The controversy surrounding Olympic boxers Imane Khelif from Algeria and Lin Yu-Ting of Chinese Taipei doesn’t appear to be dying down anytime soon.
On Aug 6, Khelif defeated Janjaem Suwannapheng of Thailand and advanced to the gold-medal round in the women’s welterweight divisions (66kg), where she will face Yang Liu of China. Lin is guaranteed at least a bronze medal after advancing to the semifinal round of the featherweight division; she will fight Esra Yildiz Kahraman of Turkey on Wednesday. Both competed in the women’s division, despite recent allegations from the International Boxing Association (IBA) that they are not women. Regardless of which color medal either boxer wins in Paris, opinions about gender determination will likely remain one of the legacies of the Paris 2024 Olympics.
In the famed Roland-Garros tennis stadium, where one of the courts was reframed with a boxing ring, fans came out in force to support Khelif. Chants of “Imane, Imane, Imane” drowned out the bell at the end of the three rounds, and when the final unanimous decision was announced, Khelif jumped up and down in the ring and pumped her fists.
“What she went through was on a whole other scale,” says Imane Megharbi, an influencer from Algeria. “She was being harassed by international celebrities, which was very sad and very unfortunate, because she was focused on one goal, and she has been working for years to be at the Olympics. And finally, when she’s here, she’s been attacked unfairly.”
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Both Khelif and Lin have competed for years in the women’s divisions for years, including at the Tokyo Olympics three years ago, where neither medaled. (Khelif finished fifth in her weight class.) But questions about their sex were catalyzed by the IBA last year when the group, which is the international governing body for boxing, disqualified Khelif and Lin from its world championships, claiming the two women had failed eligibility tests establishing their gender. Khelif has declined to answer questions about any tests the IBA claims to have administered. The IBA held a press conference in Paris in which they didn’t provide any additional documentation on this testing or clarify the reasons for the disqualifications. IBA officials only stated that the two boxers were “destroying sport, especially feminine sport.” They continued their claims that Khelif and Lin may be transgender, despite statements from each of the athletes’ representatives stating they were born as women and grew up as women.
The IBA’s claims fueled a firestorm of unfounded opinions online, including by conservative politicians claiming the women are transgender and Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling, whose previous statements on transgender issues have disaffected many fans. At issue is whether there are biological criteria for determining sex, since chromosomes, genitalia, and hormones can vary widely within gender.
Dr. Eric Vilain, director of the Institute for Clinical and Translational Science at University of California, Irvine, who has conducted extensive research on disorders of sexual development, says that there is no single test, or even series of tests for definitively determining sex. Chromosomes, hormones, the receptors for those hormones, and genitalia all play a part, and within each of those parameters, there is wide variation. “For example, there are not just XX and XY chromosomes, but in a number of individuals there is a mosaic of XXY or XYY; some individuals have both testes and ovaries in the same body; and hormones vary widely depending on individuals,” he says. “So the idea that one parameter such as sex chromosomes determines the sex of an individual and can form the basis of making them ineligible is just wrong.”
Vilain served as a medical expert on an IOC committee that in 2015 established a framework for considering sex assignment and hyperandrogenism (high levels of testosterone). He says based on the variability and the range of biological factors involved in sex determination, the IOC in 1999 abandoned sex testing, which primarily relied on chromosomes. In 2021, the 2015 framework was updated with the Fairness, Inclusion and Non-Discrimination on the Basis of Sex Identity and Sex Variations guidelines. In it, however, the IOC leaves the primary responsibility for determining sex up to individual sport federations, which have in turn interpreted the IOC’s framework in varying ways. World Aquatics, which oversees water sports such as swimming, for instance, focuses on puberty as a pivotal criterion, while World Athletics, which has responsibility for track, zeroes in on testosterone levels in combination with a list of XY-based disorders of sexual development.
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Vilain applauds the IOC supporting Khelif and Lin, but hopes the organization provides more detail about the criteria it used in allowing Khelif and Lin to compete. That way, it could serve as a template for future determinations and not open athletes up to the questions, and “bullying,” as Khelif called it, that she and Lin experienced. “My hope is that once we have this explanation, they should apply it at least during the Olympics to all of the athletes [including those] with differences in sexual development who might have been excluded based on rulings that varied from one federation to another and weren’t scientifically based,” he says.
Khelif’s first bout in Paris, against Italy’s Angela Carini, lasted only 46 seconds – Carini pulled out of the fight after receiving some punches from Khelif. “I couldn’t breathe anymore. I thought about my family, I looked at my brother in the stands and I went to my corner to retire…I’ve never been hit with such a powerful punch,” she said, according to Italian sports newspaper Gazzetta dello Sport.
Carini, who learned to box from her father and brother, maintained that her decision to leave the fight and not shake Khelif’s hand when she left the ring was not related to questions about Khelif’s gender, saying, “It wasn’t something I intended to do. I don’t have anything against [Khelif]. Actually, if I were to meet her again, I would embrace her.”
Khelif praised the IOC for its support. The IOC removed the IBA from the Olympics as amateur boxing’s international governing body in 2019 over concerns about corruption and questions about its impartiality. And in a press conference in Paris, IOC president Thomas Bach called the group’s allegations “hate speech” and denounced them as “totally unacceptable.” “We have two women who are born as women, who have been raised as women, who have a passport as a woman and have competed for many years as women,” he said.
Avoiding most of the media flurry in Paris in order to focus on her bouts, Khelif pleaded in a broadcast interview after her quarterfinal bout “to all the people of the world to uphold the Olympic principles and the Olympic Charter, to refrain from bullying all athletes, because this has effects, massive effects. It can destroy people, it can kill people’s thoughts, spirit and mind.”
In 2023, Khelif was named a UNICEF ambassador and hopes to continue promoting sports for young girls, after her experience of initially being discouraged to pursue boxing by her father. Growing up in a rural village in western Algeria, Khelif began playing soccer but was bullied by boys when her natural athletic abilities began overshadowing them. She shared with UNICEF that when those boys began fighting with her, she was able to dodge their attacks, which steered her toward boxing. Her father didn’t approve of her taking up the sport, and she and her mother took on odd jobs, including selling scrap metal and couscous, to raise enough money for the bus fare Khelif needed to train in a nearby village.
Now, both parents support her Olympic dream. “Imane is an example of Algerian women. She is one of the heroines of Algeria,” her father Omar said to RFI after Khelif’s quarterfinal win over Anna Luca Hamori of Hungary guaranteed her an Olympic medal. At the club where Khelif first honed her boxing skills, a coach discounted the gender uproar. “Their objective is clear: it is done to confuse her and make her forget why she came to the Olympics.”
Many of the fans in the crowd at Roland-Garros waving Algerian flags were women, who now see Khelif as a symbol of female empowerment. “You can’t imagine the scale of people [in Algeria who are supporting Khelif],” says Megharbi. “Not only because she’s Algerian, but because she’s a woman. Even if the whole world, the entire world is against you, your country is behind you. Algerian women are behind you. She has been a beautiful representation for women for her strength and her perseverance.”