The talking point on the fairness of transgender athletes competing in sports resurfaced during the 2024 Summer Olympics not because of any trans athlete’s performance, but because of a cisgender woman’s performance.
The internet stirred into a modern-day Lavender Scare over the participation of gold-medalist boxer Imane Khelif, a woman assigned female at birth who never identified as trans.
The situation exploded even further when Khelif won her match against Italian boxer Angela Carini.
An image of Khelif patting a crying Carini on the shoulder after the latter forfeited the match went viral, sending an online crusade into full force.
Khelif and fellow boxer Lin Yu‑ting allegedly failed gender eligibility tests administered by the International Boxing Association at its 2023 world championships, according to The Guardian.
It’s critical to note the details and results of these gender tests have not been revealed.
Furthermore, the IBA has been mired in corruption and mismanagement for years and the International Olympic Committee has banned the association’s governance.
Despite these red flags, pundits still took the claims from the IBA and ran with them.
Armed with misinformation, high-profile transphobes and gender-critical commentators such as Elon Musk and J.K. Rowling aided in launching a tremendous online hate mob against Khelif, labeling her as a man fighting a woman.
The ensuing uproar is a snapshot of how disconnected from reality the transphobic rhetoric surrounding sports has become.
Additionally, it is an ironic illustration of how a movement purporting to protect women has come full circle by actively harming women.
“Could any picture sum up our new men’s rights movement better?” Rowling wrote on X (formerly Twitter). “The smirk of a male (who) knows he’s protected by a misogynist sporting establishment enjoying the distress of a woman he’s just punched in the head.”
Former U.S. competitive swimmer Riley Gaines posted the hashtag #IStandWithAngelaCarini on X with the caption “Men don’t belong in women’s sports,” to which Musk responded, “Absolutely.”
Professional wrestler and internet personality Logan Paul weighed in on X as well with increasingly venomous comments.
“This is the purest form of evil unfolding right before our eyes,” Paul wrote. “A man was allowed to beat up a woman on a global stage, crushing her life’s dream while fighting for her deceased father.”
Paul later admitted to spreading misinformation in a follow-up post while also asserting that Khelif was disqualified due to having XY chromosomes, another unverified claim.
“I stand by my sentiment that biological men should not compete against biological women in any sport and if you disagree you’re a sick fuck.” Paul wrote.
If swirling around the entire internet wasn’t damaging enough, the baseless claims about Khelif’s gender were given credibility by various news outlets.
The Boston Globe ran the headline “Transgender boxer advances” after Khelif’s match with Carini despite the Associated Press reporting never claiming Khelif was trans.
It is also worth noting that Khelif hails from Algeria, where gender transition is prohibited.
Fox News contributors also pushed harmful conjecture about Khelif and Yu-ting’s gender during the network’s Big Weekend Show broadcast, including panelist David Webb's erroneous comments.
“So you basically have two males when it comes to the biology of it, beating up women,” Webb said.
This sort of rhetoric and vitriol used against Khelif is a common experience for trans women in sports.
When Lia Thomas swam on the University of Pennsylvania women’s swim team and competed in the NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships, she faced intense backlash as a result of her transness.
This transphobic framework is now levied at a cisgender woman in such a way that seems unprecedented.
The gender-critical movement claims to be a feminist defense of women and women’s spaces but sure has an easy time legitimizing the abuse volleyed at a woman for succeeding in a sport she’s trained for.
One would think a feminist eye would raise a brow at the laundry list of misogynists who routinely take up gender-critical talking points and never advocate for women’s rights in any other context.
Former President Donald Trump, credited with laying the groundwork and pushing the overturn of Roe v. Wade by the Supreme Court, has also repeatedly stated his mission to “keep men out of women’s sports” if he is elected.
Digging a little deeper, it becomes clear that this gender-critical ideology is simply transphobic misogyny masquerading as advocacy.
Trans women are not dominating women’s sports, so transphobes must invent imaginary trans women to scapegoat.
For this conspiratorial thinking to work, gender-critical spaces must create an environment where a woman’s femininity is highly scrutinized and regulated.
Imane Khelif was the victim in this case, but she is far from the first woman to be targeted by this witch hunt.
Ultimately, the argument against trans inclusion in sports deals entirely with hypotheticals and not the reality that trans athletes continue to unobtrusively compete in sports.
So, why is it that a trans person cannot succeed in this field without incident and controversy?
Michael Phelps won 28 uncontested Olympic medals in his career in part due to his unusually long wingspan, hypermobility and low production of lactic acid compared to his competitors.
If that’s the case, then it’s surely not the concept of a biological leg-up that’s an issue.
Frankly, these differences shouldn’t be a problem because if one were to assess every slight biological advantage, clones would have to compete against each other for any sport to be truly fair.
There are layers upon layers of nuance that can be discussed regarding the intricacies of being trans within sports and how that interacts with various fields of play.
Unfortunately, as evidenced by this latest trans conspiracy and media circus, many are uninterested in having that informed, nuanced conversation.
