The Olympics Should Establish a Clear Sex Testing Standard After Boxing Controversy

This is an opinion piece.

Biased news reports have routinely and unfairly framed the controversy surrounding Algerian boxer Imane Khelif’s gender as hateful, unsubstantiated, transphobia coming from the “right-wing.”

Lost in a lot of the rage-bait liberal reporting on Khelif’s gender is the fact that the Olympics currently doesn’t have compulsory sex or gender testing for athletes.

In fact, the Olympics ended sex testing in 1999, a lengthy journal article says.

In 1991, the Olympics DID test for sex using a PCR analysis test, the article says.

“All women were screened in Olympic competition from 1992 onwards, with over 2000 tests performed at the 1992 Barcelona games. Fifteen tests were reported positive, with a further eight out of over 3000 positive tests at the Atlanta games in 1996,” the article says. “Of the eight athletes found to have the SRY locus in Atlanta, seven had androgen insensitivity syndrome and the final athlete had 5-alpha-reductase deficiency. All athletes were allowed to compete in their respective competition.”

Now?

Even the International Olympic Committee admits: “As with previous Olympic boxing competitions, the gender and age of the athletes are based on their passport.”

Got that? They determine an athlete’s gender based on their passport. Don’t take our word for it; the statement is right here on the IOC’s website.

Khelif is the Algerian boxer whose bout with Italian boxer Angela Carini ended in 46 seconds after Carini took a punch to the face and then withdrew, shouting, “This is unjust.”

In 2021, instead, the Olympics issued a “framework” or set of guidelines about gender that focuses on “inclusion,” and not “discriminating” against people, rather than focusing on biology.

The framework says, “No athlete should be subject to targeted testing because of, or aimed at determining, their sex, gender identity and/or sex variations.”

The Olympics should establish a clear and transparent protocol for sex testing.

Furthermore, Khelif and the Olympics have not been transparent about any past testing involving Khelif. Khelif “declined to answer when asked whether she had undergone tests other than doping tests, saying she didn’t want to talk about it,” AP reported.

Not good enough. If you want to compete at an elite level – and in this case where your sport revolves around you punching women in the face – you should have to be transparent about testing. And there should actually BE testing (there are a series of OTHER medical eligibility rules.)

Here’s the bottom line. The media have adopted the rhetoric of the International Olympic Committee (and Khelif and Khelif’s parents), outright calling Khelif a female and using female pronouns, as if these things are facts. News reports have routinely framed the controversy surrounding Khelif’s gender as hateful, unsubstantiated, transphobia coming from the “right-wing.” They tend to appear in snarky, elite media coastal-based publications.

The actual truth is that a lot is still not known about Khelif’s biology. The International Boxing Association’s President has stated publicly that Khelif was eliminated from IBA competition after failing a gender test that determined Khelif has “XY” chromosomes, i.e. male chromosomes. Meanwhile, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) president has said Khelif was born, raised, and has a passport “as a woman,” a sentiment Khelif has echoed.

The IBA is fraught with controversy, though, because it’s Russian-led and financed, Khelif had just defeated a Russian boxer when tested, and the statement about XY chromosomes was made by the IBA president to a Russian news agency. In a statement on its website, IBA declined to specify which tests were given to Khelif (who withdrew an appeal) but did say they did not involve testosterone.

The International Olympic Committee then fired back at IBA, labeling Khelif a victim. The IOC has said point-blank that Khelif is not transgender.

But the IOC also corrected a comment that said Khelif is NOT a “DSD” case.

That raises the unanswered question of whether Khelif IS a DSD case and whether people with DSDs should be allowed to compete against women – in all cases, or some, and where you draw the line.

This is a complicated question that is far more gray than unproven conservative cries that Khelif is a “man” OR liberal media insistence that Khelif is a “woman” and that any questions about Khelif competing against women are hateful, outrageous transphobia.

It’s also a more complicated question than a person born with male genitalia and chromosomes simply deciding to declare they are female, i.e. a person who is transgender.

What is a DSD? According to Cincinnati Children’s, “Differences of sex development (DSD) describes a group of conditions that occur early in pregnancy in which sex development is not typical. Some people may use different words to describe this, such as intersex, or use the name of the actual condition.”

The site notes, “Some people with DSD may have a mix of male and female reproductive parts or genitals that are not clearly male or female.”

In other words, a more nuanced conversation could be held.

The Olympics should establish a sex testing standard that is transparent and uses chromosomes as a baseline.

In cases where a person is born a biological male – as evidenced by chromosomes and male genitalia – that person should not be allowed to compete against women, even if that person has decided to “identify” as a woman because they “feel” they are one.

It’s unfair. Biological men do not belong in women’s sports spaces. Where are the feminists? Girls and women deserve to compete on a fair playing field.

In the very rare and different cases involving DSDs, that standard should revolve around whether a person has male chromosomes and has undergone male puberty, gaining them physical advantages over biological women.

This isn’t that hard.