Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.
“A storm erupted over the participation of Algeria's Imane Khelif and Taiwan's Lin Yu-ting at the Olympics after Khelif's Italian opponent pulled out of their bout less than a minute into the fight after taking a barrage of punches…[Khelif and Lin] were disqualified from the 2023 World Championships after a sex chromosome test ruled both of them ineligible, the International Boxing Association said on Monday…
“The boxing competition at Paris 2024 is taking place under International Olympic Committee rules after the IOC stripped the IBA of its status as the sport's global governing body over governance and finance concerns. IBA chief executive Chris Roberts said he could not disclose the results of the gender eligibility tests but that the pair's disqualification from the 2023 women's World Championships meant the public could ‘read between the lines’…
“The IOC says the IBA is a discredited organisation, mired in financial opaqueness and compromised by ties to the Russian leadership. ‘The content and the organisation of the IBA press conference tells you everything that you need to know about this organisation and its credibility,’ an IOC spokesperson said. It has said that Khelif and Lin were ‘victims of a sudden and arbitrary decision by the IBA’ to test them and that they were disqualified in 2023 without due process.” Reuters
Further Background: “Differences in sex development (DSD) or intersex traits describe a group of conditions that are statistically atypical from the norm when it comes to biological sex. ‘These are individuals who have a hormonal or genetic condition where they have characteristics of both male and female,’ endocrinologist and former IOC consultant Dr. Myron Genel said…
“Sometimes differences in sex development can result in higher levels of testosterone. Athletes competing in women's sports with those types of DSD are a focus of policymakers because of the concern that higher testosterone could confer a competitive advantage. An example is someone who is partially or completely insensitive to androgens, such as testosterone. They may be assigned female at birth but have XY chromosomes because of their body's physiological insensitivity to androgens.” ESPN
The left supports the IOC, arguing that Khelif and Lin are women and should be allowed to compete.
“The IBA’s president reportedly told a Russia outlet [in 2023] that both Khelif and Lin had ‘XY chromosomes’… The IBA did not disclose documentation at the time or reveal what tests were conducted. Questions were also raised because the organization, which was led by Russian official Umar Kremlev, did not disqualify Khelif until after she had already beaten a Russian boxer…
“Both Khelif and Lin had also competed in the 2022 world championships, also administered by the IBA the year before… Both athletes competed without issue in the Olympics in 2021. At the time, neither medaled… The lack of clarity about what happened in 2023 has helped mis- and disinformation about Khelif to fester.”
Li Zhou, Vox
“Setting aside the fact that it is medically possible for women to have XY chromosomes and setting aside the fact that numerous health conditions can spur a rise in the production of male hormones and setting aside all the problems with assuming that there is a tidy biological ‘gender binary’ that Khelif is somehow guilty of violating, there’s the matter of the messenger…
“The [IBA] is shady. In its 130 years of existence, the IOC has withdrawn recognition from only one international sports governing body: the IBA in 2023—remarkable given the long history of corrupt sporting governing bodies… There is zero available evidence of these supposedly failed tests that the IBA is howling about. Nothing has been released to the public.”
Jules Boykoff and Dave Zirin, The Nation
“For a political stance so insistent on the capacity to ‘define woman’ in order to distinguish readily, in everyday life, who is and is not a woman, it should be troubling to these gender authoritarians that only the vagaries of sports testing revealed chromosomal or hormonal variations in these adults who had previously lived unchallenged in their assigned sex-gender categories.…
“‘In many cases, these athletes had no idea they had chromosomal variations until the Olympic gender-verification authorities gave them their results.’… People with chromosomal variations outside the XX, XY binary are not extremely rare — around 1 in 100 people, more common than identical twins.”
Natasha Lennard, The Intercept
“Both Khelif and Lin were born as women. They have always identified as women. And for years they competed in women’s boxing… Both have posted numerous losses to cis women in their careers… What’s next? Are women with elevated testosterone levels (which can arise from diseases like polycystic ovary syndrome) going to be declared men? Where does it end?”
Katelyn Burns, MSNBC
The right is critical of the IOC, arguing that Khelif and Lin should not be permitted to compete as women.
The right is critical of the IOC, arguing that Khelif and Lin should not be permitted to compete as women.
“The president of the International Boxing Association said that the results revealed ‘XY chromosomes,’ and that the athletes ‘attempted to deceive their colleagues and passed themselves off as women.’ The two athletes had previously undergone laboratory testing in 2022 that yielded similar results, although they were not disqualified because the results were received after the championship — which raises questions about the purpose of conducting such a test at all…
“The International Olympic Committee’s ‘Portrayal Guidelines’ argue that ‘a person’s sex category is not assigned based on genetics alone.’ But genetics do determine sex — regardless of what we ‘assign’ or what letter is printed on a passport… Make no mistake: A male swimmer might outpace his female competitors and claim their trophies, but a male boxer can put a female boxer in serious danger. The IOC should revise its guidelines before the Games turn into a tragedy.”
The Editors, National Review
“This is undoubtedly a troubling situation in which empathy is due. Imane [Khelif] was born with a complex condition through no fault of her own. There is reason why some would feel that she should not be excluded. But the question remains if people with DSD should still be allowed in women's sports where their hormonal and developmental differences not only can offer an advantage but can cause injury to other women; just like Carini said, she had never been hit so hard before as when Khelif punched her…
“Even as we have compassion for people like Khelif, we must remember that women's sports were created to offer a protected space for the millions of females around the world who previously did not have their own arena. Inclusivity of a minority, even if well-intentioned, at the expense of the majority is injustice. Asking all women to sacrifice their safety and opportunities so that a few select women who were born either male or intersex is wrong.”
Margaret Clark, RedState
“Many people are arguing that because these men suffer from DSDs they should be counted as women out of ‘fairness.’ After all, they wouldn't qualify to be Olympic athletes if they entered the male category. I don't buy that argument for a number of reasons, beginning with the obvious: 99.999999999% of humanity don’t qualify to participate in the Olympics, and unless you think everybody should be invited [that] is a ridiculous argument…
“I am short, pudgy, too old, and too untalented to get into the Olympics. Is that unfair? No. There are vast numbers of reasons to reject people, and one of them should be having an unfair advantage over the competitors due to DSDs.”
David Strom, Hot Air
