What’s going on with Olympic boxing?

Why a female boxer should not compete in the Olympics, writes Imane Khelif: “I’m sorry to hear that the IOC is letting me play sport like a woman”

Imane Khelif, an Algeria boxer, won her first match of the Paris Olympics when her opponent, a woman from Italy, stopped the match after taking several blows to the face. The victory only fueled the misguided controversy around Khelif, who has been targeted by critics who have misgendered her throughout the Games.

The International Boxing Association organizes the World Cup in a few years. Khelif was disqualified by the IBA because they found out she has XY chromosomes, which isn’t recognised by the IOC. IBA president Umar Kremlev has said that both Khelif and Taiwanese boxer Lin Yu-ting, who allegedly had a similar test result, “were trying to deceive their colleagues and pretend to be women.” Khelif has denied the allegations.

In its Thursday statement, the IOC confirmed that all athletes participating in the boxing tournament “comply with the competition’s eligibility and entry regulations, as well as all applicable medical regulations.” The Tokyo boxing rules were used as the base for this year’s regulations.

The boxers are eligible. IOC spokesman Mark Adams said at the news conference Tuesday that the IOC has a responsibility to tone it down and not turn it into a witch hunt.

The author who has been criticized for her transphobic views wrongly characterized herself as a man in a large number of likes. On Truth Social, Donald Trump posted a video of the match which he said he would keep men out of women’s sports.

When women first began competing in elite athletics around 100 years ago, they had to submit to humiliating sex eligibility tests and their careers were ruined.

Imane Khelif has always defined herself as a woman and the IOC is allowing her to participate in the Olympics as such. Even in the face of assaultive public opinion, there is nothing to add.

“I think that athletes who have male genetic characteristics should not be admitted to women’s competitions,” she said, according to Reuters. The right of female athletes to compete on equal terms is not being discriminated against, it is being protected.

Italy’s family and sports ministers have also voiced concerns about the lack of clarity around gender eligibility criteria, suggesting that uniform international criteria would assuage “suspicion” and protect athletes’ safety.

Khelif’s hand is not the same as the punches: What to tell about the gender controversy sweeping Olympic boxing?

Algeria’s Olympic committee condemned Khelif for what it called unethical targeting with baseless propaganda, issuing a statement on Wednesday.

“Such attacks on her personality and dignity are deeply unfair, especially as she prepares for the pinnacle of her career at the Olympics,” it added, per Reuters.

Pan Men-an, secretary-general for Taiwan’s presidential office, said on social media that it is incorrect to subject athletes to humiliation, insults and verbal taunting just because of their appearance.

Taiwan’s first female president wrote on X that Lin is an athlete who is fearless in the face of challenges, whether they come from inside or outside the ring.

Still, the southpaw has won many other titles — including bronze in featherweight at the 2019 Women’s World Boxing Championships, gold at bantamweight in 2018 and gold in featherweight in 2022.

According to her Olympic bio, Lin joined an athletics team as a child “to achieve good results in athletics and win awards to help out financially.” She began boxing in middle school.

Lin beat Sitora Turdibekova without much fanfare in her preliminary-round fight on Friday, emerging victorious by a unanimous decision.

Hamori has accepted the fight, saying she is “not scared” of Khelif. The Associated Press reported on Friday that the Hungarian Boxing Association sent protest letters to the IOC and the Olympic committee over the boxing match.

Carini was hit by Khelif’s punches, which bloodied her shorts, and she quit in 46 seconds. She cried in the ring when she decided to withdraw, and refused to shake Khelif’s hand.

Source: What to know about the gender controversy sweeping Olympic boxing

Reply to “Comment on Ballancing sex with women and men in a professional boxing competition'”

“The current aggression against these two athletes is based entirely on this arbitrary decision, which was taken without any proper procedure — especially considering that these athletes had been competing in top-level competition for many years,” the International Olympic Committee said in a statement Thursday.

Olympic organizers are defending their right to compete in Paris and questioning the validity of those unspecified tests and the fairness of their previous disqualification, which they said happened without due process.

The match was the epitome of evil, according to Paul, who slammed Khelif as a man. He later deleted his post and wrote, “I might be guilty of spreading misinformation along with the entirety of this app.”

We want a simple explanation as a result of all the pitfalls we have encountered. Everyone wants a explanation of how we can figure this out. That explanation does not exist, neither in the scientific community, nor anywhere else.”

On Friday, spokesperson Adams reminded reporters that the IOC stopped blanket sex testing in 1999, and that “even if there were a sex test that everyone agreed with, I don’t think anyone wants to see a return to some of the scenes.” He acknowledges the situation has become confusing.

Two boxers were disqualified from the world championship after failing eligibility tests.

The International Body Athletic Association (IBA) suspended in Algeria after announcing it had undergone an XY test and its role in Olympic women’s sports

“They are women in their passports and it’s stated that this is the case, that they are female,” spokesperson Mark Adams told reporters earlier this week. Under Algerian law, one has no right to change their legal gender.

The IBA was run by presidents from Russia and Uzbekistan, and Olympics officials took issue with that, as well as how the IBA’s only sponsor was a Russian state energy firm.

In a new statement released this week, the IBA explained that Khelif and Lin had not undergone a testosterone test, but were subject to a separate and recognised test in order to keep the details confidential.

There are medical reasons for why females, who typically have XX chromosomes, might have an XY chromosome which is part of why these tests shouldn’t be fully relied on, Schultz said.

The president of the IBA has told Russia’s state media that they have XY chromosomes, which is shown in men as compared to the XX genes of women.

She competed in the Olympics for the first time in Tokyo in 2021, but lost in the quarterfinals to Ireland, so her supporters say she didn’t face false accusations about her gender at the time.

She’s now fighting to defend her career as a female athlete amid conservative accusations that she and Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting are not women. Both athletes identify as women and have long competed in boxing as female athletes.

The executive director of Humans of Sport, which supports athletes with sex variation, thinks the spectacle is not unique to the Paris Olympics.

The Spanish hurdler Martnez-Patio: A female athlete who hasn’t been diagnosed with sex or gender

The IBA said the tests indicated the two “were found to have competitive advantages over other female competitors.” The IBA did not respond to NPR’s questions and is not providing documentation of the tests.

Human rights advocates say these exams “discriminate against women on the basis of their sex, their sex characteristics, and their gender expression” and violate the right to privacy, dignity, health and non-discrimination, a 2020 report from Human Rights Watch said. He was a co-author of the report.

“Over time, people have looked at genitalia, they’ve looked at chromosomes, they look for a specific gene, they’ve looked at testosterone. There is no clear cut definition of sex because each iteration of testing has kind of collapsed under its own weight and that is what we end up with.

“It becomes tricky, because we were so locked into this binary, of either being a man or a woman, that we don’t often appreciate all the nuances within this continuum of sex and gender,” Schultz said.

The rule that anyone wanting to compete as a woman had to submit was established by World Athletics in 1948.

The first physical examination in the 1960s was launched by officials of athletic organizations. In the 1960s, women who competed in a track and field event were called into a room, not informed what to expect, and were told to lie down on a couch for a gynecological exam.

Having AIS meant “her body couldn’t respond to the circulating testosterone that her body naturally produced,” so officials determined that Martínez-Patiño wasn’t taking unfair advantage by competing in female hurdling competitions, Schultz said.

The Spanish hurdler lost her privacy, her scholarship and many other relationships in the process of winning her dismissal case in court.

“These are women who were assigned female sex at birth, who were brought up as girls and women, they have always competed as girls and women. They fell to other women in the women’s category. We are unsure if these women are women. This is more than just speculation. This is people’s lives.