Olympic Games 2024: Imane Khelif and the gender debate shaking up Paris

Algerian boxer’s participation in the Paris Olympics Imane Khelif The debate on women’s sports competition with genetic and hormonal differences has been reopened, a discussion that has unleashed a wave of transphobia against an athlete who has never identified herself as trans. The controversy erupted after Italian boxer Angela Carini withdrew from her fight against Khelif, alleging severe pain after her opponent’s blows, but public opinion has found another reason for her withdrawal: the Algerian boxer’s disqualification from the 2023 World Boxing Championships after failing a gender test.

Khelif is a 25-year-old athlete who has stood out for her physical strength. It is known from her story that her father initially disapproved of women’s boxing; however, she insisted and managed to make her career, with successes such as the silver medal at the International Boxing Association (IBA) world championships in 2022. Amid the controversy, she achieved her second victory in Paris and secured a bronze medal. Khelif is guaranteed one of the two bronzes awarded in Olympic boxing thanks to her resounding victory against the Hungarian Anna Luca Hamori, decided unanimously by the five judges.

Unlike her controversial first fight, in which her rival abruptly walked away and refused to shake her hand, Khelif did have a brief embrace with Hamori before celebrating her victory in tears to the applause of a crowd of Algerians. The Algerian, who had already competed in Tokyo 2020 without making it to the podium, will seek a place in the final on Tuesday against Thailand’s Janjaem Suwannapheng.

Hyperandrogenism

Khelif identifies as a cisgender woman, meaning she identifies with the gender she was born with, although she develops high levels of testosterone, which has earned her exaggerated criticism after her debut in Paris. Even far-right politicians, such as Italian President Giorgia Meloni and Argentine Javier Milei, positioned themselves against Khelif’s participation, arguing that the fight was unequal. Khelif’s case is not unique, there is also that of Taiwanese boxer Lin Yu-ting (28 years old). Both were disqualified from the 2023 World Championships for not meeting the standards of a “gender eligibility test.”

These athletes have hyperandrogenism, which is defined “as an increase in plasma levels of male hormones in the case of cisgender women. There are multiple causes of hyperandrogenism. Discarding the exogenous application of androgens, in general, the causes are genetic,” explained Cecilia Calvar, head of Endocrinology at the Fernández Hospital in Buenos Aires to the newspaper Olé.

Women with high levels of testosterone often develop certain masculine characteristics such as increased hair growth, alopecia, acne, menstrual cycle disorders, loss of ovulation, deep voice, among others. Testosterone can even improve muscle mass and bone mass. Men produce about 20 times more testosterone than women, mainly in the testicles. Women produce it in the ovaries and adrenal glands. A normal level of testosterone in men is estimated to be between 10 and 35 nanomoles per liter of blood, according to the prestigious American hospital Mount Sinai. In women, it ranges between 0.5 and 2.4 per liter.

Jorge Pérez, doctor of the Colombian boxing team, gives an overview of this case: “Normally, some federations allow testosterone levels up to a certain point. And some allow transgender people to participate. In boxing, the international federation only looks at whether it is an XY man or a woman with XX genotype. In some federations, testosterone levels up to 10 nanograms are tolerated, but this must be certified by laboratories attached to the federations. And it takes a certain amount of time for controls to be carried out so that these levels do not rise above what is permitted. If the level is exceeded, the athlete can be declared as having an adverse test result,” he says.

“In combat sports, in this case boxing, testosterone tests are not required, only genotype tests are required, and that is where the athlete’s category is determined. The IOC meets all the criteria, which is why they let her compete. If she had not met the regulations, they would not let her participate.”

The most emblematic case is that of South African athlete Caster Semenya, a two-time Olympic champion in the 800 metres, who was banned from competing because of her high testosterone levels. Semenya refused to undergo treatment to reduce her testosterone levels, as requested by the International Athletics Federation, and has been fighting a legal battle for years.

Red-hot controversy

The debate is open. In the last few hours, István Kovács, European vice-president of the World Boxing Organisation and former secretary general of the International Boxing Association, spoke out, telling the Hungarian press that Khelif is a man. “The problem was not Khelif’s testosterone level, because that can be adjusted today, but the result of the gender test, which clearly revealed that the Algerian boxer is biologically male,” Kovács said in an interview with Magyar Nemzet.

For former Spanish athlete María José Martínez Patiño, who has been a member of the panel of experts of the Medical Commission of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) since 2012, these cases have come to the fore “because they are athletes from Algeria and Taiwan”. “If they had been from other countries, no one would have said anything,” she said. Added to this is their status as women, says Dr. Daniel J. García López, whose research focuses on the margins of legal sexuality. García compares the supposed advantage of athletes with hyperandrogenism with that of other elite athletes such as American swimmer Michael Phelps, whose body produces half the lactic acid of a typical athlete, which makes him feel less fatigued than his opponents.

“The ones who have always been under scrutiny are women because it is considered that a man can beat them, but they can never beat a man,” says Professor Jonathan Ospina-Betancurt, an expert in Intersexuality and Transsexuality in Sport, while the LGTBI secretary of the PSOE, Víctor Gutiérrez, has recalled that Khelif “is not a trans woman” and that “there are no trans women competing in the Olympic Games”. The IOC, for its part, has defended that “all athletes “comply with the eligibility rules”.

Both García and Ospina-Betancurt warn: what will happen when Khelif returns home? “We will forget about it tomorrow, but these athletes have millions of people watching them and doubts about them have already been sown. Many athletes who have suffered this media and social harassment have ended up in a very bad way in terms of their physical and mental health,” says Ospina-Betancurt.

SPORTS WITH EFE AND AFP

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