Olympic-level confusion regarding Imane Khelif

And why many people don't seem to be covering the situation objectively.

Edit: A link to the Fox News article was originally missing from the initial publication. A link is provided both within the text of the article as well as the cropped image from the website.

Yesterday I began to write about the Imane Khelif situation that has caught many people’s attention.

As is likely known by now Khelif is a boxer representing Algeria in the 2024 Paris Olympic games. But in the past several days a lot of controversy has come out regarding Khelif’s fight against Italy’s Angela Carini in which just a few blows and a mere 46 seconds of a match resulted in Carini forfeiting.

This had led to widespread assumptions that there may be something deeper going on, that Khelif may be male and may have elevated testosterone levels, thus putting Khelif at a severe advantage over Carini.

This is what has been circulating amongst many media outlets including both conservative and progressive news outlets. And when first writing about this situation I focused on Khelif’s “XY status” as well as Khelif’s “elevated testosterone levels”.

But as I dug deeper there appeared to be a lot of discrepancies in what was being reported, and in essence what many people were reporting didn’t seem to be based on actual objective information but appears to be based on hearsay and the self-referential nature of journalism.

It’s a shame because I spent several hours working on this article only to find out I wasted a good deal of my Saturday over something that I should have looked into more deeply.

But it’s from this mistake that I want to explain to readers why this situation isn’t quite what it’s made out to be, and why we need people to be better scrutinizers of evidence.

There’s no clear evidence of Khelif’s “XY status”

Among many of the Substacks and articles I’ve read many people have claimed that Khelif is known to possess XY sex chromosomes- something that would suggest male development. This has been taken up by several conservative media outlets such as Fox News:

From Fox News

And even an article from Reuters seems to slightly entertain the idea of the XY status of Khelif, even though they seem rather hesitant in definitively making such claims:

Khelif and a second boxer, Taiwan's Lin Yu-ting, fell foul of IBA eligibility rules, which include preventing athletes with XY chromosomes from competing in women's events.

The IBA says, opens new tab neither boxer underwent a testosterone examination but were subject to a separate and recognised test. The IBA says, opens new tab the specifics of those tests remain confidential but said they showed both gained a competitive advantage.

The minutes, opens new tab of a March 2023 IBA board meeting stated that "the athletes do not meet one of the eligibility criteria", without stating which one. They do not state whether she has XY chromosomes which are usually associated with men, but can be an indication in females of a difference of sexual development. Neither boxer has ever been shown to have the genetic condition.

Nonetheless, this hasn’t stopped many Substack writers and people within the media to run with the idea that Khelif’s XY sex chromosome status is definitive.

The problem is that the available information doesn’t provide enough context, and instead relies on assumptions to be made.

For instance, the only available information regarding “gender testing” includes a statement made by the International Boxing Association a few months prior in which they state the reasons for both Khelif and Yu-ting to have been disqualified from the 2023 World Boxing Championships:

On 24 March 2023, IBA disqualified athletes Lin Yu-ting and Imane Khelif from the IBA Women’s World Boxing Championships New Delhi 2023. This disqualification was a result of their failure to meet the eligibility criteria for participating in the women’s competition, as set and laid out in the IBA Regulations. This decision, made after a meticulous review, was extremely important and necessary to uphold the level of fairness and utmost integrity of the competition.

Point to note, the athletes did not undergo a testosterone examination but were subject to a separate and recognized test, whereby the specifics remain confidential. This test conclusively indicated that both athletes did not meet the required necessary eligibility criteria and were found to have competitive advantages over other female competitors.

It’s strange that no test for testosterone was conducted, and the confidential nature of the other “separate and recognized test” doesn’t help to alleviate the ambiguity of this statement. Bear in mind that nowhere within the IBA statement is a reference made to “gender testing”, with the link to the Board of Director’s meeting minutes only suggesting that “a clear procedure for gender testing” is needed by the next board meeting in Uzbekistan.

Also, references to Khelif and Yu-ting only mention that they failed to meet one eligibility requirement from independent laboratory tests, which again is ambiguous and doesn’t tell us much regarding what testing actually occurred:

Mr. Marko Petric, IBA Head of Sport, presented two cases of the athletes from Algeria, Imane Khelif, and Chinese Taipei, Lin Yu-ting, who, competing at the IBA Women’s World Boxing Championships in India, failed to meet eligibility rules, following a test conducted by an independent laboratory.

[…]

Mr. Yerolimpos confirmed that IBA has the results from two independent laboratories in two different countries at its disposal, both of which indicate that the athletes do not meet one of the eligibility criteria to continue competing at the Championships.

Personally, this degree of ambiguity doesn’t appear to be enough to make such objective claims.

