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August 9, 2024
Algerian boxer and soon to be Olympic medalist, Imane Khelif, has pleaded for the public to “avoid bullying all athletes” after experiencing international abuse and online attacks over unsubstantiated claims about her gender during the Paris 2024 Games. The athlete’s gender has been questioned alongside another Olympic boxer, Lin Yu-ting (representing Chinese Taipei). Khelif will be facing Yang Liu in today’s finals.
Khelif and Yu-ting continue to face scrutiny and false accusations about their gender and eligibility to compete with women. Both athletes identify as women and have long competed in boxing competitions as such – including the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. The vitriol against Khelif in Paris began when a competitor, Italy’s Angela Carini, abandoned their August 1 match after only 46 seconds, crying after a hard punch and refusing to shake her hand. The backlash led to resurfacing of reports about the athletes being disqualified from the International Boxing Association (IBA) 2023 World Championships after failing eligibility tests.
The IBA, which is not recognized by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and had been permanently banned from the Olympics, states that the tests show the two “were found to have competitive advantages over other women competitors.” According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), these types of tests discriminate against women based on their sex and violate the right to privacy. They also noted that women from the Global South (broadly including Africa, Latin America, Asia and Oceania) have been disproportionately affected.
“Through their policies, sporting governing bodies have created environments that coerce some women into invasive and unnecessary medical interventions as a condition to compete in certain events and sports officials have engaged in vitriolic public criticism that has ruined careers and lives,” states HRW.
Khelif spoke about her tumultuous Olympic experience saying that the misconceptions about her gender “harms human dignity.” She told SNTV: “I send a message to all the people of the world to uphold the Olympic principles and the Olympic Charter, to refrain from bullying all athletes because this has effects, massive effects…It can destroy people, it can kill people’s thoughts, spirit and mind. It can divide people. And because of that, I ask them to refrain from bullying.”
The IOC has stated that all boxing athletes competing in Paris 2024 comply with the eligibility and entry requirements and the two athletes are not transgender or intersex. “We have two boxers who were born as women, who have been raised as women, who have a passport as a woman and who have competed for many years as women,” said IOC President Thomas Bach. “What we see now is that some want to own the definition of who is a woman…All this hate speech, aggression and abuse… is totally unacceptable,” he added.
Amid the hate campaign, Khelif has also received massive support at her matches, drawing cheers and chants of her name when she enters the arena. Activists have defended her including British Labour MP Nadia Whittome who said: “Imane Khelif was assigned female at birth. She’s spoken about being initially banned from boxing from her dad who said it wasn’t for girls. The attacks on her show that transphobia doesn’t only hurt trans people, but also other women who don’t fit conventional ideas of femininity.”
Khelif has made it clear that she won’t allow chatter or accusations to deter her from attempting to claim Algeria’s first Olympic gold medal in women’s boxing. Khelif noted that she’s aware of the worldwide discussion about her gender but has been removed from the conversation by the Olympic mental health team. As she said, this online hate can have a negative effect on athletes’ minds leading to people taking their own lives in some instances. This was the case in 2022 when South Korean volleyball player Kim In-hyeok died of apparent suicide after being targeted with online hate comments and cyber-bullying about his appearance and speculation about his sexual identity.
Source: AP News
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