After the announcement of the boxing association World BoxingThe Algerian Imane Khelif is again the focus of a gender discussion. It is about more than just the question of chromosomes.
Actually, the Algerian Imane Khelif wanted to be one of 150 boxers who currently compete in the Eindhoven Box Cup in the Netherlands. Many of the participants use the tournament to prepare for the upcoming boxing World Cup in September.
But the Olympic champion is not there. It was explicitly unloaded and excluded from all other competitions until she presented a sex test. From July 1st, all other athletes should also do this, according to the world association’s announcement World Boxing.
The struggle for gender thus goes into a new round – in the middle of Iman Khelif, which is now forced to justify her identity. Khelif emphasizes repeatedly born as a woman, grew up and for years to have boxed as such. Dealing with the Khelif case is more than just the question of gender: What is fairness, what discrimination? How much is biology, how much politics?
All the same, but Khelif earlier?
According to the regulations “Sex, agge and Weight“The biological gender of all boxers should be determined from World Boxing. The PCR test is a procedure for proof of genetic material and can be carried out by nasal or dialect, a saliva or blood sample. People with XY chromosomes should compete in the male category, people with XX chromosomes in the female category will be the national associations.
The New Test regime is justified with equal opportunities and the protection of athletes. When asked whether there were critical injuries in the past, caused by the participation of people with non -clarified gender identity, World Boxing said that they were not aware of any case.
“The discussion process on the regulations has not yet been completed. Important sub -areas, how to deal with gray areas, whether there can be night tests, are still concerned with”says Michael Müller. He is the sports director of the German Boxing Association DBV and sits as a European representative in Executive board From World Boxing. Try it so “Fair as possible”. That’s why you want to test everyone, not just those, “With which we are not sure whether they are men or women”.
You are obviously not sure with IMANE KHELIF. Her name appeared six times in the press release from World Boxing. The association has now apologized for this. The ends of the final are to come into force on July 1, 2025. For Khelif, they are already the only one. Why? “It is about the protection and health of the athletes. The Olympic boxing is a hard sport and can be dangerous if athletes meet with extremely different performance”says Müller.
Review: The Khelif case at Olympia
The doubts as to whether Khelif’s performance could harm their opponents have their origin in a violent debate during the Olympic Games in Paris. Long boxed IMANE KHELIF as a woman without causing a sensation. At the games in Tokyo 2021, she left the quarter -finals, and she won silver at the 2022 World Cup. Shortly before the final of the 2023 boxing championship, Khelif, which boxed in the world weight (up to 66kg), was disqualified by the IBA boxing association because it was said to have fallen through an unspecified gender test.
In the opening fight of the Olympic Games in Paris, her opponent, the Italian Angela Carini after not even a minute. After the fight, Carini said she was “Never hit so hard” made. There was a debate, the physical superiority and gender of Khelif and another boxer, the Taiwanesin Lin Yu-Ting. It was publicly questioned whether the two boxers should take part in the Olympic Games. It was speculated about inter- and trans sex, false information spread. Khelif asked in an interview “to refrain from bullying”. Both athletes were exposed to massive hostility. Among others from the former World Association IBA and its President, the Russian Umar Kremlew.
How credible they were Accusations The IBA?
The IBA, which has been excluded from the IOC for corruption and distortion since 2019, invited a press conference during the games in Paris to act like a bizarre spectacle. In a 20-minute monologue, Kremlew repeated his allegations against Khelif and Yu-Ting “masculine”. Kremlew used right-wing narrative, he got involved in contradictory statements about medical details and insulted the IOC President Thomas Bach as “Scum”. The IBA remained guilty of evidence of the gender tests carried out.
“The content and organization of the IBA press conference say everything you need to know about the credibility”the IOC later said and repeated that it did not see any basis to rule out the two athletes or to doubt their gender. The decisive factor for the IOC is that gender membership in the birth and the gender entry in the passport. At the new request from the sports show, the IOC now announced that all participants in the games in Paris had “The relevant admission criteria” fulfilled.
Khelif and Yu-Ting both won the gold medal at the end of the games. Publications of the IBA test results are now circulating – however, there are doubts about their credibility. Michael Müller says that World Boxing is neither these nor other gender tests of IMANE KHELIF. The IOC points out that it generally do not comment on medical reports of individual individuals for several reasons, not least because of their personal rights.
Power Intersex strong?
The chromosome test that the new World Boxing founded in 2023 would like to use to determine the gender categories “Simple, reliable and easy to determine the presence of the Y chromosome”explains Dr. Patrick Diel from the Institute for Sports Medicine at the German Sports University. “But he doesn’t tell us about performance.”
Basically, it can already be assumed that a genetically male dominance, for example due to an increased testosterone level, has an increasing effect on the power. This is a central performance -enhancing effect, especially in individual sports such as boxes. “In my view, it is therefore understandable that you try to make regulations to make fairness”says Diel, “But it’s a complex, difficult thing.” The presence of a Y chromosome does not automatically ensure increased testosterone levels and thus increased performance. People without the male y chromosome could also have increased performance due to a changed hormone level.
More than 80 different shapes and characteristics of intersex are currently known. “There is not the interlexive person. The concept of intersex describes people with biological variations of gender development. And they are incredibly diverse and heterogeneous”says Dr. Dennis Krämer, the sociologist, researches gender diversity in sports at the University of Münster.
“You reduce everything to a medical term to create equal opportunities. But it’s not that simple”so Krämer. The focus on the genetic gender is hiding many other things. “Why can’t such a person be talented anyway? How do you calculate training or use? What we experience in the current discussions is a debate that is unilaterally over the gender body but not through the structures of sport.”
Khelif as the hanger of a cultural struggle
The discussion about Khelif’s gender is not just about the question of equal opportunities. “What has been shown in sports for several years is a cultural struggle for sovereignty over gender that is also exploited and emotional in political discourse”says Krämer.
US President Donald Trump For example, trans- and intersex athletes attacked several times. Spoke at various appearances that men who were made women at the boxing tournament in Paris started. It was about that “Protection of ‘real’ women”. He thus serves a world view that assumes that there is only men and women and that everyone has to classify themselves in this system – based on criteria that do not adequately depict the complexity of gender.
Critics accuse World Boxing of hitting the new guidelines at Trump, who will also be in office at the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. World Boxing from the IOC has been “provisionally” recognized since March and therefore hopes to be able to align the Olympic boxing tournament in LA. The World Association had founded – led by the US association – to secure the future of the Olympic box after the IBA was excluded. In 2021 in Tokyo and 2024 in Paris, the IOC had organized the Olympic boxing tournament itself.
What does the IOC say?
When asked, when asked how the announced gender tests of World Boxing were evaluated that the approval criteria were the responsibility of the respective sports subject associations. “The factors that have an impact on sporting performance are unique in every sport, every discipline and/or competition”writes the IOC. According to DBV sports director Michael Müller, World Boxing is in close coordination with the IOC regarding the “Sex, Age and Weight-Policy“. The goal is to introduce a fair procedure. The question is whether this is possible at all.