Imane Khelif has done it: the gold medal that every ambitious athlete dreams of wearing around their neck from their first training sessions in the gym is finally in her hands. It’s a well-deserved triumph for the Algerian, but not as simple as the official scorecards from the five judges might suggest. Her opponent, the Chinese boxer Yang Liu, forced her into a very tactical fight, based on controlling the distance and timing, without giving her a fixed target or points of reference.
In the end, however, the difference in the effectiveness of the punches between the two fighters weighed heavily in the eyes of the jury, whose overwhelming unanimity suggests that perhaps the shocking case Khelif was involved in during these Games may have had an emotional impact on those called upon to deliver the final verdict in the 66 kg division.
A surreal and tremendously complex case involving the Algerian Imane Khelif and the Taiwanese Lin Yu Ting has unfolded over the past few weeks. It’s a case debated everywhere, generating intense polarization between opposing views. A case that simultaneously touches on fields as seemingly distant as biology, geopolitics, and public information. A case where everyone, with few praiseworthy exceptions, believes they have clear ideas and publicly pronounces with the confidence of a Nobel Prize winner discussing their most successful study.
It’s no coincidence that this article comes out so late. The newspapers have spilled rivers of ink, and ordinary people, many of whom had never watched a boxing match before, have worn out their computer keys and smartphone screens in endless debates about the Khelif case. Meanwhile, I, who run a boxing news site, remained silent, stunned by a flood of contradictory and incoherent information, unable to take a position before thoroughly studying the matter.
The first time I came across the “Khelif case” was when I was reading, without specific intent, the latest posts on the social network now known as X, which many still recognize by its former name, “Twitter.” A video caught my attention: a user had posted images of a fight where the Algerian was overwhelmingly dominating, landing punch after punch on her opponent, accompanied by a description stating that a transgender boxer was destroying her female opponents at the Olympic Games.
Two fake news stories in one blow: the Olympic tournament had not yet begun that day, and Imane Khelif is not a transgender athlete. However, while the first inconsistency was immediately apparent to me after a quick glance at the tournament calendar, the second one misled me. Misled by the massive amount of news popping up all over the web about the “two trans boxers” at the Olympics—taken seriously even by top-level journalists, both sports and non-sports—I temporarily believed the “hoax” and posted a couple of concerned comments about the IOC’s decision, one of which expressed worry for Angela Carini, Khelif’s first designated opponent.
However, within a few days, I began to realize something didn’t add up. Imane Khelif was born and raised in Algeria, not exactly a country at the forefront of LGBT rights, where it’s not even legally possible to change one’s gender on identity documents, even after surgery and a complete transition. Imane has been “registered” as a woman on official documents since birth and has been competing in women’s sports since she was a girl, indicating that she was born with female genitalia and that whoever labeled her as a transgender athlete was lying.
Soon, once the previous theory proved completely unfounded, a new dominant narrative emerged online: Imane Khelif is an “intersex” athlete, characterized by XY chromosomes but without male genitalia. Her disqualification from the last boxing world championships, decided by the IBA in March 2023, was supposedly linked to this peculiar condition, confirmed by a genetic test.
Once again, given the massive amount of consistent sources, I initially believed the news and tried to reason accordingly. While the rest of the world argued over whether to admit the Algerian to the Games, claiming expertise in genetics, biology, and anthropology that would make a university faculty envious, I struggled to research and navigate through the various available sources in a field far removed from my studies in aerospace engineering.
Eventually, thanks in part to contributions on the web by Prof. Ranieri Bizzarri from the University of Pisa, I learned that the average performance differences between men and women are predominantly determined by genetics. It seemed reasonable to conclude, albeit with the necessary doubt due to my lack of expertise in the subject, that an athlete characterized by XY chromosomes, even without male genitalia, would have, in principle, an undue advantage over her XX chromosome competitors.
However, once again, what seemed established and incontrovertible proved baseless. Thanks to a friend who sent me the only official document currently available on Imane Khelif and Lin Yu Ting’s famous disqualification, I learned with dismay that not only did the IBA keep the specific results of the famous “tests” that led to the exclusion of the two boxers completely confidential, but even the very nature of the tests was not specified or revealed in the statement.
At that point, I was disheartened. Much of the public debate was revolving around unprovable and unproven information, disseminated and supported by the leadership of an organization involved in severe cases of corruption, led by oligarch Umar Kremlev, a close ally of Vladimir Putin. A leadership that, at this historical moment, has every interest in fueling propaganda aimed at portraying Western countries as depraved and decadent, in contrast to the supposed moral orthodoxy of the Russian world. In short, an organization devoid of the slightest credibility.
I regret to disappoint those who expected to find, at the end of this article, a resounding, definitive conclusion, perfect to be used as a cudgel in verbal sparring with a homophobic uncle during the next Christmas dinner. But the truth is that drawing firm and incontrovertible conclusions about the alleged competitive advantage of Imane Khelif and Lin Yu Ting, given the opacity of IBA communications and the absence of specific tests by the IOC, is simply impossible.
Nevertheless, there remains an underlying issue that goes beyond the single case of these Olympics and deserves reflection, without preconceptions, in the years to come. In its frantic communication over the past few days, the IOC has clearly hinted, among other things, that the only criterion it intends to adopt for determining the gender of athletes participating in the Games is of a legal-bureaucratic nature: a woman is defined as such based on what is stated in her passport.
The leadership of the International Olympic Committee has indeed stated that verification based on medical tests would be “impractical” and “discriminatory.” It’s worth noting that this approach opens the doors to participation in female tournaments not only for athletes, presumably very rare, identified as female at birth despite having XY chromosomes, but also for transgender athletes whose country of origin legally allows gender change on documents.
Now, if our field of interest were philosophy, we could spend hours discussing how to define the concepts of “man” and “woman” from an ontological point of view, and each of us could reach various conclusions. But in this context, it’s essential to adopt a massive dose of pragmatism and ask ourselves: why have sports competitions always been divided by gender? If we don’t intend to abolish it, mixing everyone into one group (a presumably extremely unpopular and minority idea), we must recognize that the only reason is the disparity in athletic values that generally exists between men and women. Accepting, therefore, the participation in female tournaments of someone who, regardless of appearance, genitalia, and what’s written on their identity card, possesses the same genetic elements that determine the above disparity, seems illogical and contradictory.
So, what should be done and how? For now, I choose to leave the question unanswered. Partly because I believe I need to study the issue further and reflect more on all its sporting, ethical, and legal implications. And partly because, after about 1,500 words, many of you may have already put your smartphones away in favor of a refreshing swim in crystal-clear waters, understandably preferring that to the convoluted musings of an author who agonizes over everything without delivering the sharp judgments so beloved by successful journalists.
So, I close these reflections with a simple plea. If this case has taught us anything, it’s that today, distorted and manipulative information travels at the speed of light and can hurt more than sharp swords. Imane Khelif and Lin Yu Ting have received thousands of insults, humiliations, and dehumanizing attacks over the past few weeks without any evidence proving them guilty of anything. Let’s not contribute to this massacre. Before expressing ourselves with bared teeth on such delicate matters, let’s delve deeper, study thoroughly, count to ten, and choose our words with extreme care. Khelif and Lin will keep their medals for life, but with them, also the scars that the words of so many of us have left on their hearts.