Now, people’s suspicions may be affirmed by a comment made by IBA president Umar Kremlev to Russian outlets in March of 2023 in which he suggested that DNA testing recognized both Khelif and Yu-ting’s XY status:

This quote itself hasn’t been corroborated, and there’s no information regarding the context in which this quote was sourced. But also, this comment itself seems to be contradictory- if Kremlev is confident in saying that several athletes were proven to have XY chromosomes why not reveal the nature of the testing that IBA conducts then? Why state that these testing criteria are confidential while simultaneously stating the findings of said testing? This seems rather contradictory, and for the sake of transparency wouldn’t it be best to just reveal the nature of the testing and eligibility requirements so that removes any need to speculate?

This quote seems to have been enough for journalists to run with, but personally it seems so limited and ambiguous that I would need better corroborating evidence to make that claim. Kremlev’s statement reads too much into the “trust me bro” narrative- we would need more than just hearsay in order to confidently state Khelif’s sex chromosome status.

There’s no clear information regarding Khelif’s testosterone levels

Even more curious is the narrative that Khelif has elevated levels of testosterone, which itself hasn’t been substantiated and is actually contradicted by the avalable information.

For instance, the article from Fox News makes a comment that Khelif failed testosterone testing as reported by Algerian media and as mentioned by Reuters:

The Algerian Olympic Committee said at the time that Khelif was disqualified for "medical reasons." Algerian media reported that Khelif was disqualified for high testosterone levels, according to Reuters.

However, no citation is provided for these accounts, and I haven’t been able to find any information regarding the Reuters article that is mentioned as well as the reports from Algerian media.

If anything, this should be an indictment on journalists who don’t properly reference their sources, and in the instance that a source seems to be referenced the links would general lead to dead-ends. This has always been a problem with journalism as a whole, but it’s made even more egregious in circumstances such as this when one tries to piece together objective information but can’t find any actual sources.

And what’s even more outlandish is the fact that journalists have even cited contradictory evidence in their reporting.

For instance, one article from The Sun incorrectly states that Khelif failed testosterone testing in 2023:

Khelif was allowed to participate in the Games by the IOC despite being disqualified from last year's Women's World Championships after failing a testosterone level test.

And this misinformation is mentioned several times throughout the article.

The Daily Mail also mentions such unfounded claims as well, again citing elevated testosterone levels from tests taken in 2023 as being the reason for the disqualification:

And the same has happened with the New York Post:

Carini quit the 66kg preliminary fight after absorbing Khelif punches to her face, and then tearfully fell to her knees in the ring and decried the fight as “unjust.”

That has amplified questions surrounding Khelif’s status — she was disqualified by the Russian-led International Boxing Association at the 2023 world championships due to claims of having XY chromosomes and elevated testosterone levels.

What’s rather surprising is that even the Associated Press (August 2, 2024) was not saved from reported such unfounded claims as can be seen in the following excerpt:

Khelif reached the final of the 2023 world championships before she was abruptly disqualified by the IBA, which cited high levels of testosterone in her system. The circumstances of that disqualification have been considered highly unusual ever since it happened, and Khelif called it “a big conspiracy” at the time.

Even more surprising is the fact that all but the Fox News article have cited the IBA’s tests as the source for the elevated testosterone levels, and yet by the IBA’s own statement no testosterone test was considered as part of the eligibility criteria regarding Khelif.

This is one of the most egregious examples of journalists not fact-checking their own sources before making their reports. If so, they would have realized that contradiction in their own reporting!

But this hasn’t stopped people from running with this spurious claim. As far as I can tell this is one of the most questionable instance of lack of journalistic integrity, and it’s shocking to see how many writers have not stopped to see that the very source of these claims have never conducted testosterone testing.

To be honest, my initial writing of this situation went down the rabbit hole of Khelif and the alleged elevated levels of testosterone. As such, a large portion of yesterday’s research was looking into testosterone and its effects on the body, but it wasn’t until I looked deeper into the claims regarding Khelif that I realized that there was no actual clear, objective facts that Khelif did indeed have elevated levels of testosterone. In trying to find any bit of evidence I looked through various articles, and it was only then that I realized that most outlets were making claims without checking their sources.

For the cause…

The Khelif situation has become a cultural lightning rod, being taken up by conservatives as condemnation against trans women competing against females.

This is something that I generally agree with, and I’ve written about this before. However, I always try to approach things from an objective lens. I try to look for sources and see if there is enough corroborating evidence before making claims.

Hence why I am concerned regarding the currently ongoing Khelif debate. There just doesn’t appear to be anything here to substantiate the claims being made that Khelif is “a man” and deserving of the current indignation that is taking over social media.

If such clear evidence was available I would be right there with people’s criticisms, and rather than publishing this article I would have published the one I spent hours working on yesterday.

But instead, we must see the current situation as one of the dangers when we fall deeply into our own sides ideology and blind ourselves to objectivity.

