Two female boxers who were disqualified from the 2023 world championships after failing gender eligibility tests have been cleared to compete at the Olympic Games in Paris.
Iman Khelif and Lin Yu-ting are female boxers, but they have been met online by anti-LGBTQ+ conservatives who claim they are transgender.
And it sparked outrage online from conservatives and anti-LGBTQ+ commentators.
The Russian president of the International Boxing Association, Umar Kremlev, claimed that DNA test results showed that both athletes had XY chromosomes, but the results were never published.
The IOC said it stands by the athletes and their ability to compete.
A spokesman for the International Olympic Committee said on Friday that the political outrage surrounding two women competing in boxing at the Paris Olympics was caused by “a lot of misinformation”.
It all started when the IOC said Algerian boxer Imane Khelif and Taiwan’s Lin Yu Ting were allowed to compete in the 2024 Olympics after the International Boxing Association (IBA) named them 2023 world champions. In the ship, he was disqualified for an unspecified test of gender eligibility—even though he had already competed.
Both boxers have long competed as women and neither athlete identifies as transgender.
Some of the questions from viewers after conservatives like former US President Donald Trump, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, and other right-wing commentators shouted online that men should not be allowed to compete with women.
Does the Iman Khelif (Olympic boxer) have XY chromosomes?
Russian president of the IBA, Umar Kremlev, claimed that DNA test results showed that both players had XY chromosomes, which disqualified them from the World Championship. The IBA also cited high levels of testosterone in Khelif’s system.
However, the test results were never published and Khelif has never revealed his biological markers, calling the decision a “huge conspiracy”. The disqualification occurred after Khelif defeated Russian boxer Azalea in the 2023 tournament. The IBA said it stripped Lin of her bronze medal because she claimed she failed to meet unspecified eligibility requirements in a biochemical test.
What is DSD and Swyer Syndrome?
DSD stands for Difference in Sexual Development. This may include genes, hormones, and reproductive organs, but has nothing to do with gender identity. GLAAD, the world’s largest gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer media advocacy organization, said it is wrong to associate transgender people with people born with DSD.
According to the NIH, some people with DSDs are raised as females but may have a sex chromosome other than XX or high testosterone levels.
According to the National Library of Medicine, people with Sauer syndrome have one X chromosome and one Y chromosome in each cell (commonly found in boys and men), but have female reproductive structures. Again, it is not known if any of the boxers have these genetic mutations.
Both of them have been competing as women since the beginning.
