Algerian boxer filing legal claim over online harrassment

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news.sky.com/story/algerian-boxer-imane-khelif-at-centre-of-olympic-gender-row-files-legal-complaint-over-online-harassment-13195264

She could have put this to bed by sharing DNA tests. I'm struggling to feel sympathy, although it must be horrid.

Who would he fight though?

No sane woman would go into the ring against him. Maybe people would pay £20 to watch him get his arse handed to him by another guy, but that's not something he'll volunteer for.

He's after damages, an out of court settlement. Silly boy. As if.

This is a criminal case. He's asking the French prosecutors to prosecute X for a criminal offence. Unless I've misunderstood French law (always possible), I don't see any evidence that Rowling, Musk or anyone else would be required to pay money to Khelif. From the Spectator article:

"The case is a criminal one and conviction could lead to two years imprisonment and a €30,000 fine for Rowling and Musk, but neither should be packing their toothbrushes yet for a stay in the Bastille."

Who would bother fighting him? He’s not going to face other men, he hasn’t the skill and he wouldn’t have the huge physical advantage. And what women would subject themselves to being beaten up by this man if they didn’t have to?

I can see him becoming a joke and women who need the money fighting him.

IK could fight Patricio Manuel - US transman boxer, apparently quite useful when fighting as a woman, who is having trouble finding male opponents now that PM fights as a "man".

Best of 3? Best of 5? 8/10/13 episodes like a Netflix drama series?

So the police have been complained to. I presume France has a similar system to us, where the French prosecution service looks at the evidence and decides if there's a case to answer? It probably won't make it to court in that case, based on my exceedingly limited understanding. Looks like they've just picked the 2 richest critics.
He'd have had more chance in a civil lawsuit, no?

If he wins the criminal case (or French prosecutors do on his behalf) he'll use it to take a personal case for damages.

She’s a professor of developmental biology - well known, well cited on most social media platforms as well as interviewed in the press. Emma Hilton. Feel free to message/DM her and ask her yourself, as I did - she’s always been very forthcoming when people are asking science questions.

I don’t need her to send me a billion papers on the subject - she’s read them all and peer reviewed most of them, she teaches, she researches and writes them. If she states that Swyers is a male DSD because they lack ovaries (ie the ability to produce large gametes) and have XY chromosomes I will take her word for it.

Is there a criminal case to answer? It doesn't look like it to me, re the individuals, but X I guess could be held to account. I wonder why they're not going after the IBA? After all, it's them who started this whole thing by banning the pair of them. I note that Lin is keeping his head down, so assume he's been advised differently. Or is just generally less bullish, character-wise. He's got his gold, he's off.

I have seen Emma say this time and time again.

And she is right. She also is very clear about there being instances where this DSD and CAIS may shape her social acceptance. Which is obviously reasonable.

So, for clarity the categorisation is male for when it matters. For people with this condition, it doesn’t matter much outside medical discussions. For sport, at the moment, it doesn’t matter because they are accepted in the female category because they don’t have male pubertal advantage. I have always like her categorisation of who is male and who is female and when it matters.

You make it sound as a) we don't don't have pay per view porn b) all the women involved are there of their own free will c) there is no demand for porn.

That's a different perspective I hadn't considered, Red.

You're right. It'll appeal to the snuff video demographic.

He’s a good looking bloke with an interesting history and lots invested in him, so can probably milk celebrity status for a fair time. If I were writing the miniseries, I’d finish with a wedding in a historic/exotic setting to an obscure European royal and then surprise! babies and a spread in Hello magazine featuring the happy family.

I remember thinking at the time of the whole Fallon Fox debacle that much of that whole Women's MMA world seemed to be served up for male titillation and there was a strong element of men enjoying seeing a real woman being really beaten up by a man.

This is so confusing to me.

I can see how it would be appropriate to socially consider someone with Sywer's as female, and it would seem unlikely that they would have any advantage in sports over XX women (although I would like some data on this). That's fine.

