite Winning, Imane Khelif Took an Unfair Pummeling
The culture warriors are itching for, well, a fight over Olympic boxing.
Among the combatants, no one seems to care about any of the athletes — just about the ability to declare Olympics officials out of their minds about pitting transgender male boxers against cis-gender women.
The argument grew out of a match this week, but it turns out that the cited “facts” are not facts, and the situation — as always — is a bit more complicated. Fresh off criticisms of some performances on the opening ceremonies, right-leaning media websites found that international boxing has rekindled a debate about gender and fairness. Celebrities are weighing in to fan flames of misinformation, and eventually tying back to totally unrelated U.S. presidential politics.
There’s a good conversation to be had because the issues involve competing values and unclear sports rule making. The gender testing processes involved are secret, and the outcome of testing appears to depend on which group is doing whatever the testing is.
The prospect of grabbing a very public chance to promote anti-trans thinking is too great to worry about whether the facts fit.
What We Know
Algerian boxer Imane Khelif was declared the winner when Italian boxer Angela Carini withdrew in 46 seconds after one punch in the face, saying she felt a strong pain in the nose. That prompted scrutiny for Khelif, who previously had been disqualified from a 2023 International Boxing Association event when the president of the IBA said she had “failed” a hormone test. The test results are secret, and no one knows exactly what was tested and what was found.
Khelif was born female, identifies as a woman and holds a passport as a woman. She does not present herself as transgender. Along with Taiwanese boxer Lin Yu-ting (who also won a match this week), Khelif was disqualified in 2023 over press reports that they each showed “XY chromosomes,” or perhaps over-average testosterone in their systems.
According to Vox News, that IBA’s decision drew criticism from the IOC, the Olympics overseers, which said the IBA had been arbitrary and not transparent. The IOC blocked the group from regulating boxing at the Olympic level over concerns about financial dealings and allegations of match-fixing. Both athletes competed without issue in the last Olympics, neither medaling, and both lost to multiple women opponents.
Lack of clarity about the testing has helped mis-and-disinformation about Khelif and Lin to fester, though the IOC says that it is clear they qualify to compete based on its rules. The IOC rules do not include gender testing — IOC abandoned in 2000 over claims that it reflected questionable science. Apparently, there are a variety of birth conditions in which apparent gender masks the chromosome makeup.
The IOC allows sporting bodies to set their own policies on trans participation and the rules keep changing. At least 10 Olympic sports have restricted the participation of trans athletes in female categories, including boxing, rowing, cycling, swimming, rugby and cricket.
The Politics
None of these considerations got in the way of headlines and commentary that leaped to the fore over the unfairness of Olympics officials to allow a transgender person leaning male to beat up a woman in a sport built around hitting each other in the face. Suddenly, we had news headlines in Fox News and Breitbart condemning domination of trans policies amplified by the voices of British writer and anti-trans speaker J.R. Rowling and Elon Musk.
Riley Gaines, the right-wing activist who regularly campaigns against trans women competing in sports, said the fight had been “glorified male violence against women.” Media Matters noted that hosts on The Five called Khelif “a guy” and a “so-called person,” and suggested the boxer be tried “for assault.” Laura Ingraham devoted roughly 11 minutes of her show to the fight, which she linked to the “fanaticism of politicians like Kamala Harris.”
Donald Trump used the fight to remind social media viewers that he would keep men out of women’s sports, and JD Vance, his vice-presidential pick, somehow laid all of this at the feet of Kamala Harris, saying on X, “This is where Kamala Harris’s ideas about gender lead: to a grown man pummeling a woman in a boxing match.”
Of course, Kamala Harris doesn’t vet boxers for the Olympics, besides the fact that the comments were extremely inaccurate, unfair and degrading to Khelif.
It’s the political rhetoric that Republicans across the country are citing to press for anti-trans legislation focused on bathroom access, women’s sports, and gender-affirming care for minors. These bills may heighten voter fears and stimulate thinking about “fairness” in sports, but we could still expect that there would be an attempt to determine if the facts of the current issue are involved.
Sports at the Olympic level are tricky to translate into gender. Swimmer Katie Ledecky who won gold medals regularly trains with men swimmers, she says. Women runners who finish the 100-meter races in 10 seconds surely do better than most men runners, though their times seem a half-second behind elite male runners in the same races.
The loser in last week’s battle has since stepped up and apologized for any role she had in blaming her unfairness on anything but a bad Olympic outing. She accepts that Khelif is a woman who beat her.
Forget about celebrating sport and international harmony. Apparently, we prefer conflict.
UPDATE: After days of scrutiny and online abuse related to misconceptions about her gender, in an emotional fight, Khelif clinched a medal at the Paris Olympics on Saturday.
UPDATE: Khelif has taken gold at the Paris Olympics, defeating China’s Yang Liu.
