Author J.K. Rowling has fallen silent on her usually busy X (formerly Twitter) feed, after Olympic gold medalist boxer Imane Khelif filed a legal complaint in France for alleged cyber harassment over statements regarding her gender.
On August 9, lawyers for Khelif filed a lawsuit with a special unit of the public prosecutor’s office in Paris, stemming from false statements that spread online about her gender after the Algerian boxer defeated Italy’s Angela Carini in her first fight of the 2024 Olympic Games. Carini pulled out 46 seconds into the bout and told reporters afterwards that she had “never felt a punch like this.”
Because this a politicized topic no one uses common sense, they come in with preconceived notions and aim to find supporting facts for their predetermined opinions.
This issue is actually quite nuanced. The fighter has an intersex disorder which makes their sex ambiguous to anyone that doesn’t have access to their medical record, and she has been disqualified from competing in past events due to failing female tests, Olympics is one of the few places to allow her to compete.
I think calling an intersex person who claims to be a woman a man is wrong, even if they have psychical traits of a male (XY chromosome & higher testosterone).
However – in terms of competing, we segregate combat sports by sex for a reason, so if you have the physical advantages of a male you should not compete. It’s not a matter of just competitive integrity, but safety. Fighting is always dangerous, but men or anyone with the physiology of a male fighting women is extremely dangerous. In grappling maybe not, but in a combat sport with striking yes. We have to table our feelings and see that when determining if someone should compete.
But I think the rhetoric around the issue is gross. I don’t think theirs malice persay, rather the individual is intersex, has masculine traits and is really strong so people falsely presumed they were trans. It’s a reasonable assumption to make as being intersex is incredibly rare but nonetheless they should’ve verified this information before making public statements, as I try to do.
Yeah, your comment is reasoned and argued, that will cost you a whole lotta down votes. Remember where you are.
I’m new to this app & I’m politically homeless. I hate conservative and liberal propaganda / spinning of stories, but theirs no way to avoid it because humans are biased.
So what do I do? I follow both liberal and conservative news sources and engage with the people under the posts, since I can’t escape the spins I just get both of them and try to see both sides then determine what’s right.
Issue is on Lemmy (as someone who just joined) theirs literally no conservative place to join unlike Reddit. Like conservative communities here are anti-Trump and pro-Harris articles. I dislike reddit strongly so I have left, but Lemmy seems like an even worse place to get information because theirs no balance, theirs no diversity, communities trying to offer that are overrun and downvote bridaged.
Hopefully my experience gets better or I find some impartial communities. I really hate rhetoric and culture war issues, I just want to keep up to date on news and that’s it.
If you think you need to “balance” right wingers advocating genocide with left leaning people wanting to make the world a better place, you’re politically naive and won’t find what you’re looking for here.
Their argument is bad because it relies on vague information, from a source with a bad rep. This woman also performs in a bunch of countries that absolutely do not accept trans people, and also run lab work to make sure of their sex.
There’s literally no information available to state she is intersex. This was put forward last year without any evidence by the IBA, run by a Russian puppet, 3 days after she defeated a Russian boxer. This federation had been under scrutiny since 2019 exactly because of corruption.
I’m all for being careful when talking about this and I’m not ascribing ill intent towards you. Just try to not repeat this base less propaganda that she’s intersex, has xy chromosomes or something.
Personally I find this entire thing seems to be now supported and kept alive by people and organisations who want women to look and act a certain way, and any woman who deviates is not considered a real woman. And since I personally train a combat sport, and most of my women friends who compete also look strong, muscled and often like shaving at least parts of their hair off, they tend to look similar to Khelif. It’d be ridiculous to question if they are women, most of them already have kids fcol.
They scrapped gender tests, despite a large majority of female athletes voting to keep them. As a result, there isn’t any regulations from sports controlled by the IOC that prevents anyone competing due to gender/chromosomes.
The governing bodies for each sport control the rules for their own sport. The IOC has a basic framework, but many sports specifically ban competitors that have DSD that give them unfair advantages. For instance, female competitors must have under 5 mol/L of testosterone in their blood to compete in running events between 400m and 1 mile.
