Embarrassing controversy over Olympic boxer Iman Khalifa

This story was originally published in Wired Italy And it’s translated from Italian.

Algerian boxer Iman Khalif wins her first match 2024 Paris Olympics when her opponent, Italy’s Angela Carini, retired after suffering multiple blows to the face in the opening seconds of the bout. The win further fuelled the controversy surrounding Khalifa, who was targeted by critics and misgendered throughout the Games.

Born in 1999 in Tiaret, Algeria, Khalif has been boxing since childhood and has always competed in women’s categories. In her career, she participated in the Women’s World Boxing Championships in New Delhi in 2018 (finishing 17th), then competed in Russia the following year. She participated in the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, reaching the quarter-finals, and finished second at the 2022 Women’s World Championships in Istanbul.

Everything seemed to be going smoothly until the 2023 World Cup organised by the International Boxing Association. The Russian-led IBA, which is not recognised by the International Olympic Committee, disqualified Khalif after a gender eligibility test allegedly found she has XY chromosomes. IBA president Umar Kremlev has said that Khalif and Taiwanese boxer Lin Yu-ting, who allegedly had a similar test result, were both “trying to deceive their colleagues and pretend to be women.” Khalif has contested the allegations.

Olympic controversy

Both Khalif and Lin were admitted to the Olympic boxing competitions. The entry rules in this case are handled by the so-called Boxing Unit, which has ensured that all athletes participating in the Games’ boxing tournament comply with the rules of eligibility and registration for the competition, as well as all medical rules, including the proper display of stamped and verified medical certificates at least three months before the start of the competitions.

“These boxers are fully qualified. They have women on their passports, they are women who have competed at the Tokyo Olympics and have been competing for a number of years, I think we all have a responsibility to mitigate this and not turn it into a witch hunt,” IOC spokesman Mark Adams said at a news conference on Tuesday.

Nevertheless, prominent figures on social media condemned Khalif’s participation in the Games. X owner Elon Musk promoted a tweet by swimmer Riley Gaines that “men shouldn’t be involved in women’s sports”, while author J.K. Rowling falsely referred to Khalif as “a man who knows he’s protected by an anti-feminist sports establishment, enjoying himself after punching a woman in the head.”

The fact is that Khalifa is participating in the Games because she is allowed to do so according to the rules and she has exceeded the IOC’s standards. “The current aggression against these two athletes is based solely on this arbitrary decision,” the boxing unit and the IOC said in a statement on Thursday, referring to the IBA ban.[It] This decision was taken without any due process – especially considering that these players had been participating in top-level competition for many years. Such an approach is the opposite of good governance.”

The controversies of the past few days have taken serious issues such as hyperandrogenism—the excessive production of testosterone by the female body—and intersexuality, in which a person is born with sexual characteristics that do not fit neatly into the traditional definitions of male and female, and denigrated them. They have further poisoned an already very sensitive debate Participation of transgender women in the Olympics and sporting competitions in general.

However, beyond all this, the fact is that Iman Khalif has always defined herself as a woman and the IOC is allowing her to participate in the Olympics as such. Even in the face of aggressive public opinion, there is nothing to add to it.