Olympic Committee Issues Correction on Statement About Imane Khelif’s Gender

As controversy continues to swirl around the eligibility of Algerian boxer Imane Khelif, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) issued a correction on a statement about Khelif’s gender, saying “this is not a transgender case.”

“CORRECTION,” the IOC’s post on X read on August 3.

“In today’s IOC – Paris 2024 press briefing, IOC President Bach said: ‘But I repeat, here, this is not a DSD case, this is about a woman taking part in a women’s competition, and I think I have explained this many times,'” the post says.

“What was intended was: ‘But I repeat, here, this is not a transgender case, this is about a woman taking part in a women’s competition, and I think I have explained this many times.'”

According to the National Health Service in the United Kingdom, DSDs or “Differences in sex development (DSD)” is a group of “rare conditions involving genes, hormones and reproductive organs, including genitals. It means a person’s sex development is different to most other people’s.

“You or your child may have sex chromosomes (bundles of genes) usually associated with being female (XX chromosomes) or usually associated with being male (XY chromosomes), but reproductive organs and genitals that may look different from usual.”

Khelif’s gender has been the topic of a political and media firestorm since Italian boxer Angela Carini quit a match with Khelif after taking a punch to the face just 46 seconds into the match.

The International Olympic Committee’s Mark Adams said Khelif and another boxer, Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan, “were not transgender athletes and should not be described as such,” The New York Times reported on August 1.

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Imane Khelif Told Reporters, ‘I Am a Woman’

Khelif went on to defeat Anna Luca Hamori of Hungary after the Carini match and made a four-word statement to reporters, saying, “I am a woman,” The New York Post reported.

The International Boxing Association (IBA) and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) are at odds over whether Khelif should be able to compete in women’s competitions.

IBA president Umar Kremlev told Russian news agency TASS that Khelif and another boxer had “XY chromosomes,” the typical genetic makeup of males, and that is why they were disqualified from the World Champion­ships in 2023, Reuters reported. However, the IBA, which is Russian-led, is itself controversial, having been ousted from Olympic competition oversight over “governance, finance, and ethical issues,” Reuters reported.

The NHS gave additional information on DSDs, writing, “Some people have XY (male) chromosomes, but their external genitals may develop in the usual way for girls or boys. Sometimes it’s difficult at first to know whether their genitals are more similar to girls’ or boys’. A person may have a womb and may also have testicles inside their body. Sometimes the testicles might not work properly. Doctors refer to this condition as 46, XY DSD.”

However, it’s not clear whether Khelif has a DSD due to the IOC’s correction.

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The Olympics Stopped Testing for Gender in 1999

Also fueling controversy is the fact that the Olympics stopped testing for gender in 1999.

“The decision to abandon compulsory gender verification in Olympic competition was taken in 1999, following many years of debate,” according to a 2008 Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine article, “Intersex and the Olympic Games.”

“As with previous Olympic boxing competitions, the gender and age of the athletes are based on their passport,” the IOC says.

A profile story about Khelif by Unicef says that Khelif grew up as a girl. Khelif’s father provided documents to Reuters showing that Khelif was born a female.

The IBA has refused to say which test it gave to Khelif and another boxer.

“Point to note, the athletes did not undergo a testosterone examination but were subject to a separate and recognized test, whereby the specifics remain confidential. This test conclusively indicated that both athletes did not meet the required necessary eligibility criteria and were found to have competitive advantages over other female competitors,” the statement says.

In its own statement, the IOC has challenged the IBA’s decision to disqualify Khelif from women’s competitions.

“We have seen in reports misleading information about two female athletes competing at the Olympic Games Paris 2024. The two athletes have been competing in international boxing competitions for many years in the women’s category, including the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020, International Boxing Association (IBA) World Championships and IBA-sanctioned tournaments,” the IOC wrote.

“These two athletes were the victims of a sudden and arbitrary decision by the IBA. Towards the end of the IBA World Championships in 2023, they were suddenly disqualified without any due process,” according to IOC.

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