by

Daniele Scalea

For weeks now, the world has been hotly debating the case of Imane Khelif, the Algerian boxer who, according to many, is actually a male who is unduly allowed to participate in the women's Olympic competition.

Much confusion has emerged from the vehement controversy about who and what Imane Khelif really is: amidst cross-accusations of fake news, some speak of her as transgender, others as "intersex," and still others as a biological woman who is the victim of a smear campaign just because she has masculine traits. Who is really right? We will try to explain that in this article. But first, a brief introduction is necessary.

Why is there a women's category in sports?

Until a few years ago this section would have been unnecessary, but in the age when constructivist theories deny differences between the sexes, it becomes needed.

Women's categories have been created in sports to enable women to be able to compete with opponents within their reach. In fact, men have decisive physical advantages in almost every sport. This can be observed empirically from results.

The 100-meter dash record is 9″58 for men and 10″49 for women. Despite the latter being a sensational (and much rumored at the time) record that has stood since the 1980s, at Tokyo 2020 that time would not have allowed for even passing the batteries among the men. The worst qualifying time in the preliminary rounds in the men (10″63) is equal to the eighth best time ever achieved by a female athlete.

Even moving on to a sport in which technical and tactical qualities are important in addition to physique, the verdict is unequivocal. In 2017, the U.S. women's soccer nation (one of the best in the world, which had won the World Cup two years earlier and would reconfirm two years later) challenged FC Dallas' under-15 boys' selection in a friendly match and came out soundly defeated by their 14-year-old opponents. This result is not anomalous, but corroborated by a number of similar matches: for example, Australia's highly-rated women's national team lost as badly as 0-7 to a team of 15-year-old boys.

Sexual dimorphism

We do not, for the sake of space, go any further with examples, but turn immediately to the explanation. Sexual dimorphism concerns not only reproductive organs, but a number of important "secondary" characteristics. On average, males have 30-40% more muscle mass than females and longer and denser bones. This translates into greater strength and ability to exert it without injury. For example, men can jump 25% higher than women, punch 30% harder, accelerate 20% faster.

These differences are not a "social construct," but the effect of genetics (3000 genes have been identified as affecting muscle-related sexual dimorphism alone) and hormones, particularly testosterone. The latter is produced as much by the ovaries as by the testes, but in very different amounts. Testosterone values in women are between 0.5 and 2.4 nmol/L, for men they are between 10 and 35 nmol/L. Women with polycystic ovary syndrome have higher testosterone values, but still far from male values (maximum 5 nmol/L).

The IBA- IOC feud

In 2023, the International Boxing Association (IBA) excluded Imane Khelif from the women's world championships in New Dehli. The IBA, based in Lausanne, is the amateur boxing federation that organizes the world's major competitions, including the Olympic competition until 2019, when the clash with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) escalated. A challenge that is not unrelated to political rather than sporting motives: Russia is influential inside the IBA, which has also begun again to admit Russian and Belarusian athletes under their respective national flags and for a time had Gazprom as one of the top sponsors, while the IOC is financially dependent on Western sponsors and agreements with U.S. television networks.

On a more strictly sports level, the IOC and IBA differ on how to address the issue of trans-gender athletes.

In November 2021, the IOC released its Framework on Fairness, Inclusion and Non-Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity and Sex Variations. In that document, clearly inspired by the tenets of gender ideology, it states that athletes must be allowed to compete "in the category that best aligns with their self-determined gender identity." Although it is permissible to test "athletes' performance and physical capacity," these tests must not be "targeted" or "aimed at determining their sex, gender identity, and/or sex variations." A trans-gender man (i.e., one who self-identifies as a woman) or trans-sexual man (one who has gone through a pharmacological-surgical transition process) cannot ipso facto be excluded from the female categories. Explicitly prohibited are "gynecological examinations or similar forms of invasive physical examinations, aimed at determinining an athlete's sex, sex variations, or gender."

Although the document admits the possibility of excluding an athlete who has a "competitive, unfair, disproportionate advantage," it is clear from reading it that the IOC seeks to make it as difficult as possible for sports federations to make such exclusions. The purpose of the framework is to encourage the admission of "transgender" athletes into women's competitions.

The IBA position on Imane Khelif

It is very important to keep in mind the IOC positions just described, because they help to understand what it means when, in rejecting the conclusions of the IBA's medical examinations of Imane Khelif, it asserts that "the testing, the method of the testing, the idea of the testing which happened kind of overnight" are not "legitimate". The IOC does not enter on the substance of the tests, but deems "illegitimate" (according to the "laws" it itself has established) the very act of selecting "suspect" athletes for testing to determine whether they are truly women.

But what has the IBA established with respect to Imane Khelif?

On March 24, 2023, the IBA disqualified the Algerian ( as well as Lin Yu-ting, also vying for the Olympic title in Paris) from its World Championships in New Dehli because he/she "does not meet the eligibility criteria for women's competition." For reasons of confidentiality, it is not made explicit what kind of test was done, but it is made clear that it is not a testosterone detection and that the test was done, with the same results, in both Istanbul in 2022 and New Dehli in 2023. IBA President Umar Kremlev, while not mentioning Khelif and Lin Yu-ting, wrote in his Telegram channel that athletes "with XY chromosomes" had been disqualified. Since there were no other disqualifications at that World Cup, it is evident that he was referring to them.

Sports journalist Alan Abrahamson recently wrote that he was able to view both the letter addressed by the IBA to the IOC and the test results. He confirms that Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting, following karyotype analysis, would have male DNA with XY chromosomes.

