Thread 4: TWO “Female Boxers” Set To Compete At Paris 2024 Were Previously Disqualified From Women’s World Championship For Having “XY Chromosomes”

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That's exactly how it's played out on Radio 4 Zeugma. There was coverage of Khelif, then pretty much crickets over Lin, except that Lin has been getting an incidental mention when the next part of the story, Khelif's legal action, is reported.

Although Lin also gets mentioned when the "brave overcoming of the controversy" narrative gets wheeled out by the BBC.

😃 well I admit I couldn’t bring myself to watch the fights in their entirety so I can’t say which boxer is the least shit. But I did see a slow-mo clip of the illegal manoeuvre by Lin and thought it was horrible and should not have gone unpunished by the ref.

All the attention is on Khelif though. I doubt K would have got away with a rabbit punch, not with the public watching so closely.

The renowned endocrinologist will have looked at “her” passport, as is customary.

Khelif and representatives seem to have choosen the role of poster “girl” and have framed the experience in a Caster light. I just see this as astute marketing. The talk is on Khelif because that is what Khelif wants. Even the threat of legal action happened to keep the spotlight on Khelif not Lin

"Thanks to Lin’s extra reach, Szeremeta was left bloody and bruised by the fight".

I haven't watched this last fight yet, but judging from the attached from that article I don't think I can bear to watch it.

I wish there had been an Avi Silverberg who legally changed their passport to F and then entered the games to prove the point that the F in the passport means nothing.

Edited to add how upsetting that photo is and how clearly it demonstrates the physical differences.

An interesting comparison from Jennifer on X:

' In the women’s boxing division only Lin Yu Ting (57kg) and Imane Khelif (66 kg) won every single match 5-0 on their way to gold. Their respective records were 5-0, 5-0, 5-0, 5-0. The women who won the other weight divisions in comparison:'

Li Quan (75 kg) Gold. 5-0, 4-1, 5-0, 4-1.
Wu Yu (50kg) Gold. 5-0, 5-0, 4-1, 4-1.
Chang Yuan (54kg) Gold. 5-0, 4-1, 3-2, 5-0.
Kellie Harrington (60kg) Gold 5-0, 5-0, 4-1, 4–1.

This shows you what a remarkable feat it was for Lin and Khelif to go 5-0 in every fight.'

https://x.com/babybeginner/status/1822513406081212832

Just seen a tweet from Sex Matters with a bit of film of a brave woman in the boxing arena brandishing an X X banner - I think before last night’s bout, though not sure - lots of cheers and applause for her.

Also this image:

Not to disrespect the runners up, but...

In competitions that proceed by knock-out tournament, fielding candidates like this distorts the entire competition. For all we know, the best woman boxer was the one that he beat in the very first round.

We make sport interesting to watch by creating a tightly clustered field of athletes of very similar ability. So why aren't sports enthusiasts complaining about women's boxing being made more boring?

I fear it may be because some are more interested in the sadistic spectacle than the sport.

The banner at the boxing. All these images including the big XX montage come from an X account called ‘Total Titter’ btw 😉

Isn't it amazing that there is no advantage to any of this but yet out of 6 womens boxing categories at the Olympics 2 of them were won by those with DSD's so 1/3 of gold medals were won by people with a condition that effects 0.018% and we're supposed to pretend that there is no advantage

And, in the 2016 Olympics, all the podium places in the women's 800m went to competitors with VSDs.

Never mind playing Imagine to pour oil on the troubled waters of the women's volleyball (?), the IOC should have mandated it for thee medal ceremonies.

eatfigs
https://www.lepoint.fr/sport/exclusif-jo-2024-imane-khelif-a-ete-aneantie-de-decouvrir-d-un-seul-coup-qu-elle-pourrait-ne-pas-etre-une-fille-09-08-2024-2567609_26.php
Machine translation below ...

Thank you so much for this, eatfigs, I think this is one of the most valuable posts on this topic. There are so many admissions, it's unbelievable. The whole thing pivots around 'we want this boxer to be considered female and we want them to get a gold medal for Algeria at the Paris Olympics'. Everything else is irrelevant.

The Imane Khelif who was famously 'beaten by women in the past and therefore doesn't have an advantage' is not the same IK who has been through this multidisciplinary process of maximising their physical strength and ability.

