Olympic Gold for Imane Khelif, and the Wider Issue of Gender Eligibility in Elite Sport
On 9 August 2024, Algerian boxer Imane Khelif defeated No. 2 seed Yang Liu of China to win the Olympic gold medal in the women’s welterweight (66 kg) division. The same day, in an unusual, but not unexpected, turn of events, her lawyer Nabil Boudi filed an official complaint with the Paris Public Prosecutor’s Office, in response to online harassment of his client. In a press release, Boudi stated that “Imane Khelif has decided to lead a new fight: that of justice, dignity, and honour”, adding that “The criminal investigation will determine who initiated this misogynistic, racist, and sexist campaign.”
Khelif’s “digital lynching” was triggered by the withdrawal of Italian boxer Angela Carini, just 46 seconds into her bout with Khelif, on the grounds that she had never been hit as hard ever before. Carini broke down in tears and conceded the bout, without the traditional handshake, only to later claim that she wanted to “apologise” to Khelif, and would “embrace her” were they to meet again. This episode prompted various notables, such as Donald Trump and Elon Musk, JK Rowling and assorted celebrities, conservative and transphobic commentators, and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni to condemn Khelif’s continued participation in the Games on the grounds that the boxer was in fact transgender, being a “biological male”, and thus had unfair competitive advantage over her opponents. According to this line of thinking, sparring with Khelif put her opponents at risk of serious injury, even death.
Imane Khelif was born to poor parents in a small northwestern Algerian village in May 1999. She was registered as a female at birth and was brought up as a girl. From an early age, and despite her father’s initial misgivings, Khelif sought to become a boxer. She began competing in 2018. Four years later, Khelif won the African and Mediterranean Championships and took silver in the World Championships in Istanbul. Khelif has consistently identified as a woman, until she first ran into major difficulties during the World Championships in New Delhi in March 2023. She was disqualified retrospectively and lost her bronze medal following a protest over her defeat of previously unbeaten Russian boxer Azalia Amineva. This decision was guided by arbitrary, and unspecified, gender eligibility tests that were administered by the International Boxing Association (IBA). That year, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) withdrew its recognition of the IBA as boxing’s governing body-a decision that was confirmed by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). As the controversy over Khelif’s Olympic journey raged on, IOC spokesperson Mark Adams informed a press conference on 4 August that the tests that disqualified Khelif and Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting in New Delhi were “not legitimate tests.” Yu-ting herself went on to win Olympic gold at Paris, in the flyweight division. Before their volte-face, the IBA had allowed Khelif to participate in three previous World Championships, not to mention four bouts in New Delhi. On 5 August, the IBA held a two-hour press conference in Paris, during which Umar Kremlev, the organisation’s president, spoke via video link and criticised the IOC for its support for Khelif and for several other reasons. In this context, it must be noted that, despite her supposed competitive advantage, Khelif had lost to nine female boxers prior to the 2024 Paris Olympics.
The IOC relies upon the gender and age of athletes as recorded in their passports. The problem for Khelif lies in the fact that, although described as a female, she has an XY, or male, complement of sex chromosomes It is now well-recognised that the conventional binary definition of gender/sex overlooks a spectrum of people whose sex do not conform to widely accepted standards of “normal.” Today, there is a better understanding of sexual polymorphism, in place of traditional sexual dimorphism. Genetic males (XY) may thus appear feminine, from reduced testosterone synthesis (failure of testicular development) or from insensitivity of body receptors to naturally-produced androgens. Similarly, genetic females (XX) may have a masculine appearance, from over-exposure to maternal androgens or from over-production of testosterone. A focus on early and invasive gender reassignment has shifted to increased autonomy for people with Differences of Sex Development (DSD), originally known as intersex states. This leaves them free to decide their own future rather than to submit to premature hormonal treatment and ‘corrective’ surgery without informed consent.
Starting with the 1968 Grenoble Winter Olympics, the IOC issued “certificates of femininity” to athletes with XX chromosomes to allow them to compete as women. This had its drawbacks, as men with Klinefelter’s syndrome (XXY) could be identified as women, while women with Turner syndrome (XO) could be classed as women, while those with mixed populations of chromosomes, or chromosome mosaics, added to the confusion. The IOC and the International Amateur Athletics Federation (IAAF), now known as World Athletics, abandoned mandatory sex testing for female athletes in 1999, only to reinstate tests in 2011 in response to the disputed case of South African runner Caster Semenya. Under the new policy, female athletes who overproduce androgens may be eligible to compete if their testosterone levels fall below a certain pre-defined level. This is based on an unconfirmed belief that testosterone, which increases the mass and strength of muscle and bone, confers competitive advantage. Since the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, World Athletics has thus required female athletes with DSDs to suppress their testosterone levels with hormonal treatment to below 2.5 nmol/L for at least six months to be able to compete.
Khelif is most certainly not a transgender person, gender reassignment being illegal in Algeria. She appears to have a DSD, which can lead to discrepancies between genetic sex (chromosomes), gonadal sex (reproductive sex glands: ovaries/ testes), anatomical sex (external genitals/internal genitals), and secondary sex characteristics (breasts, facial and chest hair).
Imane Khelif’s case reflects widespread prejudices against people with DSDs. These prejudices are based on a lack of understanding of, and over-simplification of, the different dimensions of sexual development. The best way forward has yet to be determined, although there seems little need to invest in routine and mandatory gender determination of female athletes. A case-by-case confirmation of sport-specific gender eligibility for individual elite athletes with DSDs, who account for a very small proportion of all competitors, may help protect them from abuse by people who readily resort to vitriolic tirades without full possession of the available facts.
Ashis Banerjee