imane khelif has been allegedly confirmed to be a man.

You can’t blame them. They were raised female and believed to be so until she was told the results of her dna tests.

Who is they? And who is she?

Should all athletes competing at the hiighest levels now be forced to undertake genetic confirmation of masculinity or femininity?

Why not, given that it's important to guarantee fairness in sport? What exactly would be the problem?

The Times is reporting that
Imane Khelif takes legal action over ‘evidence’ she has male chromosomes

So whatever evidence there is is likely to emerge in a more verifiable way.

You can’t blame them. They were raised female and believed to be so until she was told the results of her dna tests. You can only make decisions on the information available at the time. Now new information has emerged it’s time to determine how this moves forwards. Does she give her medals back? (Personally I think yes) does this change the way that sports testing is now going to be? Should all athletes competing at the hiighest levels now be forced to undertake genetic confirmation of masculinity or femininity?

@wombat15 can I ask why it's so very important for you to establish that some people, at some point, under some circumstances can't tell if a man is a man?

I think you acknowledge that most of the time people can tell, particularly women. But you still seem to want people to agree that there are sometimes when you can't.

Why is it important?

And yet they test for drugs? Isn’t testosterone a steroid drug or did they mask it? No idea, just asking x

Great post! 👏🏻

As if people are even reading that site, never mind believing the hate mongering bullshitters.

The story originally comes from a respected French investigative journalist. Reduxx simply broke it to a wider audience by their usual forensic reporting.

So yes people are. The game is up now, you were wrong.

IK competed in line the rules that were in place at the time.

Timeline:
1999: sex testing removed despite the overwhelming majority of women being in favour of it remaining.

2009: DSD athletes begin to appear in the female competition in athletics

2019: DSD ruling restrictions put in place for certain events in athletics.

2021: IOC state they will support trans athletes and athletes with sex variations to compete in sport in ways that affirm their identity and well-being.. but leaving the exact rules up to the individual International Federations.

2022: Led by swimming, the international federations for swimming, cycling, athletics and rowing (and others?) introduce terms about 'male puberty' into the restrictions around the female category.. protecting the XX category.

2023: International Boxing Association are relieved of the responsibility for Olympics by the IOC and the IOC will directly oversee boxing rules in the 2024 Olympics. https://olympics.com/ioc/news/joint-paris-2024-boxing-unit-ioc-statement

2024: The Paris Boxing Unit Rules define eligibility as based on passport, as it has been for the previous games.

2024: IOC press guidelines require journalists to refrain from speculating about competitors sex / gender.

The IOC wanted trans and DSD athlete's to compete in their category of identity. They knew the other major sporting federations had clarified and tightened up eligibility criteria. They choose to leave the criteria for boxing based on passport. They did not insist that the other sports follow the lead of swimming, athletes, cycling et al.. .. notably football / soccer.

It is an indefensible position but they defended it to the bitter end.

Fully agree re the cruelty of 'passing' and how it serves the interests of some of the nastiest capitalism.

Reminds me of a joke post I saw earlier where a motorcyclist won the Tour de France because he identified as a push bike cyclist. Except this article about the boxer is true and has been allowed to happen, it’s a disgrace.

Moreover, do you not think passing is an utterly cruel concept given that the vast majority simply don't? Why would you place a bar so incredibly high? Oh yeah, capitalism that's why. Instead of gender non conforming people rejecting gender altogether, trans ideology makes sure they can be forever attempting to buy their dream with the next "affirmative" surgery.

Very good points.

And also, like most people who have extreme and repetitive cosmetic surgeries - they probably suffer from body dysmorphia, mental illness etc.

Interesting that the "human Ken doll" (who ironically never looked anything like Ken) is now a trans woman and has continued on his path of body "transformation".

Would you know if you met a trans person who passes?

The only thing Trans "women" pass for, in soft lighting, is women who've had a shit tonne of cosmetic surgery. Even then ...
And their hands are still too big.

Some trans men pass, just about. But in most cases you'd guess quite quickly.

Oops

I've seen one - out of however many humans I've seen to date (a lot, given I've lived in the UK, US, West Africa, Japan and visited dozens of countries).

Just a very androgenous person.

From my vague memory, I think they were probably a man who was a bit James Spader/Cillian Murphy like, and wore retro clothes that could have been worn by either sex (70s style jacket, jeans/cords).
But at a push could have been a woman who was quite androgenous and dressed androgenous-ly. At the time I couldn't fully decide from seeing them about 3 times. Now, from memory - probably male.
Probably.

That's the sole person I can think of.

Worth saying that I saw them, didn't "meet" them. If I'd met them, it probably would have become clear.

If you're blindly guessing and hoping you'll be right, you can statistically expect to get it right 50% of the time when you do want to be intimate. That's a lot of embarrassing failures to launch.

I'd be concerned if I thought this was a genuine issue. As it is, we all know that you can tell a man from a woman and you're only pretending it's incredibly complicated to deflect from the fact that Khelif is clearly and demonstrably a man (and highly offended at the suggestion that he's trans, so why are you bringing it up?) and doesn't belong in any female space.

How do I know my neighbour isn't a duck transformed into a human by a wizard?

Yes. Spend ten minutes reading the 'passing' reddit sub and you'll see just how cruel the myth of 'passing' is.

All these poor people, desperate to try and conceal the truth, which is usually patently obvious. And all the unethical surgeons happy to sell that myth for a huge fee.

Sigh. Even with plastic surgery men can’t pass as women, I’d wager 99% of the time. They don’t need to tell anyone. We know.

The trans people I've known have been completely honest about it actually.

It would only be awkward if you have an intimate relationship with everyone you meet.

We haven't had plastic surgery since the beginning of time.🙄 People aren't going to tell you if they are trans and given that is the case how would you know that you have spotted every single trans person you have met?

Anyone remotely surprised? The gold medal will not be removed. He didn't break any rules did he? A big F on a passport and you are in as far as IOC are concerned, neatly sidestepping taking responsibility for doing their due diligence.

They should be reinstating the cheek swab chromosome check across the board for all athletes they withdrew in the 1980s (or thereabouts) - non-intrusive and accurate (though I'm not sure when a DSD is present if further checks may need to be made). The issue in this case is they knew there had been a problem picked up previously and they abdicated all responsibility.

Also, the IOC didn't re-allocate the swimming medals when the East German swimmers themselves disclosed they'd been doped with testosterone in the 1970s & 80s. A whole cohort of them were drugged, and suffered serious medical issues later (infertility, cancer, osteoporosis, premature death).

The IOC need swept out and replaced, totally corrupt.

Just as I thought. It was always known that he had xy chromosomes

I don't know the sexuality of all these people who apparently struggle so much to tell men from women, but for their sake I really hope they're bi and not straight or gay. Imagine how awkward that must get.