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breaking the Olympic boxing storm

During a preliminary round of the Olympic Games in Paris last week in the under 66 kg boxing category between Algerian Imane Khelif and Italian Angela Carini, Carini received a hard blow to her face. After 46 seconds she had to withdraw.

Carini burst into tears, shouting, “This is unfair” and “I have never been hit so hard in my life.”

Journalists and commentators came to Carini’s defense almost immediately, asking questions about International Olympic Committee (IOC) policies and making false claims about Khelif’s gender identity.

The background story

Given the harmful inaccuracies and widespread hate speech on the Internet, it is important to outline some basic principles.

Khelif has identified as a woman since birth and has lived as a woman her entire life, including during her sports career.

She is not transgender. She did not go through puberty as a man and then transition.

Her passport states that she is a woman, thus meeting the IOC criteria for gender classification of boxers.

In her first international boxing match in 2018, she lost five of six matches at elite level. She went to the 2021 Tokyo Olympics as one of the first Algerian boxers and although she won her opening match, she lost her second.

Khelif had previously achieved some international successes, but before the Games in Paris she was defeated by nine female boxers.

Boxing’s Questionable Approach to Gender Testing

In 2023, a boxing match was held in Russia by the International Boxing Association (IBA), during which the gender identity of Khelif and Taiwan’s Lin Yu-Ting (who is also competing in the Paris Olympics) was questioned.

IBA president Umar Kremlev, Russia, said the two athletes had XY chromosomes and were therefore disqualified.

Elsewhere it was stated that the athletes were experiencing ‘elevated’ testosterone levels.

The facts are yet to be confirmed and it is not the role of an international sports organization to provide personal and private information.

At the request of the athletes, the IBA refused to provide evidence of the tests performed.

The IBA minutes (available on its website) state that the decision to disqualify Khelif and Lin was initially taken solely by the IBA Secretary General and CEO.

The IBA board only ratified it after the fact, noting in the minutes that the organization “must establish a clear procedure for gender testing.”

As the documents suggest, the IBA did not follow ethical practices in disqualifying Khelif and Yu-Ting. In fact, the use of such tests to identify an athlete’s sex and/or gender is highly problematic.

Gender testing in doubt

Since 1968, some female athletes competing in the Olympic Games have been required to undergo humiliating tests to “prove” their gender identity. This often involved visual examinations of their genitals in front of doctors and other medical experts.

At the behest of the IOC, international sports organizations subsequently introduced ‘gender verification tests’.

At the heart of such practices were problematic assumptions, particularly the assumption that a woman who is good at sports could possibly be a man pretending to be a woman.

In addition to visual examinations, blood tests to document hormone levels and/or chromosome testing have been used. But as research has shown, the effects of testosterone on performance are often exaggerated and insights into sports performance and gender require much more nuanced approaches.

After years of criticism, the IOC put an end to such practices in 1999.

To replace outdated sex tests that fail to take into account the physiological and social-psychological complexities of gender identity, the IOC has introduced a new set of guidelines that prioritize the fundamental human rights of privacy, inclusion and participation.

Although the IOC created the framework in the hope that it would encourage other international organizations to adopt a more inclusive view of gender, the guidelines remain controversial.

Some organizations have chosen to use alternative approaches to testing and proving an athlete’s ‘true’ gender identity. For example, World Athletics still uses testosterone testing.



Read more: A win for transgender and gender variant athletes: Olympics move away from testosterone testing, focus on human rights


Boxing and the IOC: An Ethical Clash

The boxing events at the Olympic Games in Paris are not organized by the IBA, but by a special unit appointed by the IOC.

The IBA was suspended by the IOC in 2019 and last year stripped of its status as the global governing body for amateur boxing over concerns about governance, financial transparency and the integrity of its officials.

The IOC was also concerned that the IBA refused to follow their approach in imposing sanctions on Russian athletes over the war in Ukraine.

With the Russian leadership of the IBA, this position in this case highlights another layer of geopolitical complexity.

Responding to the media hype following the Khelif-Carini match, the Paris 2024 Boxing Unit stated: “all athletes participating in the boxing tournament will adhere to the competition’s eligibility and participation regulations, as well as to all applicable medical regulations established by the Paris 2024 Boxing Unit (PBU)”.

The IBA responded by offering Carini and her coach an amount comparable to the prize money of the Olympic champion (US$100,000).

Since the incident, Carini has apologized to Khelif for her reaction and the resulting insults, and said she will “hug” her the next time they meet.

The Real Issues For Women In Sports

In the contemporary context, many female athletes who appear too powerful, too successful, or “too masculine” according to a particular set of values ​​are at risk of being targeted. Importantly, it is often non-white athletes who are most scrutinized for their gendered sporting bodies.

In addition to the ethics of the tests used, the extreme levels of online abuse directed at female athletes like Khelif and Lin highlight new ways in which women’s bodies are being policed ​​and regulated.

To avoid such accusations, many female athletes engage in what scholars call “emphasized femininity”: they wear long eyelashes, jewelry, makeup, painted nails, and overly feminine clothing. They do this not because it enhances their performance, but to reassure the public (and critics) of their femininity.

If they do not deliver a convincing performance that accommodates limited forms of femininity, they risk facing policing of their gendered bodies, public attacks, and online abuse.

However, this recent controversy can distract from the real issues facing women’s sport, such as protection against systematic abuse, as recently demonstrated by the high-profile cases of Volleyball Australia and USA Gymnastics.

While the Paris Olympics and Paralympics are being hailed as the first ‘gender-equal’ Games, with 50% female participation, the abuses faced by Khelif and Yu-Ting highlight the challenges many women still face in sport.

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