So, Algerian boxer Imane Khelif is a man after all. That simple fact—now apparently confirmed by leaked medical reports—casts last year’s Olympic controversy in a damning new light.
At the 2024 Paris Olympics, we witnessed the truly shocking boxing match between Khelif and Italy’s Angela Carini. After just 46 seconds in the ring, Carini abandoned the match. She took only a few hits from Khelif before falling to her knees in tears. She was thought to have suffered a broken nose and complained that she had “never felt a punch like this.” Khelif went on to win gold for Algeria.
At the time, there was intense speculation about Khelif’s biological gender. The boxer looked considerably more masculine than the other athletes in Paris and, judging by Carini’s reaction to the match, was clearly more physically powerful, too. Although cleared to compete in Paris, Khelif had previously failed a sex test at the 2023 Women’s World Boxing Championships in New Delhi and was disqualified from the final there. In fact, according to the International Boxing Association, Khelif had failed biochemical testing two years in a row.
All this raised some serious concerns about Khelif’s eligibility to compete—especially given that there was another gender-ambiguous boxer taking part in the Olympics that year. Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting had also failed genetic sex testing and also made a female opponent leave the ring in tears following their match.
Plenty of women watching these unbelievable scenes unfold did not keep quiet about Khelif’s participation. Former Olympic swimmer Sharron Davies hit out at the International Olympic Committee (IOC), saying that “putting a male into a boxing ring with a female is negligence.” Collegiate swimmer and women’s-rights advocate Riley Gaines echoed this, criticising the IOC for “knowingly putting these women in danger by putting them in a ring with a male who had the intention of knocking them unconscious.” J.K. Rowling, in her usual acerbic way, described Khelif on X as having “the smirk of a male who knows he’s protected by a misogynistic sporting establishment enjoying the distress of a woman he’s just punched in the head.” For this, Khelif went so far as to threaten legal action against Rowling and others, filing a criminal complaint for “acts of aggravated cyber harassment” in France.
It turns out that Rowling and the rest were right after all. World Boxing announced last week that Khelif would be required to undergo further sex screening to compete in women’s events going forward, due to the various controversies surrounding the athlete. Just over a day later, that medical report that had barred Khelif from the 2023 championships in New Delhi was leaked. And it confirmed what many suspected: Khelif is, in fact, a biological male. The report describes Khelif as having an “XY karyotype”—in other words, male chromosomes
We can all hope this means that Khelif won’t be punching any more women. Now, female boxers who have spent years training for these events will actually have the shot they deserve at winning the titles meant for them. And, crucially, they will no longer have to be afraid that they might be in serious danger when stepping into the ring with Khelif. After all, in a sport like boxing, the sex of your opponent is hugely important. Anyone who has gone through male puberty—whether that is a trans-identifying man or someone who is intersex—will have been bestowed with a great deal of physical benefits. Men have an advantage in height, strength, wingspan, and lung capacity. They can also punch over 2.6 times harder than a woman can. No wonder Carini said that she quit that match with Khelif because she actually feared for her life.
Of course, none of this mattered to the IOC. It decided to admit Khelif into the Olympics last year despite knowing about the boxer’s sex test results. For the IOC, it was apparently good enough that Khelif’s passport was marked as ‘female’ and that Khelif had been “competing in international boxing competitions for many years in the women’s category.” Thomas Bach, current president of the IOC, went so far as to attribute the scandal over Khelif’s gender to a Russian misinformation campaign.
The mainstream media showed no sympathy for women or willingness to acknowledge reality, either. Anyone who raised entirely valid concerns about the objectively manly-looking Khelif was branded an evil bigot. The Nation trashed any criticism of Khelif as “transphobia” and a “narrow, Eurocentric vision of womanhood.” LGBT media-monitoring organisation GLAAD described the questions about Khelif’s biology as “baseless transphobia, misinformation and hate.” The New Republic spoke of “the right wing’s unhinged persecution” of Khelif.
None of us who dared to speak up about Khelif’s inclusion in the Olympics should expect an apology, or even an admission that we were right all along. The activists, journalists, sporting bureaucrats who smeared legitimate questions as ‘hate’ will simply pretend that none of this ever happened. They certainly will not be reflecting on how their ideological rigidity endangered female athletes on the world’s largest sporting stage. It even looks like Khelif will keep the Olympic gold medal, despite these revelations.
Ultimately, this was never about fairness or ‘inclusion’. It was about enforcing a political orthodoxy—the bizarre idea that a man can identify his way into becoming a woman. As far as we know, Khelif is not transgender and doesn’t identify as such. But it is trans ideology that allowed a boxer with XY chromosomes to compete against women. The fact that Khelif’s passport said ‘female’ was enough for the supposed experts at the IOC to disregard all scientific evidence that this was a male. But ideology can never override the most basic facts of human physiology. The truth was bound to come out eventually.
It’s frankly a miracle that no women were more seriously hurt in Paris. If we keep pretending that sex doesn’t matter—especially in sports where physically attacking your opponent is the whole point—next time we might not be so lucky. The Imane Khelif scandal must be a reminder that ideology cannot trump biology. And it should serve as a serious wake-up call to the insanity of trans dogma.
The Imane Khelif Affair Has Dealt A Knockout Blow To Trans Ideology
Italy’s Angela Carini on her knees during the boxing match against Algerian Imane Khelif at the Olympic Games in Paris on August 1, 2024.
Photo: Mohd Rasfan / AFP
You may also like
There is No Post-Liberalism—Only Liberalism
It is not liberalism we must save, but the truth, order, and solidarity it displaced.
