'I Am A woman Like Any Other' Boxer Imane Khelif Says After Winning Gold At Paris Olympics

Algeria's Imane Khelif, the female boxer thrust into the centre of a gender dispute at the Paris Games, made a statement on her womanhood after beating China's Yang Liu to take the welterweight Olympic gold medal, sending her newfound devotees into delirium on August 9.

Khelif, silver medallist at the 2022 World Championships, and Taiwan boxer Lin Yu-ting have been in the spotlight as part of a gender dispute in Paris that has dominated headlines and been the subject of much discussion on social media platforms.

Khelif, who won by unanimous decision, is the first Algerian woman to earn an Olympic boxing title and the first boxer from her country to claim gold since Hocine Soltani at Atlanta 1996. Women's boxing has been in the Olympics since London 2012.

Responding to the controversy surrounding her, Khelif told a press conference: "I am a woman like any woman. I was born a woman and I have lived as a woman, but there are enemies to success and they can't digest my success."

Janjaem Suwannapheng of Thailand and Taiwan's Chen Nien-chin were awarded bronze.

#olympics2024 #parisolympics2024 #imanekhelif #sports

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[HMG]

When she lost 9 previous bouts and didn’t succeed in gaining a medal, where were the gender studies?

[designstudioimbalanced]

I wish all her fans get such daughters.

[rayyar]

OK, so when are you gonna get pregnant and have some children Miss?

[formerlyfromthefuton]

So what's "her" explanation for previously being denied entry into boxing events by the recognized boxing organizations?

[smiljapregel]

Can you carry a baby for 9 months in your womb? Can you breastfeed afterwards?

[libGODFATHER]

They should let this girl be happy in peace

[Tamde]

Tried to find out his marital status, none found. That's because no straight man would wanna be with another man who looks just like one but thinks he's a female.
I'm not an 'enemy of success' - i love seeing anyone succeed. But when the playing field is not level due to some unique circumstances, hard to have the same support to the beneficiary of said success. Not fair to the real women who worked hard for a chance at winning but failed because they couldn't compete against someone not 100% female. That gold medal should come with an asterisk, at the very least.

[evil_radfem]

A short summary of events and why you should trust your eyes:

Imane Khelif, a man, boxed against Angela Carini during the Olympics. Some people are upset, others are defending this, some are saying the criticism directed at Khelif is just a plot to get Algeria disqualified.

Khelif had been disqualified from professional boxing in the female category before because the IBA did two sex tests on him and the IBA claims that the results show that he is a man cheating by pretending to be a woman. Same as another controversial boxing contestant for the female category, Lin Yu-ting.

Neither of them contested their disqualification in the end which makes it even more suspicious.

The IOC discontinued all sex testing years ago, their only eligibility criteria are now whether someone has the marker for female on their passport. This is why both of the boxers were still able to participate in the Olympics.

Khelif won against his opponent after just 46 seconds. Carini took a punch to the face (there are claims he broke her nose) and forfeited the match, saying she had never been hit this hard before.

Carini was seen visibly angry and in tears, on her knees, repeatedly saying “it’s not fair”. Just like Lin Yu-ting’s opponent, she refused to shake hands. Khelif nonetheless approached her twice, smirking, and even groped her breast after winning.

A lot of people were understandably upset. The IOC issued a statement claiming that the true victims of the situation were the two male boxers.

Now, are they male? Yes.

The IBA defines “woman” as someone with XX-chromosomes, so this leads us to the conclusion that both Lin and Khelif at the very least tested positive for Xy. The test results are available to individual journalists.

Alleged childhood pictures of Khelif surfaced, showing him in pink clothes leading us to believe he was raised as a girl.

His father also presented to the public Khelif’s birth certificate that classifies him as “female”, however, strangely, the birth certificate was only issued in 2018, 19 years after his birth and right at the start of Khelif’s professional boxing career.

Both Imane’s and Lin’s passport is saying they are “female.” Many people have pointed out that a marker on a passport is not indicative of sex in the first place, since many countries have self-identification laws that allow women and men to change their legal sex marker at will. Algeria however is not one of those countries.

Now, there are few disorders of sexual development that can lead to women having Xy chromosomes. Imagine it like this: you have an X and a y and the y malfunctions in some way, leaving only the X.

One of them is Swyer syndrome, which I’ve seen people claim Khelif has. First, there’s no proof for this. Second, there are documentaries about women with Swyer syndrome and Khelif looks nothing like them. I think it’s pretty apparent from his appearance that Khelif has functioning testicles. He has a male frame, Adams apple, male muscle-to-fat ratio, a male voice and wingspan. There are even pictures of his that show what is clearly male genitalia. Women with Swyer do not develop male genitalia and only produce female levels of testosterone. They also have to go on female hormone replacement therapy to go through puberty.

More claims debunked:
“The IBA is lying because uh… Russia”

The lab that did the first test is a US-American reference lab and, as well, accredited by CAP, the Northfield, Illinois-based College of American Pathologists, and certified by the ISO, the Swiss-based International Organization for Standardization. The second test was done in New Delhi and turned out identical to the first.