There is no current governing body for boxing, because the IOC cut ties with the IBA. They put together a temporary group to handle the 2024 Olympics, but if another governing body doesn’t step up for boxing, it will not be included in the 2028 Olympics. The IOC completely failed to protect their female competitors this year and have dropped the ball on this entire issue. They have no rules covering any of this stuff and refuse to handle it in the right way.
So she is clearly a cis women (AFAB and identifies as a women), but all evidence points she has a XY chromosome AND grew up with elevated testosterone levels.
Here are the facts we know, minus the conspiracy theories:
Imane claims to have been born female and has a female birth certificate.
Imane’s passport lists her as female
Imane’s coach said that she is so strong that she was injuring the other females in training. She was deemed too dangerous to pair with females and had to be paired with men, as they better matched her strength.
During a tournament in India, concerns were raised about Imane’s gender by medical staff, trainers, and competitors. This had nothing to do with how she looked. It was purely because of her strength.
Imane first underwent a karyotype test in 2022. The results came back as XY male. Imane wasn’t immediately disqualified. Both Khelif and Lin submitted to chromosome tests at the May 2022 Women’s World Boxing Championships in Istanbul and again at the March 2023 Women’s World Boxing Championships in New Delhi. Referring to the second tests, the IBA said in a statement issued earlier this week, “The findings were absolutely identical to the first results.”
The New Delhi test results for each say “chromosome analysis reveals Male karyotype” – with a depiction of XY chromosomes. The lab is CAP-certified and ISO-certified.
Imane was disqualified following the second tests, and she was apparently shocked and devastated by the decision. Despite having known for nearly a year that she had XY chromosomes.
These test results are appropriately not public.
Following her acceptance into the Olympics, the IBA sent a letter to the IOC informing them of their test findings and warning them that it was too dangerous for Imane to compete against females.
The IOC allowed Imane to compete against women in the Olympics, as their gender inclusion policy is based solely on gender identity, not gender biology. All they cared about was the gender listed on her passport. And apparently gave zero fucks about the safety of other competitors.
The IOC has never accused the IBA of faking the karyotype tests and has never referred to Imane as a ‘biological woman’.
The IBA was so upset with the IOC for allowing Imane to compete against females. They travelled to Paris and held a press conference voicing their concerns. They have also awarded compensation to the women with fought Imane.
Imane and Lim were the only female boxers to win every round at the Olympics. Both are suspected to be males.
The IOC had to backtrack on a public statement that “this isn’t a DSD case,” correcting it to “this isn’t a transgender case.” This means it most likely is a DSD case.
All this without any citations at all.
The IBA is a corrupt Russian body that was upset the Russian boxer was defeated. They never released any results or the methodology they used to determine their decision. They were rightly removed from the IOC.
Can you link to anything that says she’s intersex?
Well my comment was removed for “misinformation” by the moderators of this community, I can’t believe this app is just as bad as reddit on censorship. But I digress.
I’ll share what info I can, but the official IOC press statement stated “This is not a case of DSD” but quickly after they made a public announcement stating “what was intended to be said was this is not a transgender case”, saying the same message but with all instances of DSD replacing with trans, & they are not willing to comment on if DSD is involved.
If they are willing to disclose whether or not their trans, but not DSD, and also felt the need to publically clarify this small oversight that gets the same point across then chances are the fighter has DSD. No one will 100% know without their medical record, but between failed tests and the Olympics themselves alluding to it, theirs more than enough allusion to the fact that completely dismissing it is unreasonable, and the moderators of this community should honestly be ashamed of themselves for removing information they disagree with.
Misinformation isn’t something that isn’t 100% proven, but rather something that’s been 100% disproven, so they are incorrectly using this pejorative.
So as long as we’re speculating, what reason does the IBA have for not releasing the results of their test then? Are you even a fan of women’s combat sports? What about her performance leads you to believe a woman without DSD couldn’t achieve it? It’s also kind of obvious why the IOC went out of their way to say she’s not trans, hint hint it has something to do with where she’s from. But ultimately I want you to recognize there’s no evidence one way or the other on if she has DSD.
There is evidence, you may not feel like it’s clear enough to definitively determine DSD and that’s fair, neither do I, but the fact its ambiguous and no one will deny is enough that it’s not unreasonable to think.
