Two athletes competing at the Paris Olympics as “women” were previously disqualified from a women’s world championship for having “XY chromosomes.” Imane Khelif of Algeria and Lin Yu-Ting of Taiwan are scheduled to compete in Olympic women’s boxing next week despite past questions surrounding their biological sex.
The Women’s World Boxing Championships took place in March of 2023 and was hosted in New Delhi, India. A total of 324 boxers from 64 nations competed during the 10-day trial, marking the largest participation in any iteration of the championship ever recorded.
However, the grand event was marred by controversy after Umar Kremlev, president of the International Boxing Association (IBA), announced the disqualification of multiple boxers from the championship.
Kremlev said that IBA executives had met towards the championship’s grand finale to discuss “fairness among athletes and professionalism,” after concerns were raised about the biological sex of some participants. He added that after “a series of DNA-tests,” the IBA “uncovered athletes who were trying to fool their colleagues and pretend to be women.”
Speaking to TASS News, Kremlev claimed that the tests had proven the athletes in question “had XY chromosomes and were thus excluded from the sports events.”
Among the disqualified was Imane Khelif, an Algerian boxer who had been set to challenge Yang Liu of China in the welterweight final. Khelif was removed from the gold medal fight, and Thailand’s Janjaem Suwannapheng, who had lost to Khelif in the semi-finals, was allowed to proceed to fight Yang instead.
In a public statement, the IBA wrote that “a boxer from Algeria, Imane Khelif, was excluded from the IBA World Boxing Championships due to the failure to meet the IBA eligibility criteria.” But the Algerian Olympic Committee denied the IBA’s claims, attributing Khelif’s disqualification to a “conspiracy” to prevent Algeria from having a gold medal in boxing.
While they vaguely alluded to Khelif being struck for “medical reasons” surrounding high testosterone levels, they added that they would be supporting Khelif’s journey to the 2024 Paris Olympics regardless.
But following the controversial disqualification, a female boxer came forward to discuss her experience fighting Khelif in the ring at the championship.
“When I fought with her I felt very out of my depth,” Mexican boxer Brianda Tamara wrote on X. “Her blows hurt me a lot, I don’t think I had ever felt like that in my 13 years as a boxer, nor in my sparring with men. Thank God that day I got out of the ring safely, and it’s good that they finally realized,” Tamara said.
A second boxer was similarly disqualified by the IBA at the event, Taiwan’s Lin Yu-Ting, who was also stripped of a bronze medal.
Lin had previously won 5 gold medals in women’s boxing tournaments.
Despite having faced the disqualification just last year, both boxers will be competing in Paris as female boxers.
Khelif is scheduled to fight Italy’s Angela Carini on August 1, while Lin Yu-Ting is set to be matched the next day.
While neither have stated they identify as transgender, it is suspected that both are impacted by a Difference of Sexual Development (DSD), a category of medical conditions encompassing any problem noted at birth where the genitalia are atypical in relation to the chromosomes or gonads.
DSDs in elite sports first came to public attention during the meteoric rise of South African runner Caster Semenya. Semenya’s rapid improvements in performance beginning in 2009 initially triggered suspicions of drug use, and World Athletics (then called the IAAF) was internationally denounced for requesting Semenya take a test to ascertain his biological sex.
Most women, including elite female athletes, have natural testosterone levels of 0.12 to 1.79 nanomoles per liter (nmol/L), but Semenya has XY chromosomes and male gonads producing a normal level of testosterone for a male. In 2011, Semenya was measured as having 15.6 and 29.3 nmol/L. Years later, a decision in the Court of Arbitration for Sport revealed that Semenya has a DSD where the normal male sexual development fails in utero, resulting in external genitals that appear to be a vagina at birth, but was in fact an underdeveloped penis.
Speaking to Reduxx, a representative with the Independent Council on Women’s Sports (ICONS) condemned the confusion that had emerged surrounding the sex of competitors due to the International Olympic Committee’s 2000 decision to end sex-verification screening.
“The IOC’s decision to end sex-verification screening in 2000 has caused distrust and confusion in women’s sports ever since,” ICONS co-founder Marshi Smith said. “Its 2021 decision to offload the responsibility for international eligibility criteria to individual sporting bodies has resulted in varied standards and widespread chaos among athletes, coaches, officials, and the public.”
Smith notes that a new boxing qualification system was implemented for the 2024 Olympics in which an ad-hoc unit was created by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Executive Board to organize the boxing competitions for Paris 2024.
This new unit was set up after the International Boxing Association (IBA), which had previously disqualified Khelif and Lin from women’s championships, was suspended by the IOC due to concerns it was receiving funding from Russia.
In the FAQ for the Paris 2024 Boxing Unit, no gender eligibility guidelines are specified, something Smith suggests likely indicates that individual nations were given a tremendous amount of power to deem their own athletes eligible.
“In boxing, the recent contentious split between the IBA and the IOC has now placed Olympic eligibility power into the hands of national boxing federations, allowing countries like Algeria and Taiwan to set their own standards and continue placing male boxers in the ring with female athletes in combat for women’s Olympic medals,” Smith explains.
“The physical abuse of women on an Olympic stage eliminates the integrity of all Olympic events and risks lifelong injury or even death for female athletes. This deceit cannot be allowed to continue.”
Reduxx is your source of pro-woman, pro-child safeguarding news and commentary. We’re 100% independent! Support our mission by joining our Patreon, or consider making a one-time donation.