This has been a huge and expensive mobilisation of so many different organisations and individuals to get Khelif the gold medal. I've posted before: what now? Semenya managed to compete as a female athlete for years, and pocketed a small fortune in prize money, so she was of continued financial value to her backers/entourage.
I don't think amateur boxing is as lucrative as athletics, and if Khelif turns pro, as Katie Taylor did very successfully, I doubt if professional women boxers will be as compliant as the women Khelif and Lin have beaten at the Olympics.

There was a complete industry set up around Khelif, and I get the feeling that Khelif was just raw material to be processed into a medal-winner, at whatever cost to sport, the truth, the women beaten along the way, or even Khelif themselves.

Interesting comment from Lin in this article “I was invited to compete by the IOC”. Suggests the IOC approached the boxer rather than the boxer’s national body approaching the IOC.

If the IOC did invite Lin, this would be Indicative of how men’s the drive for ‘inclusivity’ is so willing, even happy, to throw women under the bus and to exclude them. Even so, that motivation also seems happy to drag Lin back in an uncomfortable spotlight.

We see the misogyny in play here.

“After the 2023 World Championships, where she was disqualified, I took the lead by contacting a renowned endocrinologist from the Parisian University Hospital, Kremlin-Bicêtre, who examined her. He confirmed that Imane is indeed a woman, despite her karyotype and her testosterone level. He said: "There is a problem with her hormones, with her chromosomes, but she is a woman." That's all that mattered to us.”

Absence of fully formed male genitalia = not a man = “is indeed a woman”. That’s all they seem to need to justify it to themselves.

argh

If he complained that he couldn't get pregnant would you investigate or pat him on the head and tell him not to be so daft? it's pretty simple.

women have the bodies we do so we can gestate babies. yes for some of us our bodies don't cooperate, but we still have that type of body for that reason. fuck me but people like to make simple things complicated

I've never forgotten the comments from French medics in re: the vaginal mesh scandal and what it revealed about their attitude to women.

www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jan/31/vaginal-mesh-complications-too-severe-to-be-inflicted-on-patients-court-told

Georges Cazorla must have been given permission for this interview as this has exposed much more than the IBA and he must be well aware of the threats of legal action.

Usually in a pantomime the audience gets to join in.
"She's a woman."
"Oh no he's not."

Or in the case of 'rabbit punch Lin', "He's behind you."

I'll do a bit of gardening for jkr, she doesn't need it but it's a token gesture, she can add it to the funds of Biera's place.

What I found with that interview, is that he's attempted to tie up some of the loose ends in the evidence, eg he says Khelif signed for the results of the IBA test because Khelif doesn't understand English. It's almost like he's been reading people's objections online and made a point of answering them.

It's really not. And it's utterly pointless, since puberty can't be reversed by suppressing blood testosterone levels years afterwards.

They sent her a letter in English when she can’t read that language

A pity nobody in Algeria speaks English. Like nobody. At all. Or that Khelif could have, I dunno, got the American-Cuban team to translate.

Just noticed another gem in that ridiculous interview. It is said that everyone must play sports. Everyone, except these people?

Godsake. It really is Tired of Explaining Reality to F*wits at this point.

As Dr Emma Hilton said - what you'd need is a Time Machine!

I've raised in previous posts what the future might hold for Khelif, now that the quasi-industrial process to get them a gold medal has succeeded. Professional boxing would be the most obvious route for return-on-investment, but at least one of the world boxing organisations, the WBA, will insist on swab testing for XX chromosomes:

Strength training programs for the female can increase strength considerably but it is not likely that the female would reach the same level of strength as that of the male. For this reason, male boxers should not compete with female boxers even if they are in the same weight category.
...
Testing for femininity is done by taking a smear from the mouth of the female competitor and looking for the XX chromosomes in the cells and this has been an ongoing process at the Olympic Games.

so good luck with the professional career, Imane!

I write that with a little bit of sympathy, yes obviously IK should not be boxing women, yes obviously 'she' should know he's male - but I suspect IK may be spat out by the machine that has taken him up and cynically manufactured a women's Olympic medallist out of him.

I'm not sure that the glossy-magazine lifestyle that Semenya enjoys is on the cards for Khelif. The future doesn't look great, whatever happens.

If only there was another category they could compete in if they aren't eligible for the female category. 🤷‍♀️

Khelief is male, unfortunately the wrong sex noted at birth. Why keep fighting this? Why keep insisting he is female. Go box with the males. See how you get on.

It's caster semenya case yet again. Yawn. No progress made. Shame on the Olympics committee.