[[link removed]]

PORTSIDE CULTURE

THE MISLEADING CONTROVERSY OVER AN OLYMPIC WOMEN’S BOXING MATCH,
BRIEFLY EXPLAINED  
[[link removed]]


 

Li Zhou
August 2, 2024
Vox
[[link removed]]


*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ Conservatives are capitalizing on the abandoned Khelif-Carini fight
to levy anti-trans attacks. _

Imane Khelif of Team Algeria and Angela Carini of Team Italy exchange
punches during the Women’s 66kg preliminary round match on day six
of the Olympic Games Paris 2024 at North Paris Arena on August 1, 2024
in Paris, France., Richard Pelham/Getty Images

 

Li Zhou [[link removed]] is a politics reporter
at Vox, where she covers Congress and elections. Previously, she was a
tech policy reporter at Politico and an editorial fellow at the
Atlantic.

_____

An Olympic women’s boxing match — and misinformation about one of
the athletes involved — is now being used by conservatives to
promote their anti-trans agenda.

On Thursday,
[[link removed]] Algerian
boxer Imane Khelif faced off against Italian boxer Angela Carini,
winning in 46 seconds after Carini abruptly pulled out of the fight.
Following the match, Carini burst into tears and declined to shake
Khelif’s hand, telling reporters that she withdrew due to the
intensity of her opponent’s initial punches. “I put an end to the
match because after the second blow,” Carini said, “I felt a
strong pain in my nose.”

That reaction has since spawned scrutiny of Khelif, who was assigned
female at birth and identifies as a woman. False claims that she is a
trans person or that she is a man pretending to be a woman quickly
spread thanks to reports she was disqualified from a 2023
International Boxing Association event
[[link removed]] and
the resurfacing of comments
[[link removed]] by
the president of that organization suggesting that her elimination was
because she failed a hormone test.

The inaccurate statements about her identity were boosted by prominent
anti-trans individuals like _Harry Potter_ author J.K. Rowling,
[[link removed]] as well as
politicians like US Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance
[[link removed]] and
conservative Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni
[[link removed]].
Their statements stirred up a storm of anger on the right
[[link removed]] despite
the fact that Khelif is a cisgender woman.

As Vox’s Alex Abad-Santos has explained
[[link removed]],
there aren’t any transgender athletes
[[link removed]] at
the Olympics this year who are competing outside of the sex they were
assigned at birth, though IOC rules don’t bar their inclusion so
long as they meet certain eligibility criteria. “There has been some
confusion that somehow it’s a man fighting a
woman,” International Olympic Committee (IOC) spokesperson Mark
Adams
[[link removed]] told
reporters. “The question you have to ask yourself is, are these
athletes women? The answer is yes.”

THE 2024 OLYMPIC BOXING MATCH BETWEEN IMANE KHELIF AND ANGELA CARINI,
EXPLAINED

During their match this week, Carini and Khelif competed against one
another in their respective first fights of this Olympics. Olympic
boxing contests group competitors by weight class and operate in a
knockout fashion, meaning the winner of a match moves forward while
the loser is eliminated. Both had also previously competed in Tokyo,
with Carini getting eliminated in her first bout during those
Olympics, and Khelif getting eliminated in her second bout.

The two fighters started the round trading blows; after Carini paused
the match to adjust her headgear, Khelif went on the offensive,
landing a solid punch to her opponent’s face. Rather than continue,
Carini, pulling at her nose, relinquished the competition completely.
That’s atypical for a boxing match, which often includes three
rounds of combat.

As the referee prepared to call the match, Carini told her team,
“It’s not fair.” Carini could then be seen dropping to her knees
and refusing any attempts at a handshake or other customary gestures
of sportsmanship from Khelif.

The match may have passed unnoticed except for the controversy that
erupted after it, which was fueled by events that occurred more than a
year before it even began.

In 2023, Kehlif and Taiwanese boxer Lin Yu-ting hoped to compete in
the boxing world championships held by the International Boxing
Association (IBA) in New Delhi, India. Kehlif and Lin were
disqualified by the IBA, and press reports suggested
[[link removed].] that
it was because they failed a test of some sort and had elevated
testosterone levels. The IBA’s president reportedly told a Russia
outlet
[[link removed]] at
the time that both Khelif and Lin had “XY chromosomes” — a
chromosomal composition most commonly seen in those assigned male at
birth.

Exactly what led to this statement is unclear. The IBA did not
disclose documentation at the time or reveal what tests were
conducted. Questions were also raised because the organization, which
was led by Russian official Umar Kremlev, did not disqualify Khelif
until after she had already beaten a Russian boxer.

