Does Imane Khelif even have a DSD?

[BeLemonNow]

Giving the widespread reporting of a previous test showing Imane Khelif is biologically male / XY is there actually any evidence as to whether or not they even have a Disorder of Sexual Development (DSD). Or is this straightforward fraud? I know there was speculation before...

By DSD, going by NHS information, in this case I mean XY chromosomes with an abnormality causing a baby's genitals to look female (but not a DSD where there's XY and some sort of penis even if smaller than normal). To be clear, I am aware that these differences are usually apparent by puberty. It looks likely Imane went through male puberty.

Apologies if this has been covered in a different thread, but I cannot see it anywhere. I am aware that the only IOC criteria to compete at the Olympics was a female passport - ridiculous really - but that Imane has been claiming to be living as a woman since birth.

I look forward to the studies coming through too. I think it is needed either way.

No sure. spironolactone is considered a banned substance so I will have to look up if these athletes are given a therapeutic exemption so they can use it or what they can use instead.

The CNN article
‘Harmed, outed, scrutinized’: How new sex testing rules affect athletes
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/09/18/sport/athletics-sex-testing-ruling-human-rights-intl
makes the same point twice
Payoshni Mitra, executive director of athlete rights organization Humans of Sport told CNN Sports that sometimes, athletes do not know they have a DSD.
“Disproportionately, these regulations for decades now have impacted athletes from the Global South. In these countries, athletes do not have a support system that can help them understand exactly what is going on,” she said.

Later on
“Sometimes, athletes do not know (that they have a DSD) themselves – disproportionately, these regulations for decades now have impacted athletes from the Global South,” she said. “In these countries, athletes do not have a support system that can help them understand exactly what is going on."

• nul points for the editing, CNN!

The point that many of the infamous cases of biological males taking part in - and winning medals in - women's sports involve people from what Payoshni Mitra calls 'The Global South' - has been noted here before.
Athletics, boxing and other sports are big business, and it's not far-fetched to suggest that young people like Docus Ajok or Imane Khelif are being cynically recruited because of their undiagnosed DSDs, and encouraged, and arguably exploited, for national prestige and financial gain.

I'm not denying their personal responsibility, or that they too benefit financially, but for athletes who come from impoverished backgrounds a career in sport is the way out of poverty not just for them, but for their families and wider communities.

How likely are they to say 'I've been tested, it turns out I'm not female after all, it's a fair cop guv, I hereby retire forthwith and will return home, to my impoverished family and community who looked to me to support them.'?

Of course that would be the decent thing to do, and it's completely wrong to continue participating in women's sports when you've been told you're not female - well, tests have shown that, but your entourage are telling you to ignore the tests, they are false/racist/corrupt/whatever, and of course you prefer to believe your trainers and coaches and the various gurus who control your life and have got you to the top.

I know I'm in a minority here, but I continue to feel a small amount of sympathy for the likes of Ajok and Khelif, caught up in the gears of a huge national lie machine. Less so for Semenya, who doesn't even pretend...

Hopefully the introduction of universal, clear and non-invasive testing will stop the recruitment of young people with DSDs in 'The Global South' and elsewhere, because the cynics who recruit and promote them will know in advance that their 'protegés' won't even make it past the testing stage.

I agree. IK and CS are bloody annoying, but the fact that athletes are being encouraged to undergo health-damaging androgen blockade just underlines that they are all being used - and regulators could stop it dead with an outright ban. And no grandfathering!

I have sympathy for some individual athletes. I don’t have sympathy for those who have been repeatedly tested and compete anyway, such as Khelif and who still wishes to punch female people in the ring.

I have great sympathy for Annet Negesa who seemed to have undergone surgery that wasn’t discussed.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-12/intersex-runner-annet-negesa-seeks-equal-rights-in-sport/102069710?utm_source=abc_news_app&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_campaign=abc_news_app&utm_content=safari

However, I am also careful not to infantilise these athletes. They have agency to make their own decisions. Sure they have a lot of pressure financially etc. But that doesn't excuse the decision to continue to take advantage of these ethical loopholes.

As an aside, remember Semenya has a sports science degree too. Semenya knows exactly what he is doing.

I agree those legacy clauses should stop. I think it is unethical too that any male person should be reducing their testosterone to below 2.5 nmol/L as it cannot be good for long term health.

I just don't think any woman would get to the age of 19-20, with no signs of a period ever, not having once questioned whether everything was okay. And I don't believe that any female athlete in those circumstances would get to Olympic level not having had an ultrasound or a cheek swab.

At 15-16 and lower-level sports I would buy it. 18+ and having been training with a national sports federation? No, it's fraud.

I have seen people make claims that these girls are training so hard that they suppress menstruation. This is only true to a point.

There will be signs of puberty still and signs of menstruation approaching. And as you say, it doesn’t hold off forever.

However, I am also careful not to infantilise these athletes. They have agency to make their own decisions. Sure they have a lot of pressure financially etc. But that doesn't excuse the decision to continue to take advantage of these ethical loopholes.