But the term 'XY female' - biologically speaking, how does this exist? The mutation or deletion of the SRY or other genes that result in Swyer's prevent the development of a male reproductive system; female reproductive structures form to variable useful degree in its place, but crucially there is an inability to produce gametes.

People with Swyer's have streak gonads, which are non-functional for producing either sperm or eggs. If they have a normal uterus they require egg donation for pregnancy. I believe they are also given hormones at puberty to help develop secondary sex characteristics and healthy bone mass, so presumably these have to be continued/altered during pregnancy. All this is because, if not for their gene mutation(s), they would have developed as male.

There are no healthy XY people that produce eggs; thus there is no disease that affects XY people such that they cannot produce eggs when they were on the developmental pathway to producing them - because that developmental pathway doesn't exist. Therefore 'XY female' is a colloquialism for people where it would seem strange or cruel socially to consider them men, but technically they are male, no?

No, can't unfortunately because Manuel is super featherweight. Pesky rules.

I'm sure Manuel can bulk up 10 pounds. For the right money.

Though by all accounts in the pre Olympic training camp, in Spain, Khelif was paired with Spain's top male boxer - as being the only fair match, after several female boxers had been injured during sparring sessions.

Yes, there is definitely a market for males beating up women for titillation.

"Therefore 'XY female' is a colloquialism for people where it would seem strange or cruel socially to consider them men, but technically they are male, no?"
I think this may come down to whether male is defined by the presence of a Y chromosome alone or whether it is actually defined by the presence of a SRY gene. If you base it on the SRY gene this would make Swyers a female DSD.

I think the argument is largely academic though. In terms of female sports its males who are virilised at puberty and can respond to testosterone who are the main issue.

If they have a normal uterus they require egg donation for pregnancy.

The verified published cases have needed assistance to develop the uterus to withstand pregnancy as there is usually some degree of hypoplasia (under-development) that varies from mild to severe. (Suitable treatment can include HRT.)

We postulate that the hypoplastic uterus, although able to respond well to exogenous and endogenous hormones and maintain a full term pregnancy, may lack the intrinsic capability to respond in labour. On the other hand, there is the possibility of caesarean deliveries without obstetric indications due to patient and physician anxieties due to the rarity of this condition.

Taneja J, Ogutu D, Ah-Moye M. Rare successful pregnancy in a patient with Swyer Syndrome. Case Rep Womens Health. 2016 Oct 18;12:1-2. doi: 10.1016/j.crwh.2016.10.001. PMID: 29629300; PMCID: PMC5885995.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5885995/

Fallon Fox is who I've been thinking about all through this. Wouldn't surprise me if IK' would love to cause as severe injuries to a woman as he did.

There remains on Netflix a documentary about the murder of Sophie Tocson Du Plantier, a Frenchwoman (Sophie: A Murder in West Cork), who was living in Ireland. It has to be said the evidence was circumstantially overwhelming to find a local man guilty of the murder, though the Irish justice system threw the case out.

The Family of the French woman took the case further in France - where after a trial in his absence - the man was found guilty. In France, the feelings of the victim's family and friends are taken into account and provide more weight when making a decision to convict.

The decison to convict in France, did not have significance elsewhere, in spite of appeals for his extradition.....and recently the man ( odds on who was the culprit) died without ever being the recipient of justice.

Yes - it's a whole new world to me, these weight categories and how they correlate (or don't) to height and sex. I was surprised to see that Manuel's opponents in one of their fights last year was only 5' 1" but still the same weight class (PM is 5' 6").

IK is 5' 10" (from memory) and was several inches taller than the opponents I saw them box in the olympics so height/weight clearly doesn't correlate all that closely in boxing but I don't know how the sex differences are influencing things given that both these pairings are opposite sex.

Probably impossible to extrapolate from 4 people, but I wonder if PM's coaches deliberately sought out small fighters to negate the reach difference?

I really hate it when things like this are said without stating what the frequency or difficulty of this potential is...

That was the whole point of the question.