Europe’s Woke Police State Is Targeting Social Conservatives
Peaceful pro-lifers, grandmothers, priests—even the pregnant—are being arrested for “offending” progressive orthodoxy. This is persecution, not law enforcement.
Blasphemy Laws Are Returning To Europe
When our governments reward violence or the threat of violence with censorship, it sets a dangerous precedent.
So, Algerian boxer Imane Khelif is a man after all. That simple fact—now apparently confirmed by leaked medical reports—casts last year’s Olympic controversy in a damning new light.
At the 2024 Paris Olympics, we witnessed the truly shocking boxing match between Khelif and Italy’s Angela Carini. After just 46 seconds in the ring, Carini abandoned the match. She took only a few hits from Khelif before falling to her knees in tears. She was thought to have suffered a broken nose and complained that she had “never felt a punch like this.” Khelif went on to win gold for Algeria.
At the time, there was intense speculation about Khelif’s biological gender. The boxer looked considerably more masculine than the other athletes in Paris and, judging by Carini’s reaction to the match, was clearly more physically powerful, too. Although cleared to compete in Paris, Khelif had previously failed a sex test at the 2023 Women’s World Boxing Championships in New Delhi and was disqualified from the final there. In fact, according to the International Boxing Association, Khelif had failed biochemical testing two years in a row.
All this raised some serious concerns about Khelif’s eligibility to compete—especially given that there was another gender-ambiguous boxer taking part in the Olympics that year. Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting had also failed genetic sex testing and also made a female opponent leave the ring in tears following their match.
Plenty of women watching these unbelievable scenes unfold did not keep quiet about Khelif’s participation. Former Olympic swimmer Sharron Davies hit out at the International Olympic Committee (IOC), saying that “putting a male into a boxing ring with a female is negligence.” Collegiate swimmer and women’s-rights advocate Riley Gaines echoed this, criticising the IOC for “knowingly putting these women in danger by putting them in a ring with a male who had the intention of knocking them unconscious.” J.K. Rowling, in her usual acerbic way, described Khelif on X as having “the smirk of a male who knows he’s protected by a misogynistic sporting establishment enjoying the distress of a woman he’s just punched in the head.” For this, Khelif went so far as to threaten legal action against Rowling and others, filing a criminal complaint for “acts of aggravated cyber harassment” in France.
It turns out that Rowling and the rest were right after all. World Boxing announced last week that Khelif would be required to undergo further sex screening to compete in women’s events going forward, due to the various controversies surrounding the athlete. Just over a day later, that medical report that had barred Khelif from the 2023 championships in New Delhi was leaked. And it confirmed what many suspected: Khelif is, in fact, a biological male. The report describes Khelif as having an “XY karyotype”—in other words, male chromosomes
We can all hope this means that Khelif won’t be punching any more women. Now, female boxers who have spent years training for these events will actually have the shot they deserve at winning the titles meant for them. And, crucially, they will no longer have to be afraid that they might be in serious danger when stepping into the ring with Khelif. After all, in a sport like boxing, the sex of your opponent is hugely important. Anyone who has gone through male puberty—whether that is a trans-identifying man or someone who is intersex—will have been bestowed with a great deal of physical benefits. Men have an advantage in height, strength, wingspan, and lung capacity. They can also punch over 2.6 times harder than a woman can. No wonder Carini said that she quit that match with Khelif because she actually feared for her life.
Of course, none of this mattered to the IOC. It decided to admit Khelif into the Olympics last year despite knowing about the boxer’s sex test results. For the IOC, it was apparently good enough that Khelif’s passport was marked as ‘female’ and that Khelif had been “competing in international boxing competitions for many years in the women’s category.” Thomas Bach, current president of the IOC, went so far as to attribute the scandal over Khelif’s gender to a Russian misinformation campaign.
The mainstream media showed no sympathy for women or willingness to acknowledge reality, either. Anyone who raised entirely valid concerns about the objectively manly-looking Khelif was branded an evil bigot. The Nation trashed any criticism of Khelif as “transphobia” and a “narrow, Eurocentric vision of womanhood.” LGBT media-monitoring organisation GLAAD described the questions about Khelif’s biology as “baseless transphobia, misinformation and hate.” The New Republic spoke of “the right wing’s unhinged persecution” of Khelif.
None of us who dared to speak up about Khelif’s inclusion in the Olympics should expect an apology, or even an admission that we were right all along. The activists, journalists, sporting bureaucrats who smeared legitimate questions as ‘hate’ will simply pretend that none of this ever happened. They certainly will not be reflecting on how their ideological rigidity endangered female athletes on the world’s largest sporting stage. It even looks like Khelif will keep the Olympic gold medal, despite these revelations.
Ultimately, this was never about fairness or ‘inclusion’. It was about enforcing a political orthodoxy—the bizarre idea that a man can identify his way into becoming a woman. As far as we know, Khelif is not transgender and doesn’t identify as such. But it is trans ideology that allowed a boxer with XY chromosomes to compete against women. The fact that Khelif’s passport said ‘female’ was enough for the supposed experts at the IOC to disregard all scientific evidence that this was a male. But ideology can never override the most basic facts of human physiology. The truth was bound to come out eventually.
It’s frankly a miracle that no women were more seriously hurt in Paris. If we keep pretending that sex doesn’t matter—especially in sports where physically attacking your opponent is the whole point—next time we might not be so lucky. The Imane Khelif scandal must be a reminder that ideology cannot trump biology. And it should serve as a serious wake-up call to the insanity of trans dogma.
Our community starts with you
READ NEXT
EU Climate Plan: More Taxes, Fewer Jobs, No Debate
Islamism in Spain: The Left Denies It, the Center-Right Runs From It
Europe’s Woke Police State Is Targeting Social Conservatives