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Algerian Boxer Imane Khelif Wins Olympic Gold After Rumors & Misinformation About Her Sex

tom tapp and armando tinoco
·3-min read

Algerian welterweight Imane Khelif said recently that the best response to the misguided criticism and bullying she has received would be to win gold in Paris. Mission accomplished.

Today, Khelif took gold in her weight class at the 2024 Paris Olympics with a unanimous 5-0 decision over China’s Yang Liu of China.

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Khelif’s time at the Olympics has been clouded by controversy, with some questioning whether she was actually a male. The boxer is a woman, and the confusion lies in the her being disqualified by the International Boxing Association last year for allegedly having XY chromosomes. However, the IOC disputed those claims and allowed Khelif to compete at the 2024 Paris Olympics — as she did in the 2020 Tokyo Games.

RELATED: Olympics Boxer Imane Khelif Speaks Out Against Bullying Amid Gender Row

Per GLAAD, Imane Khelif “is a cisgender woman, is not transgender and does not identify as intersex.” Rumors about her sex traits and that she is a man are unsubstantiated.

Some of the confusion apparently comes from misunderstanding about one’s “sex” vs. one’s “gender.”

According to the National Institutes of Health, “Sex is a multidimensional biological construct based on anatomy, physiology, genetics, and hormones.”

Sex is related to, but not the same as, gender, which NIH defines thusly: “Gender can be broadly defined as a multidimensional construct that encompasses gender identity and expression, as well as social and cultural expectations about status, characteristics, and behavior as they are associated with certain sex traits.”

NIH usually categorizes one’s sex as male or female although, it notes importantly, “variations do occur.”

Variations in sex traits or differences of sexual development (DSDs) are a group of conditions involving genes, hormones and reproductive organs. According to the NIH, some people with DSDs are raised as female but may have sex chromosomes other than XX, or elevated testosterone levels. Athletes with variations in their sex traits, or DSDs, are not the same as transgender athletes. GLAAD says that conflating the two is inaccurate.

What’s more, it has never been reliably verified that Imane Khelif has a variation in sex traits or DSDs.

A number of high-profile personalities on social media have spoken out against the IOC’s support of Khelif. Among them were J.K. Rowling, Elon Musk and Logan Paul, the latter of whom later partially recanted.

After being called out on social media, Paul posted a new, somewhat sincere-sounding statement.

“OOPSIES,” he wrote. “I might be guilty of spreading misinformation along with the entirety of this app.”

In an interview recently, Khelif opened up about the controversy and the associated harassment.

“I am sending a message to all people in the world to uphold the Olympic values ​​and the Olympic regulations and stop bullying all athletes because this bullying has big effects,” she told SNTV in an interview. “It can destroy people and kill their thoughts, their spirit and their mind. Bullying can cause division and because of all this I am asking them to stop bullying.”

The IOC also addressed the controversy saying, “The Algerian Boxer was born female, was registered female, her life as a female, boxed as a female, has a female passport. This is not a transgender case… there has been some confusion, that somehow it’s a man fighting a woman. This is just not the case, scientifically on that there is consensus. Scientifically, this is not a man fighting a woman. And I think we need to kind of get that out.”

Khelif is not the only female boxer who was alleged to have XY chromosomes by the IBA. Lin Yu-ting, representing Chinese Taipei, who will compete for gold in the featherweight division tomorrow.

“We have two boxers who were born as women, who have been raised as women, who have a passport as a woman and who have competed for many years as women,” said IOC President Thomas Bach.

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