Perhaps you saw the news about an Italian boxer name Angela Carini, who threw in the towel after 46 seconds in the ring with Algeria’s Imane Khelif at the Olympics. Carini said that she had never been hit so hard by another boxer and that she had to stop the fight. Olympic hopes dashed, she fell to her knees after the forfeit weeping and crying out that it’s not fair. Why wasn’t it fair?
As clips from the fight began flooding social media feeds, many viewers concluded that Carini’s opponent was a man identifying as a woman (i.e., transgender). Riley Gaines tweeted, “This is glorified male violence against women.” J. K. Rowling wrote,
Could any picture sum up our new men’s rights movement better? The smirk of a male who’s knows he’s protected by a misogynist sporting establishment enjoying the distress of a woman he’s just punched in the head, and whose life’s ambition he’s just shattered.
It looked very much like another Lia Thomas situation, the man who infamously crushed his female competition in NCAA swimming but who was ultimately disqualified from the Olympics. Was Imane Khelif pulling a Lia Thomas?
The answer to that question is a little more complicated than viewers might expect. Lia Thomas is unambiguously a biological male who has a adopted the “identity” of a woman. Imane Khelif’s situation, however, is not so straightforward.
Imane Khelif is one of two boxers competing in the Olympics who were disqualified last year by the International Boxing Association (the other is Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting). The International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) chief spokesman says that neither Khelif nor Yu-ting identify as transgender, which means that both fighters regard themselves as biologically female. If neither fighter identifies as transgender but regards themselves as biologically female, then why is there confusion about their sex?
Last year, the International Boxing Association disqualified both Khelif and Yu-ting because of “their failure to meet the eligibility criteria for participating in the women’s competition, as set out in the IBA Regulations.” According to a statement, the IBA said,
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 president of the IBA told a Russian news agency in March 2023 that it was a simple DNA test that revealed both fighters have XY chromosomes.
These reports indicate that neither fighter regards himself as transgender, and yet both fighters believe themselves to be female in spite of having XY chromosomes. If these reports are accurate, then it would suggest that that they both have some sort of intersex condition (a.k.a., a disorder of sexual development). We cannot be certain until more facts are known, but so far this is where the evidence seems to be pointing.
If it does turn out that an intersex condition has caused the confusion, what kind of disorder would lead someone to believe themselves to be female from birth even after finding out they have XY sex chromosomes?
There is one such condition that has come up previously in the Olympics and that would fit this description. It’s called “5-alpha reductase deficiency” or “5-ARD.” The National Institutes of Health describes the condition this way:
5-alpha reductase deficiency is a condition that affects male sexual development before birth and during puberty. People with this condition are genetically male, with one X and one Y chromosome in each cell, and they have male gonads (testes). Their bodies, however, do not produce enough of a hormone called dihydrotestosterone (DHT). DHT has a critical role in male sexual development, and a shortage of this hormone disrupts the formation of the external sex organs before birth.
Bottom line: People with 5-ARD are male with malformed reproductive anatomy. Not all intersex conditions are the same, and some present more ambiguities than others. But the sex of 5-ARD persons is not ambiguous. People with 5-ARD have XY chromosomes. They also have testes present that produce male-level amounts of testosterone, even though the testes may be internal. Other male features include epididymis, vas deferens, and seminal vesicles (Cornwall 2010: 241). The biological situation is clear. They are male.
Sadly, because the condition results in malformed reproductive anatomy that looks feminine, many 5-ARD males are mistaken as female at birth. Some do not find out that they have a male chromosomal pattern until puberty or later. Some 5-ARD children are raised as females, but one researcher has found that “60 percent of the genetic male children raised as female have retransitioned into males” (Dreifus 2005; Reiner 2005). In other words, the underlying genetic realities often prevail over socialization and anatomical ambiguities.
It is not hard to imagine the painful identity conflicts that would accompany such a condition—especially for those who were raised as female only to find out at puberty that their sex is not what they thought it was. And this rightly evokes our compassion and sympathy. Having said that, it is neither compassionate nor helpful to pretend that the biological situation is somehow unclear when in fact it is not. And of course the discovery of a genetic male should have implications for athletic competition. Because they are biologically male, people with 5-ARD should compete in male divisions, not in female ones.
After 46 seconds and a few hits to the face by a male, Carini forfeited the fight.
Call me crazy, but It’s almost as if women don’t want to be punched in the face by a male as the world watches and applauds.
This is glorified male violence against women.pic.twitter.com/RYU7aTbn0I
— Riley Gaines (@Riley_Gaines_) August 1, 2024
Could any picture sum up our new men’s rights movement better? The smirk of a male who’s knows he’s protected by a misogynist sporting establishment enjoying the distress of a woman he’s just punched in the head, and whose life’s ambition he’s just shattered. #Paris2024 pic.twitter.com/Q5SbKiksXQ
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) August 1, 2024
Your conscience should be telling you that it’s wrong for a man to beat up a woman.
Don’t ignore or suppress your conscience on this. It’s telling you the truth, even if the International Olympic Committee says otherwise.
— Denny Burk (@DennyBurk) August 1, 2024
Based on all the information we have, this seems to be the truth about Imane Khalif:
Khalif has XY chromosomes and appears to have been marked as "female" at birth because of a Disorder of Sex Development that causes malformation/lack of formation of genitalia. It is not… pic.twitter.com/FqDS4dJfSQ
— Allie Beth Stuckey (@conservmillen) August 2, 2024