The reason why the Khelif vs Carini situation is garnering so much attention is due to the fact that the fight ended after a mere 46 seconds and a few blows to Carini. It echoes similarly to the events that have happened when females fought against trans MMA athlete Fallon Fox, only in the case of Fallon Fox it was well-known that Fox was a male who transitioned into appearing as a woman- a clear case of unfairness deserving of scrutiny.

The same can’t be said regarding the Khelif situation, and if not for how quickly the fight ended I doubt we would be having the same level of discourse. And if it was any other sport in which combat wasn’t involved it likely wouldn’t gain the same level of attention.

Because of all of these issues it feels like any discussion regarding Khelif has already been poisoned by groupthink and biases.

Bear in mind that reporters on the left are just as culpable in their flaming the discourse. However, when it comes to the left my frustration is the inconsistency in citing “science” while appealing to subjective, lived experiences.

For instance, an article from Politifact rebutting claims that Khelif is a man used the following rhetoric:

The claims that Khelif is not a woman are not substantiated. Khelif has always competed as a woman; she has never come out as transgender or intersex. "The Algerian boxer was born female, was registered female, lived her life as a female, boxed as a female, has a female passport," International Olympic Committee spokesperson Mark Adams said in a Aug. 2 media briefing (14:34). "This is not a transgender case."

Other outlets have also taken to rebutting conservatives using the same rhetoric. The problem is that this excerpt defaults to language regarding self-identification, as if Khelif not identifying as transgender or intersex would mean that Khelif may not bear XY chromosomes and therefore have elevated testosterone levels.

Again, I don’t think there is enough evidence to make such a claim that Khelif has XY chromosomes- I’m merely suggesting that Khelif can’t be argued to be female on self-identification alone. It’s completely unscientific and subjective to argue that one’s “lived experience” validates their actual sex/intersex status.

Which is why recent comments from International Olympics Committee president Thomas Bach seem rather ironic given the circumstances, as he has been quoted as saying the following (excerpt from the Associated Press, August 3, 2024):

“We have two boxers who are born as women, who have been raised as women, who have a passport as a woman and have competed for many years as women,” Bach said. “Some want to own a definition of who is a women.”

Again, none of this is scientific but merely subjectivity owed to one’s “lived experience”. We may argue that the term “women” can encapsulate people with various characteristics and backgrounds, but all of that is moot when it comes to evidence-based science regarding whether one has been exposed to elevated levels of testosterone throughout their lives- something that would inherently confer a competitive advantage in much the same ways that many competitive organizations bar people who have been found to be doping with steroids.

This makes the closing remarks by Bach all the more nonsensical:

Bach challenged critics of Olympic women’s boxing “to come up with a scientific-based new definition of who is a women, and how can somebody being born, raised and competed and having a passport as a woman cannot be considered a woman.”

We don’t need a science-based definition, we need a science-based eligibility criteria, and we need people who are able to understand what effects carrying an XY chromosome has on development. In fact, we need people who have a much greater understanding of sex and gender as a whole lest we get continuously nonsensical remarks such as this one made in USA Today:

Because the thing is with these anti-trans crusaders, no answer is ever good enough. They put forward bills in state legislatures wanting to check girls’ genitals before they go play basketball or volleyball. But then you get a case like Khalif where it’s very clear she has female body parts – her father was interviewed Saturday showing a birth document listing her as a female – and they want a chromosome test. Give them that, they’ll want a full lab workup of every strand of DNA in their bodies.

And if you let them win, if you let them think they’re right, they’ll never stop. They’ll want answers about every female tennis player with unusually wide shoulders or every women’s golfer with a jaw line or every basketball player that has a suspiciously deep voice.

So much for having an understanding of biology and science…

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This controversy doesn’t appear to be ending anytime soon, and because of that it’s disheartening to see how much impartiality is being left out of the discussion. Regardless of whether it’s a conservative bias or a progressive bias it seems that there’s a lot of misinformation being spread about under the guise of playing group politics.

That being said, it’s nice to see that some people are providing an objective response as is the case in Karen Hunt’s Substack. I don’t agree with everything she states but I think it’s at least good to see other people showing some hesitancy, and I especially like this excerpt:

All I’m trying to say is, what we are told in the media, even if it’s from the side we agree with, can be an outright lie, or it can be twisted or only half-true. We are continually being manipulated to react emotionally rather than intellectually. Even when the facts come out later, proving what we were first told is a lie, the manipulation has often been so successful that we simply refuse to accept it. And if anyone tries to tell us otherwise, we become angry and double down on the delusion.

The Imane Khelif boxing controversy is not what it seems.

There’s quite a bit of information that I ended up leaving out of this article, including claims that Khelif may be intersex since it didn’t seem relevant to the discussion at the time. Please feel free to provide any commentary regarding the situation below and what your thoughts are regarding the ongoing debate.

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Photo from Associated Press with credit provided to John Locker

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