The boxing

OK I’m stepping into the lion’s den.

First of all, I’ll acknowledge I made a reactive error this morning online, and immediately saw what I was led to believe was a potential male sporting contestant beating a female sporting contestant after the female bowed out of a boxing match just 46 seconds in having “never been hit so hard in my life”. I was incensed that we had evolved so far that “men” punching “women” had now become an Olympic public spectator sport. Well, the issue is far more nuanced, and I was not, as I had instinctively thought, being subjected to repeated images of a woman being punched by a man for entertainment.

Today an Italian female boxer Angela Carini quit in under a minute of fighting, after receiving an overpowering blow to the nose by Imene Khelif from Algeria. I misgendered the winning athlete, Khelif, by using the word “men” in my since deleted tweet, and for that I apologize, sincerely. I’m not here to cause problems for women, whether they’re cis or trans, or intersex. That should be obvious. I’m sorry if it’s in doubt.

Imene Khelif [below] is an Algerian boxer. She is a woman and has always competed as one in contests all over the world, including in Tokyo where she has been defeated by other female boxers. She has hyperandrogenism, a condition characterized by abnormally high androgen levels in her blood. She has elevated testosterone and the presence of XY chromosomes that has disqualified her from competing against women in the past. When Carini lost today, she was visibly upset, and the line of argument emerged that it is unfair that a woman can compete her whole life for a sporting event only to be knocked out in under a minute due to a physical gendered disadvantage. “It could be the match of my life but in that moment I had to safeguard my life too,” she told reporters, when asked why she threw the towel in.

Yesterday, the International Boxing Association released a statement regarding the participation of Imene Khelif and another boxer, Lin Yu-ting, in the Paris Olympics, offering that according to their rules, neither athlete qualified for the IBA Women’s World Boxing Championships in New Delhi in 2023 having failed to past tests.

“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.”

The IBA have expressed concern over inconsistent use of criteria by the Olympic Games. “The IOC’s differing regulations on these matters, in which IBA is not involved, raise serious questions about both competitive fairness and athletes’ safety,” reads the statement.

So here are my thoughts that I offer in the most well-intentioned and generous way I can.

There are a lot of unanswered questions.

Why are the IBA’s tests “secret” and what parameters are they using that make for different results from the Olympic’s IOC? Is the IBA corrupt, or is the IOC? Is there even corruption going on? Are trans issues being weaponized to accommodate rules at the Olympics that are not allowed in accordance with other sports governing bodies?

On that note, should these tests be conflated with trans issues at all, and if so, how without trans issues being taken advantage of for the benefit of power-hungry sports bodies? If a cisgender person fails a gender test on grounds of hormone levels, and is not transgender, are criteria necessary to distinguish between them, and why? Why do some tests produce more rigorous analysis of hormone levels and others do not? And what constitutes safe competition as a result of all of this? Is it even possible to separate the cis and trans communities in these tests now that the issue has been rendered a trans issue, whether accurately or not? The thread has unravelled given many high profile gender critical activists took to Twitter this morning to express shock and dismay, while wrongfully identifying Khelif as transgender. Tennis icon Martina Navratilova tweeted: “This is all on the IOC and the people in power who make the rules. It’s a travesty and makes a mockery of all Olympic sports.” So where do we go from here?

Is it as simple as saying that punching is the name of the game in boxing, so why are we mad that a woman lost a boxing match to another woman who happens to have a chromosomal advantage over her?

Having spoken to a number of trans people and activists today, I would like to say the following, and I think this is a reasonable argument. In promotion of fairness and safety, people with XY chromosomes should not be able to compete in sports such as boxing against those with XX chromosomes, and tests should reflect this. Can we say wholeheartedly that this was a match of equals? We are in a new world and that new world requires new tests. It requires those tests to protect all athletes, cisgender, transgender, and beyond. And it requires those tests so that stories such as this don’t become spears for activists with harmful agendas to throw during such events.

Whatever and however an athlete identifies, there has to be biological testing that makes a sport such as boxing safe and fair for all competing. I think that’s a rational principle to adhere to. In women’s sports where strength and physical contact are key to the competition, shouldn’t there be a rule surrounding chromosomal matters and testosterone levels? How do we ensure that there is parity? Isn’t this an opportunity for trans activists to lead the solutions and negotiate with feminist concerns? Protecting both feminist issues and trans issues shouldn’t be incompatible, but the extreme polarization among both communities where clear realities are ignored is not only providing severe roadblocks to progress, but is making the vulnerable even more vulnerable. In this case, I would advocate that gatekeeping is a good thing, and it protects minority communities from being preyed upon.

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This issue aside, I’d like to just point out that yesterday in the media, newly deceased Hamas top dog Ismail Haniyeh was described as a “moderate” by all and sundry, thanks to an initial Reuters report that set the tone the instant the story landed that he had been assassinated in a residence in Tehran. Calling Haniyeh a moderate is like calling Himmler a friendly Nazi.

What I find absolutely intolerable, however, is that the same outlets and broadcasters describing Haniyeh as a moderate (Haniyeh being one of the men who masterminded October 7, and all of its sexual violence) are the same people advocating against societal male violence. So we’re going to spend an entire media day debating the legitimacy of a boxing match between two Olympians, debating whether or not it constitutes gender-based violence for sport, entering into mind-melting tirades about male versus female strength and transphobia versus misogyny and all the rest… And yet the previous day every mainstream media outlet says that Hamas’s political leader - an enemy to all women, cis and trans – was a great guy who was trying to negotiate a ceasefire, and nobody bats an eyelid?

Disinformation is a far bigger beast than any of us realize.