In recent days, the IBA released a statement
[[link removed]] claiming
that in 2023, Khelif and Lin “did not undergo a testosterone
examination but were subject to a separate and recognized test,
whereby the specifics remain confidential.” The statement also said
the test “conclusively indicated that both athletes … have
competitive advantages over other female competitors.” Both Khelif
and Lin had also competed in the 2022 world championships, also
administered by the IBA the year before.

The IBA’s 2023 decision was heavily criticized by the IOC, which
deemed it “arbitrary” and not transparent. Both athletes competed
without issue in the Olympics in 2021. At the time, neither medaled,
and both lost to multiple female opponents. Adding to the confusion is
the fact that the IOC has declared the IBA an unreliable steward of
global boxing: Officials banished the group from regulating the sport
at the Olympic level
[[link removed]] due
to concerns over its financial dealings, leadership, and allegations
of match-fixing.

The lack of clarity about what happened in 2023 has helped mis- and
disinformation about Khelif to fester. The IOC, however, has been
clear that Khelif and Lin qualify to compete based on its rules.

Those do not include sex testing, which the IOC abandoned in 2000
[[link removed]] and
which has long been scrutinized for operating off questionable and
flawed science
[[link removed]].
The committee does still disqualify some athletes who have Differences
of Sexual Development (DSD), “a group of rare conditions involving
genes, hormones and reproductive organs,” per Reuters
[[link removed]].
When it comes to DSDs, IOC rules governing eligibility use factors
like safety and fairness to determine who can compete.

Beyond questions of sex, there are racial dynamics at play in the
perceptions of this match. Female athletes of color — particularly
those of African and African American descent — have long been
accused of being men when they’ve beaten white women in competition.
This happened most notably with tennis phenom Serena Williams and
track star Caster Semenya
[[link removed]],
both of whom endured tropes that cast Black women as more masculine
and threatening
[[link removed]].

Following the attention on this week’s match, Carini has said
she’d like to apologize to Khelif: “If the I.O.C. said she can
fight, I respect that decision.”

Other boxers have expressed they aren’t concerned about competing
against Khelif. “I don’t care about the press story and social
media,” said Anna Luca Hamori, a boxer from Hungary who will compete
against Khelif next. Lin’s first match proceeded as planned
[[link removed]] —
like Khelif, she won.

THE ATTENTION IS BEING USED TO ADVANCE CONSERVATIVES’ AGENDA

The facts of Khelif’s Olympic journey have not gotten in the way of
the false narrative that exploded in the wake of her win. Her victory
proved to be an opportunity for those with transphobic views to score
rhetorical and political points.

Rowling and other prominent anti-trans figures like Tesla CEO Elon
Musk were quick to spread lies and cite the boxing match as an example
of why they believe it is important to back stark gender binaries.
“We object because we saw a male punching a female,” Rowling
wrote in a post on X.
[[link removed]]

US conservatives who misattributed and questioned Khelif’s gender
identity also used the fight to weaponize the anti-trans rhetoric
they’ve utilized in the past to activate their voter base. Vance
was quick to wrongly link
[[link removed]] Democratic Vice
President Kamala Harris to the international boxing match in a
nonsensical post, writing on X, “This is where Kamala Harris’s
ideas about gender lead: to a grown man pummeling a woman in a boxing
match.”

Former President Donald Trump similarly wrote on Truth Social
[[link removed]] that
he would “keep men out of women’s sports.”

As Vox’s Nicole Narea and Fabiola Cineas have explained,
[[link removed]] this
sort of rhetoric on the part of GOP leaders is tied to an explosion of
anti-trans legislation in states across the country focused on
bathroom access, women’s sports, and gender-affirming care for
minors. Collectively, these bills have sought to frame trans people as
a threat and to stoke fear among GOP voters.

Women’s sports is an arena where the GOP has leaned into this
messaging because they see it as activating religious Republicans,
including Evangelical voters, and potentially resonating with more
moderate women, too
[[link removed]].

“Trans issues in particular challenge … biblical concepts of
gender,” Sophie Bjork-James, a Vanderbilt University anthropologist
who studies the religious right, previously told Vox.
[[link removed]] “Evangelicals
tend to believe that men and women have very different qualities that
are innate in us. I think there’s a huge interest in maintaining a
gender binary because it really does provide a foundation for their
theology and their everyday lives.”

Republican state legislatures including those in Tennessee and Texas
have successfully passed bills that limit athletes to participating in
sports for the sex they were assigned at birth. The attacks on Khelif
are just the latest manifestation of such ideas.

* Olympic women's boxing
[[link removed]]
* Olympics
[[link removed]]
* transphobia
[[link removed]]
* anti-trans attacks
[[link removed]]
* sports bans
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web
[[link removed]]

Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]
Manage subscription
[[link removed]]
Visit portside.org
[[link removed]]

Twitter [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 



########################################################################

[link removed]

To unsubscribe from the xxxxxx list, click the following link:
[link removed]