Lin Yu-ting did not appeal against the verdict. Imane Khelif appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne, except to withdraw it later. Despite the fact that for more than a year it has been public knowledge, albeit unofficial, that the IBA accuses them of being genetically male, neither athlete has seen fit to submit a chromosomal analysis to disprove it. Only a childhood photo of Imane Khelif in a pink dress has been shown.

What it means to have XY chromosomes

Chromosomes are the threadlike structures, contained in the nucleus of cells, that contain the organism's DNA. In humans, the cells of each individual contain 46 chromosomes in 23 pairs: 22 pairs are autosomes, which are present in both sexes, while the 23rd is XX for females and XY for males.

If chromosomal analysis reveals the presence of an XY chromosome pair, then the subject in question is a man.

How can Imane Khelif have XY chromosomes?

The fact of the matter is that, as far as we know, Imane Khelif is not "transgender," as some have mistakenly claimed. Transgender is, for example, American swimmer William Thomas, who for a few years under the name Lia Thomas competed in the women's category before being excluded in 2022 by FINA. Thomas is in fact a man who at the age of 20 decided to self-identify as a woman and start hormone "therapy."

Khelif, as far as we know, was recognized as a female at birth, was raised as a female, and received documents as a female individual, and this in Algeria, which is certainly not one of the leading countries in the acceptance of gender theory. How can this be combined with the fact that she has XY chromosomes according to IBA tests, which have never been refuted?

This is possible if Khelif suffers from a disorder of sexual differentiation (DSD). This conclusion has been suggested not only by the IBA but also by the IOC. In fact, on August 3, its president Thomas Bach declared at a press conference that Khelif's "is not a case of DSD." But after a few hours the IOC issued a correction, stating that Bach actually meant to say that "it is not a trans-gender case." Excusatio non petita accusatio manifesta. The IOC's clarification suggests that it is aware that this is indeed a case of DSD.

What is DSD

The disorder of sexual differentiation, which can be of various kinds, often manifests itself in a pattern of genital ambiguity at the time of birth. In fact, until the tenth week of fetal life the external genitalia are the same in male or female embryos, and only later do they differentiate under the influence of hormones. Conditions influencing the athletic sphere are those affecting genetically male individuals, such as 5-ARD (5-alpha reductase deficiency) and partial androgen insensitivity (PAIS).

5-alpha reductase is an enzyme responsible for the conversion of testosterone to dihydrotestosterone. Its action is most important during life in utero, as it determines the development of the male external genitalia. Deficiency causes this development to be incomplete. However, 5-ARD patients nonetheless develop the other male characteristics during puberty, as they depend largely on testosterone, which is produced by the testes, which are nonetheless present in those with this syndrome.

Also in the case of PAIS, the male individual will have abnormal development of the external genitalia due to the reduced cellular response to the action of androgen hormones. During puberty, a combination of female and male characters develop.

In short: genetically male individuals (with XY chromosome pair), if affected by DSD may develop ambiguous or female external genitalia, which may lead to their identification as female at birth. They will, however, have functioning male gonads, i.e., testes that, although not descended from the abdominal cavity to the scrotum, produce testosterone, which androgen receptors read and process, inducing during puberty a development of masculine traits, including those, mentioned above, that confer an enormous advantage in sports. The testosterone level in individuals with these disorders is within the male range, a range well above (10-30 times) that of females. They, even if identified as women, are men with athletic abilities that are on average out of the range for genetically female opponents.

A concrete example is that of Caster Semenya, a South African athlete. In the course of his legal dispute with the IAAF, the international athletics federation, he was found to be a male suffering from 5-ARD and with testosterone in the male range. Until 2018 - that is, when the IAAF placed a limit on the maximum testosterone with which one can be eligible for women's events - Semenya had competed among women, winning two Olympic and three world golds in the 800 meters.

Conclusion

Although the Imane Khelif case has stirred global controversy up to the highest sporting and political levels, there is a lack of firm information. This is due as much to confidentiality obligations on medical conditions as it is to Khelif's choice not to face the IBA in court or make public any medical records that would refute the IBA's unofficial claim. The same ambiguity has been maintained by the IOC. In this climate the most disparate rumors and theories have chased each other, some of them, however, completely unfounded. Indeed, there is no objective basis for claiming that Imane Khelif is transgender, but neither is there any basis for stating with certainty that she is a woman with XX chromosomes. At present, the only consistent version is the one presented, albeit unofficially, by the IBA, and apparently also confirmed by the IOC, namely that Imane Khelif is genetically male but assigned to the female sex at birth due to disorders in sexual differentiation. Such disorders do not appreciably affect testosterone levels, however, and, therefore, Imane Khelif would have gone through male puberty, developing a masculine physique that gives a huge competitive advantage over female opponents.

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Founder and President of Centro Studi Machiavelli. A graduate in History (University of Milan) and Ph.D. in Political Studies (Sapienza University), he teaches “History and Doctrine of Jihadism” at Marconi University and “Geopolitics of the Middle East” at Cusano University, where he has also taught on Islamic extremism in the past.

From 2018 to 2019, he served as Special Advisor on Immigration and Terrorism to Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs Guglielmo Picchi; he later served as head of the technical secretariat of the President of the Parliamentary Delegation to the Central European Initiative (CEI).

Author of several books, including Immigration: the reasons of populists, which has also been translated into Hungarian.