You’re also being incredibly unfair in your analysis saying they “corrected” their statement from DSD to trans because of her origin country. That explanation makes no sense, you wouldn’t correct that statement unless there was something wrong with it. Correction implies you said something incorrect. Saying it’s not DSD is correct right? So what’s their to correct, only thing to say is adding additional information that she’s also not trans.
Amidst both allegations of DSD and trans, if you really want to clear the air you would dispell both, instead they tried to clear one then corrected it to the other as if their mutually exclusive?
You’re being absurd at this point. I respect your opinion but if you’re going to gaslight people into questioning things on reasonable grounds then you’re not at all genuine. Because you have your own opinions and political beliefs, you will overlook odd behavior, anomalies or coincidences and proclaim zero evidence which is why theirs no further discussion to be had.
No one here here is trying to prove anything about anyone, only that it’s not a baseless assumption and that we need answers on whether or not people with DSD are allowed to compete in female combat sports which they wont make clear. Anything beyond that is outside my scope, it’s a legitimate concern. Thank you and have a good day.
So just to be clear since none of this addresses 80% of what I said, there’s no reason for the IBA keeping the results of her failed tests a secret and you’ve never watched any women’s combat sports prior to this in your life? Color me shocked. I hope your uninformed takes on the next scandal you jump in on are better received I guess. Or maybe you can just listen and become better informed? Nah that’s a pipe dream I’m sure.
I didn’t respond to that question because its irrelevant. What does me watching female combat sports have to do with anything? (Nothing, its just an attempted jab at me) meanwhile you didn’t respond to all my claims, while mine are actually related to the argument.
But I’ll answer your question despite its purpose & irrelevance. My daughter is a wrestler and I’m a kick boxer & brazilian jujitsu artist, so yes I keep up on female sports because of my child & I have a general care for fighter safety because I’m empathetic, have personally seen people get hurt and I know how dangerous combat sports are. If you’re going to try to setup gotcha’s that’s exactly why I’ve ended the discussion.
As for IBA, I assume like most company’s they don’t publically release medical tests of their fighters. If they have a history of posting sex results then let me know. If they have a history and she consented for it to be shown, them also let me know. I would assume they either have a policy against showing it, or they didn’t acquire consent to show it, that’s a very reasonable answer but you won’t accept anything.
The same way you claim DSD can’t be argued, you can’t argued against the tests because you don’t have proof it was faked just circumstantial evidence because their “corrupt” and “fighter loss”, just like people on the opposite side have circumstantial evidence as well.
YOU made the claim that she had DSD with no proof. What else needs to be said.
I’m sure you really care about fighter safety, unless it’s witch hunting athletes online with no evidence, then it’s open season. If you knew anything about the sport this conversation wouldn’t be happening. She was the better boxer in all her bouts by a wide margin.
Why don’t you take that whole paragraph about the IBA and apply it to the IOC?
I never made the claim she had DSD, I stated it’s ambiguous and no one knows, while you’re acting certain you know for sure. I put forward proof of this ambiguity while you put forward zero rebuttal and nonsensical questions like “do you watch female sports?”. You’re trying to avoid all accountability and intellectual dialogue. Have a good one
Do you have a source on the intersex disorder claim. I have seen a lot of articles claim that XY DNA was found in her samples by IBA but the IBA never released their medical results nor what tests they conducted.
I agree on the intersex thing in unsubstantiated, but I still don’t understand. Nazis claim that a person’s sex should be the one “observed” at birth, legally binding so, end of. Do they fucking anywhere state that this definition excludes intersex conditions? This is the very definition of moving goalposts, and they should eternally stuff it after that, like Rowling did.
(Willie Wonka: Watching conservatives claim there is more to biological sex than genitals at birth, lmao)
Let’s not forget that Rowling accuses the “Trans movement” of dehumanizing people, and then goes on to misgender a born woman for her appearance.
(weeps for humanity then laughs hysterically)
I hope this asshole regrets this quote now. Fuck Rowling.
The test she failed is for an organization known to be even more corrupt than the IOC, and a lot of the other sports organizations do not just take their word for anything. Also, they never said what exactly the test was, or in what way she failed. So, unless you got some really updated citations, your argument is speculation based on very vague information, from an organization that doesn’t have a great reputation.