Having qualified for the welterweight women's boxing final, held on Friday, August 9, Algerian boxer Imane Khelif hopes to hang the Olympic gold medal around her neck. A victory would bring a little levity to the athlete who, since the start of the Olympic Games, has above all borne a target on her back. Since her victory by forfeit in the round of 16 against Italy's Angela Carini on Thursday, August 1, she has been accused of being a man, one who deliberately competed in the wrong category, or even of promoting violence against women.
This isn't the first time that Khelif's androgynous physique has raised questions in boxing circles. Like Taiwan's Lin Yu-Ting – currently in the featherweight final event at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games – in March 2023, Khelif was disqualified in the middle of the tournament at the IBA Women's World Boxing Championships in New Delhi, on the grounds of non-compliance with "eligibility criteria," just as she was about to compete in the final. At the time, she had denounced it as a "great conspiracy" against Algeria.
The president of the International Boxing Federation (IBA), Umar Kremlev, told the Russian news agency TASS at the time that the two boxers had "tried to pass themselves off as women" even though they allegedly had "XY chromosomes." Recently, the IBA confirmed that it had conducted a test "whereby the specifics remain confidential," the result of which allegedly revealed that they had "competitive advantages over other female competitors." The federation has stated that its definition of a man is an "individual with chromosome XY." According to Kremlev, who is close to the Kremlin and its essentialist, conservative view of gender, these athletes are men, and should be excluded from women's competitions.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has stated the opposite position, and considered both boxers to, on the contrary, be eligible to compete in women's boxing. On August 3, its president, Thomas Bach, defended the pair as "two boxers who were born as a woman, who have been raised as a woman, who have a passport as a woman and who have competed for many years as a woman."
The opposition between the IOC and the IBA runs deep. The two institutions are at loggerheads, with the IOC having withdrawn its recognition of the IBA in 2023, after several corruption scandals. The IBA's essentialist vision, which presupposes a biological, natural and absolute difference between men and women, has also been seen by its supporters as opposed to the inclusive, so-called "woke," vision they believe the IOC advocates.
This interpretation is shared by influential transphobic figures such as novelist J.K. Rowling. She saw Khelif's victory as characterized by "the smirk of a male" at "a woman he's just punched in the head," ironically referring to the "new men's rights movement." Entrepreneur Elon Musk deemed it "obviously terribly unfair" that Khelif and Yu-Ting were able to take part in the women's Olympics events.
Many far-right political leaders added their voices to these complaints. "Enough with the madness of 'woke' ideology!" Italian Lega Nord party leader Matteo Salvini raged, while Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni expressed her wish for "a finally fair competition," in posting her support for Carini. On the campaign trail, Donald Trump pledged to "keep men out of women's sports."
Could any picture sum up our new men’s rights movement better? The smirk of a male who’s knows he’s protected by a misogynist sporting establishment enjoying the distress of a woman he’s just punched in the head, and whose life’s ambition he’s just shattered. #Paris2024 pic.twitter.com/Q5SbKiksXQ
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) August 1, 2024
In France, pro-Kremlin conspiracy circles were quick to pick up on the IBA's talking points. For example, conspiracy theorist and influencer Silvano Trotta, who expressed his certainty that "neither Lin nor Khelif are biological women." An edited image showing Khelif in front of a scene displaying queer deities from the Paris Olympic Games' opening ceremony epitomizes the far-right networks' accusations against the "woke" Olympic Games, which would allegedly be an assault on traditional Christian values. Except that Khelif was neither born male nor is she transgender.
Caught in the middle of this cultural battle, the Algerian boxer has been subjected to numerous misconceptions likening her to a man, and even accusations of cheating. First and foremost, IBA president Umar Kremlev accused her, in 2023, of "trying to deceive" her opponents. While the precise reason for Khelif's androgynous physique is not known, and has been the subject of speculation, the criticisms levelled at her are often based on reductive biological stereotypes.
For example, those internet users who have denied her femininity often assume that the combination of X and Y chromosomes is unique to men, whereas there are exceptions linked to disorders of sexual development (DSDs), as in the cases of Swyer syndrome or 5α-Reductase 2 deficiency. They also presume that testosterone – which is often used to distinguish men and women – is an exclusively male hormone, even though it is also produced by ovaries (albeit in much smaller quantities), and some so-called "hyperandrogenic" women produce a lot of it.
A final stereotype posits that the two main biological genders are clearly distinguishable, denying the existence of more complicated cases. For example, a scientific meta-analysis from 2000 estimated the proportion of intersex individuals – in other words, people with sexual characteristics that do not correspond to the traditional definition of their gender, and fall outside a binary classification – at 1.7% of live human births.
A naive vision of biology? That's not all. These uninformed judgments on social media are also coupled with manipulative presentations. Many anti-woke Internet users, armed with zoomed-in images and fluorescent circles, highlight the slightest shadow on Khelif's shorts to assert that she has a penis. Others deconstruct her every move to insinuate that they betray the presence of male genitalia. Trotta, for example, found an archival photo from a French regional press outlet to categorically assert that she "wears testicle protection for men." It is indeed a type of protective garment designed for men, but "there's nothing exceptional about it. Female boxers are used to wearing [them] when training, it's more comfortable," explained French Olympic champion Brahim Asloum, recontextualizing the matter.
The disinformation was sometimes blatant, such as in an excerpt from an Arabic-language TV interview, which has been shared online since early August, accompanied by a suspicious translation: "In 2017 we were little boys... I was perceived as a future Olympic champion... I am an Algerian soldier." As French television channel TF1 has pointed out, Khelif actually said: "We were little children" and indeed identifies herself as a woman throughout the entire interview.
Conspiracy theorist circles close to the far right are no strangers to tracking down alleged transsexuals, and never tire of inventing pseudo-evidence. The same type of procedure was used to try and prove that French First Lady Brigitte Macron is, in fact, a man, in a disinformation campaign started at the end of 2021, as well as to denigrate Michelle Obama.
The issue of the eligibility of hyperandrogenic female athletes has rocked the sporting world for the past 15 years, with the questions raised by South African Olympic champion Caster Semenya's crushing victory in the 800m final of the 2009 World Championships in Athletics. In the name of sporting fairness, in 2018 World Athletics (then the International Association of Athletics Federations) imposed the use of testosterone inhibitors on hyperandrogenic women. The European Court of Human Rights ruled in 2023 that she was a victim of discrimination, but her participation in sporting events nevertheless remains dependent on taking hormonal inhibitors with significant side effects.
This is not a first. As far back as 1936, German Olympic high jump champion Dora Ratjen had surprised many observers with her masculine physique. A mix-up at birth, linked to genitalia that were difficult to identify, had led her parents to identify and raise her as a girl, according to an investigation by Der Spiegel. Renamed Heinrich, he underwent an administrative gender change. His gold medal was confiscated and his records were erased.
Translation of an original article published in French on lemonde.fr; the publisher may only be liable for the French version.