Unfortunately, I’m not sure that women everywhere (or those socialised as women) have the same level of agency that we mostly have here.
It varies from case to case I’m sure. For some at least, I’m not sure how much of the decision to continue competing is really their own.

and the voice breaking is a big deal. as anyone who's lived with a boy in their tweens to early-mid tweens knows, the people around you notice the difference even when they're a room or two away from you.

Presumably banned as it’s a diuretic so potential masking agent. I don’t think it’d be a strong enough anti-androgen to get healthy male levels down to 2.5nmol/L.

Are you suggesting that these male athletes are being coerced by their governments and sports bodies? Or that they feel pressure from their families?

If you read the stories of some of these male athletes, they were being picked up at the World Championships or their regional championships before they started to win at the Olympics. They were only at the start of their potential careers. Are you saying that they were being coerced in some way? Or they just didn't know how to say no to competing? I am not sure what you are saying here.

Pressure rather than coercion I hope, but I don’t know what goes on behind the scenes.

Ok. Thanks for clarifying.

At what point then do you think that they should feel able to make the decision to not compete? Surely in this era where media coverage is nearly instant, there is just as much pressure to avoid the lasting negative press if they are then found out?

Let’s face it the social media speculation must be horrendous so the pressure to compete surely must be rationally considered against this?

They'll be bathed in the same misinformation and magical thinking that afflicts CNN journalists. And the need not to let down family, country, etc etc. They need banning for their own good as well as everyone else's.

I think this is where the WA regulations will be good. Because if these athletes can be tested along with all other female competitors and then empathetically supported after the results are clear, then it will reduce this pressure.

It is also why I consider Arne Ljungqvist may have had good intentions, but he and the others who agreed to these changes, really left this group open to this outcome. Because it was always built on ideological, or philosophical if you prefer, grounds. The hard science was always known (even without the studies we have now) and this outcome was inevitable. The effects of testosterone, natural or not, was known! Hence the era of doping that destroyed female athlete's bodies with it that had just happened before these decisions.

It was always an ideological premise for inclusion. While I think there should be ways for these athletes to compete, this blunt force approach was never sustainable.

When somebody has been hyped up like Khelif is, as the proud example of high-achieving Algerian Womanhood, taking on and beating the world, a shining example to little girls all over the Arab world of what they can achieve...
the decision to say 'No actually, I'm not, I'm a male' would take an awful lot of courage.

Of course, IK should be that brave, he should 'man up' literally and figuratively, but the consequences of telling the truth unilaterally, and going against everything that his coaches, trainers, medical experts, sporting federation, government etc are still maintaining about him, would be huge for him. And for his family.

IK should be that brave, but how many people would have the courage to make such a momentous decision, against the wishes of all around you?

I hope I would be that brave, but then I think of those lines by TS Eliot

“Forgive us, O Lord, we acknowledge ourselves as type of the common man..
Who fear the hand at the window, the fire in the thatch, the fist in the tavern, the push into the canal..
Less than we fear the love of God.”

or the love of the truth, in IK's case.

Re the over representation of CAIS athletes in female sport.

I came across a discussion on X a while ago about the main study that's shows CAIS over representation and there were concerns raised about whether the study correctly separated CAIS and PAIS athletes. If they weren't separated then the study may show that PAIS was over represented but perhaps not CAIS.

I can't remember who was in the discussion but it may have involved Emma Hilton. I also can't link to the discussion as I can't find it now.

I do remember that.

Someone with PAIS having an advantage over female athletes makes a lot more sense to me than someone with CAIS having an advantage

Victoria Smith weighs in in Unherd

https://archive.ph/UMzIf

https://unherd.com/newsroom/sex-tests-for-athletes-are-too-little-too-late/

As VS says even a retrospective award of the stolen medal to Lynsay Sharpe won't correct the course her life may have taken. Not to the completely unknown women and girls whose potential careers were completely derailed before they'd started to blossom. Lynsay may have still be beaten into 6th by women whose achievements were utterly stolen.

Is there a spectrum of PAIS? Could there be CAIS athletes who are actually PAIS but barely?

Interesting, thank you, must look for that.
I remember reading at some stage that final height in CAIS, which on average is greater than that of XX women, is linked to the timing of gonadectomy (pre or post puberty iirc). (Gonadectomy is recommended in CAIS because of an increased risk of malignancy.)
Something to be considered too perhaps.

To be fair the reason he didn’t appeal was because he knows that on appeal to the Sports International Regulatory Body whose name escapes me the safeguarding anonymity of medical information is removed , and all medical tests are fully available on and reportable. This is the regulation that sunk Semanya’s previous claim to be a woman with unusually high testosterone…….

Misgendering trans people (but only trans people) is a recordable hate crime (outcome 15) (Helen Joyce, today):

https://thecritic.co.uk/how-i-was-secretly-logged-as-a-criminal-by-police/