Besides, what kind of incentive would the Russian government have to defend an Italian boxer over an Algerian one? That makes no sense to me. Just btw, the IOC is deeply connected to the WEF. This is not a political issue though, unless we make it.

Both Taiwan and Algeria wrote to the IBA and threatened consequences were they to publish the test results.

“She is a woman on testosterone”
Khelif is not a woman on testosterone. If that were true, “she” would have to be disqualified for doping. But apart from the fact he has Xy, women who take androgens, even the ones taking a male amount of them, still have female frames. This is me speaking from experience: just look at videos, best unedited, of women on high amounts of testosterone moving. You’ll see they look and move nothing like him, even if they have more muscle and beards.

“She has a uterus and fallopian tubes”
False and entirely based on the fabricated claim that Khelif has Swyer syndrome.

“Khelif has lost to women before, so she must be a woman”
Even cheaters lose sometimes. And even a loser man has no place in women's boxing.

Of course, it is possible that Khelif has lost several times on purpose.

William “Lia” Thomas, who swam with the women as a man in the USA, was caught several times deliberately not paddling his legs to make the difference between himself and the women look smaller.

Here is a quote from Mexican Brianda Tamara, against whom Khelif boxed in 2022:

“When I fought with her, I felt very out of my depth; her blows hurt me a lot. I don’t think I had ever felt like that in my 13 years as a boxer, nor in my sparring with men. Thank God that day I got out of the ring safely, and it’s good that they finally realized [that he is a man].”

“She was born female”
Fact is, we know he was registered as female at birth. We don’t know why that is, but reasons could be: botched circumcision, born with ambiguous genitalia, parents wanted a girl (unlikely since transgenderism is illegal in Algeria). Personally, I think the second reason is true.

Caster Semenya is another man who competed as female, but later fathered a child with sperm from his internal testicles. Semenya has what’s called 5α-Reductase 2 deficiency. That means Semenya is a normal man whose testes just didn’t drop. In some cases, they drop later.

More things that don’t add up but aren’t proof of anything on their own:
Khelif, coming from a rural Muslim community, was never seen wearing a hijab.

There exist several pictures of him wearing a groin protector specifically for men, never for women. Right after his fight against Carini he was seen doing something on stage that many men seem to recognize as “adjusting his junk.”

Conclusion: to clear things up and avoid spreading misinformation, we should put pressure on the IOC and the athletes to undergo sex testing in a way that ensures we are getting correct unbiased results.

And yes, the media and many disingenuous people online are lying about about this situation and the athletes’ sexes.

UPDATE: Due to his victory against Anna Luca Hamori, Khelif secures a bronze medal and moves on to the semi-finals. Hamori posted an AI-generated picture before the fight showing her confronting a giant monster man. The fact that she has a lighter color in the picture, while Khelif is shown with darker skin, adds fuel to the fire of a discussion about racism that has flared up on Twitter/X.

After the fight against Lin Yu-ting that secured him bronze, Staneva, his opponent, made a double X sign with her hands.
“I only want to play with women, I am double X.”

Khelif is now on track to win a gold medal, same as Lin.

During the semi-finals against Turkey's Esra Yıldız Kahraman, Lin threw several illegal rabbit punches. Rabbit punches are punches to the back of the head that are illegal in all martial arts including boxing because they have a chance to cause paralysis or death.

He first caught Kahraman at the back of the head with a big left hand that saw Kahraman stumble into the ropes and “showed no mercy” as he hit his opponent despite her facing the other way and holding her arm up.
The referee only stepped in when Lin landed one more final blow to the back of Kahraman’s head.

Despite loud boos from the crowd, Lin avoided being punished.

The IOC is copyright striking videos on YouTube showing the incident.

For comparison: These same Olympics, Vinesh Phogat, a female Indian wrestler, was disqualified from the Olympics for weighing 100 grams more than 50 kgs.

[petermizon]

MIGHT BE A WOMAN IN MIND BUT BODY STILL STRENGTH OF A MAN I GUESS ?? THEY SHOULD HAVE A SEPERATE SECTION FIR TRANS?

[hob]

Away from the sexual identity to the athletic aspects:

If this woman should in deed have significantly higher testosterone levels tha her opponents and thus greater strength, all her fights werent fair.

[Atheist]

if it walks and talks like a duck its a duck

[JackRoyal]

it would be fair if trans man fight against another trans man

[Sirjohnwilliamuk]

This guy is no golds medalist, he is fake

[DefensisIndus]

I'd actually be more interested in watching Trans people fight each other 😂 This one is hard to defend

[rlross]

Is congradulated at the urinal by Lance Armstrong

[Saraxcxcxcxxcx]

Crying after getting beaten in a combat sport !

[skyler]

Congratulations iman u r amazing woman ❤❤❤

[PedroRodriguez-rhfw]

She is a woman but kick ass as a man lol lol
I would line to see her fight as a man also tho.!!

[MrCls]

He's hurt boxing and fighting sports in general more than he's hurt his female opponents, I'm afraid. A true champ indeed!